The Problem of the Left-Right Divide in Modern Russia Through the Lens of Social Constructivism

Abstract

By the beginning of the 2010s, Russia has developed a party system and an electoral culture for which the ideological spectrum is not critically important. However, the high-profile political processes, the events of recent years and the leap in the development of social media have contributed to the reactualization of the ideological spectrum in the field of unconventional politics. At the same time, new social movements were formed. In this regard, questions about the left-right divide and about the semantic content of the concepts of left and right wings themselves acquire new relevance. The author of the article tries to determine which Russian ideological and social movements, political parties and associations of a different type today can be attributed to each wing of the left-right continuum, and what are the essential divisions between the different sides of it today. For this purpose, a discourse analysis of the publications of certain public opinion leaders who directly relate themselves to one or another camp in social media was carried out. Various interviews and speeches of these individuals, as well as program documents of some parties and movements were also used for this analysis. In order to clearly identify various personalities and groups on the basis of their position in the ideological spectrum, the author relied on the methodology of social constructivism. The author concludes that the conceptualization of the right-wing established in Russian political science, referring this concept mainly to liberals, is largely outdated by now. There are splits within the left and right movements themselves along the line of attitude to the state and etatism, no less acute and fundamental than the very division between these movements.