Prospects of protests

Political scientist Vladimir Gelman writes on one of the social networks:

“... mass dissatisfaction as a factor in the fall of autocracy is secondary in relation to the conflicts of the elites. According to Geddes, Wright and Franz, only 30 % of cases of the collapse of authoritarian regimes after WWII were the result of mass protests (the rest - intra -elite conflicts). < ... >

... mass protests do not occur from scratch - a serious organizational base is needed for them. In the absence of such a base, the regime dissatisfied with the actions of the regime, rather, prefer to express their disagreement alone in the ways accessible to them (from leaving for a free binge to emigration) and, in the words of Hirschman, prefer cheap Exit to a very expensive Voice .

In the Russian case, we are not observing - at least for now - no intra -elite conflicts (you should not give out for such disassemblies in the ruling groups around the redistribution of power and rents - they were and will be, but in themselves the regime do not undermine), nor even more organizations that can raise the number of citizens significant on the scale of the country to combat the regime. Therefore, Russians dissatisfied with mobilization are forced to escape who can and least think about how to overthrow the regime, which, in turn, is acting in active efforts to counteract any collective actions. ”

The full text of the record of Vladimir Gelman can be found on the channel "On the Country and Peace".