Technology the Demobilization of Citizens in Protest: the Case of Protests Against Raising the Retirement Age in Russia

Abstract

The article deals with the technology of demobilization of citizens on the example of actions against raising the retirement age held in the Russian Federation in 2018. In view of the relevance of the topic, in connection with the presence of protest activity in modern Russia, the authors presented a number of different protest actions (Actions against the blocking of telegram; actions of Navalny, held in may 2018; rallies on the dispute over the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia), reflecting the trend of transition to spontaneity and locality of protest, which replaces the organization of the protest leader. The authors conclude that the protest activities in the country have different specifics, but in General, civil society activists do not focus on a bright leader who has a positive “social portrait” and represents their interests. People tend to get involved in campaigns on the basis of proximity to the problem specified by the agenda of the protests, but do not follow the conventional leader. New forms of local and self — organizing protests are an indicator of the readiness of the state to respond quickly and effectively to the situation in society, through the construction of dialogue strategies, the use of demobilization technology. The aim of the work is to identify political and communicative technologies of demobilization of citizens in the protest against raising the retirement age. The study was conducted using case-­study methods with analysis of the essence and features of the campaign, event-­analysis with consideration of causal relations of events within the campaign. The article deals with effective communication, political technologies of demobilization of citizens in protest against raising the retirement age in Russia. We can say that the process of adoption of changes in the pension system by citizens is still ongoing. The authors come to the conclusion that the state power, being interested in carrying out the reform with minimal resistance, seeks to implement it through a strategy that preserves the legitimacy of the government and allows to execute the chosen course without interference from the outside.

Acknowledgements

This article is a result of the study supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, research project No. 17-33-01022 (а2) “Protests activity modeling and indexing in constituent entities of the Russian Federation”.