Pavlova T.V. Sociocultural factors shaping the Russian institutional order and potential for institutional change. Political science (RU). 2026. No. 3, Pp. 44–67. DOI: http: ...

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://www.politnauka.ru/jour/article/view/1375 (дата обращения 14.09.2026)

Abstract

The article analyzes the influence of sociocultural factors on the formation of institutional order in modern Russia. It has been shown that the central problem in shaping the Russian institutional order is the congruence of the emerging institutions to the sociocultural environment into which they are embedded. The thesis is based on the need to complement the neo-institutional approach with sociocultural. It is stated that the introduction and development of new, modern institutions are being impeded by the predominance in the mass consciousness of traditional socialontological attitudes, above all of the sobornost, the communal understanding of social life as an activity of a kind of social organism, in which individuals are inseparable from society and the people as a whole is the expression of objective social truth. It is noted that the formation of a universal, unfragmented institutional order is impeded by the inherent “schism” in Russian socioculture, the conflicting character of culture, and the coexistence within it of different subcultures and values. An obstacle to the formation of institutional order is also the dualism characteristic of Russian culture, which manifests itself in the influence of both Western and Eastern sociocultures, as well as in the combination of deep archaic with traits typical of the modern era. One of the subcultures is democratic; its bearers, according to our empirical research, are about a third of Russians. Analysis of the values and normative complexes of citizens, as well as their attitudes and orientations, confirms the hypothesis regarding the potential for institutional changes in Russian society and the probability of a civic, democratic vector of transformational processes. Such a transformation will be possible if new institutions, norms and practices for Russian socioculture and political culture are grasped and implemented taking into account the specific features and traditions of domestic culture, rather than being mechanically transferred from another sociocultural and institutional environment to Russian soil