Political backwardness as an advantage for Russia.

Despite the return of Vladimir Putin for an indefinite period, a repeat of the 2000s is impossible. The management vertical does not meet the demands of an increasingly diversified society. The answer seems simple: more democracy and pluralism. Party legislation has been made more liberal, and the election of governors, even with a “filter,” is being restored. But in developed countries, the very institution of parties and conventional politics is experiencing a crisis. Ideologies that have always formed the basis of party work are either erased or, on the contrary, sharply polarized, turning into caricatures of themselves.

The first takes place in Europe. Left and right, whose differences have been clear since the 19th century, are shifting toward a middle ground in economics, and in the political sphere they compete in the ability to better play hot issues, such as immigration. The second is characteristic of America. The intensity of the controversy between the two leading parties is such that the functionality of the political machine, which was famous for its ability to find compromises, is called into question. The Republican Party is changing from respectably conservative to radically reactionary.

The second side of the crisis is the growing gap between the establishment and the masses of voters. Politics has become a professional caste. The core consists of people who have gone through a similar path. Therefore, it is difficult to expect fresh ideas from the top. Casta is sure: modern politics is too complex to be entrusted to a simple voter.

The European and Russian nomenklatura, moving from different directions, are striving to reduce dependence on the expression of will. Of course, in the Russian case, everything is simpler - you can pass a law on a referendum, according to which it is obviously impossible, and so ease the rules for registering parties that their activities will turn into cockroach races. Europe is trying to “optimize” politics in its own way. The usual system based on party infrastructure does not provide the required level of legitimacy, and politicians in different countries are trying to look for new forms, primarily using the Internet, preserving the usual procedures but increasing their transparency. This partly reflects sentiment. A curious phenomenon of the last year in Germany is the success of the Pirate Party, which has already entered two state parliaments: Berlin and Saarland. There is no program, but there is anti-elite pathos and the specter of the Internet as a symbol of the universal and unlimited right to speech. However, the request for direct democracy is not associated with the modernization of the form, but with a change in the very principles of democracy, that is, delegation from the people to power. Because the traditional party system does not provide a sense of legitimacy.

The upheavals of 2011 and early 2012 are often compared to the wave of protests that covered the planet in 1968. In different cases, in different ways, but the Russian manifestations (unlike the “Arab Spring”) have a lot in common with Paris 1968. After all, the essence of those speeches was the demand to expand the scope of the social contract, to include new layers in it. This was done in subsequent years, despite the fact that the unrest itself ended in nothing. Russian dissatisfied people want the same thing, so in principle it is easy for the authorities to understand what to do.

This is the main difference between the democratic deficit in modern Russia and the same phenomenon in Europe. In Europe, the system itself is in question; in Russia, due to its initial imperfection, we are still talking only about correcting and expanding the number of participants. However, this is not due to a qualitatively different situation in our country, but rather to a lag, so that the European problem of the crisis of familiar ideological associations will soon come here too. Social networks largely perform the instrumental function of parties (political mobilization), but only without the bureaucracy and rigidity associated with them. As for ideas, a new paradigm is obviously required, the emergence of which is prevented by the existing framework. Therefore, the future of current parties is questionable, and far-sighted politicians are keeping an eye on new communication opportunities. Ideally, Russia could not follow the European path, structuring the political space by distributing it among ideologically marked parties (especially those created on initiatives from above), but try to jump to the next phase. And for once, move from catching up to advanced development.

And the last will be the first?