SOCIETY
Why Study Polarization in a Society Where There are No Competitive Elections?
December 1, 2025
- Oleg ZhuravlevPS Lab, Scuola Normale Superiore
- Elizaveta StiglizRussia.Post
In social science and democratic theory, there is a debate about whether polarization promotes or undermines democracy. But in the absence of democratic institutions, polarization can take threatening forms, including political violence.
Interview with Oleg Zhuravlev from Public Sociology Laboratory (PS Lab).
Russia currently lacks a democratic system, but there is no acute conflict either. At the same time, there are groups with different opinions about what is happening in the country and the world. For example, in the early years of the war, people had to decide whether they were for or against the so-called “special military operation.” There was a polarization of opinions. Yet those who supported the special military operation and those who opposed it were not in a state of civil or political conflict. On the contrary, over time they learned to communicate and reconcile their differences. At the same time, there are social groups that increasingly support the current government and even the war, as they have begun to live better thanks to their place in the war economy. And there are groups whose lives are worsening and who are harboring grievances against the regime. In this sense, there is a kind of potential conflict between them. But society is far bigger than just these groups.
How have qualitative and quantitative studies of polarization been conducted in Russia since World War II? Which ones would you focus on?
Vladislav Siyutkin, a member of our lab, wrote a dissertation on polarization using PS Lab data. He came to the following conclusions:
The key conclusion that follows from the analysis is that the priority of personal relationships over political disagreements hinders affective polarization, whereas preference polarization does not appear to be divisive since many political views are shared by opponents. Polarization is limited because of depoliticization. While citizens may strongly disagree with, fervently argue against and be highly biased toward their opponents, at the end of the day both sides realize that their opponents are often the most important people in their life. This is because most citizens’ primary groups – including friends, family members and colleagues – consist of people with different views on politics. Even though respondents may call their relatives “victims of propaganda,” they prefer to stop arguing about politics to preserve the relationships. Personal relationships appear to be more important than politics not least because of the authoritarian regime, which by design disregards the opinion of ordinary people and discourages active political engagement.
Depoliticization also entails that out-groups of opponents and in-groups of allies are not real groups but rather imagined communities, since political participation and association under autocracies are limited. Most respondents lack any political experience and often express their political views in terms of human relationships. Therefore, relationships with one’s primary group members – “concrete,” very close people – significantly affect one’s everyday life, whereas political opponents and allies are often too abstract to be significant.
A separate issue, broader than polarization, concerns the range of opinions about the current war. Sociologists and pollsters attempt to divide Russian society into groups based on these opinions. Chronicles researchers have concluded that there are two “majorities” in Russia. When asked if they support the special military operation, 60% respond affirmatively. Yet when asked if they oppose it, 50-52% say they do, adding that they are unwilling to act on this conviction. As of March 2024, a record high of around 50% would support a hypothetical decision by Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine unilaterally. Thus, we can say there is a floating 60% that both supports Putin and is moderately antiwar. People with either firmly prowar or firmly antiwar views constitute the minority. As a result, we have 10-15% of convinced supporters and 10-15% of convinced opponents of the war; the rest fall somewhere in the middle.
How have qualitative and quantitative studies of polarization been conducted in Russia since World War II? Which ones would you focus on?
Vladislav Siyutkin, a member of our lab, wrote a dissertation on polarization using PS Lab data. He came to the following conclusions:
The key conclusion that follows from the analysis is that the priority of personal relationships over political disagreements hinders affective polarization, whereas preference polarization does not appear to be divisive since many political views are shared by opponents. Polarization is limited because of depoliticization. While citizens may strongly disagree with, fervently argue against and be highly biased toward their opponents, at the end of the day both sides realize that their opponents are often the most important people in their life. This is because most citizens’ primary groups – including friends, family members and colleagues – consist of people with different views on politics. Even though respondents may call their relatives “victims of propaganda,” they prefer to stop arguing about politics to preserve the relationships. Personal relationships appear to be more important than politics not least because of the authoritarian regime, which by design disregards the opinion of ordinary people and discourages active political engagement.
Depoliticization also entails that out-groups of opponents and in-groups of allies are not real groups but rather imagined communities, since political participation and association under autocracies are limited. Most respondents lack any political experience and often express their political views in terms of human relationships. Therefore, relationships with one’s primary group members – “concrete,” very close people – significantly affect one’s everyday life, whereas political opponents and allies are often too abstract to be significant.
A separate issue, broader than polarization, concerns the range of opinions about the current war. Sociologists and pollsters attempt to divide Russian society into groups based on these opinions. Chronicles researchers have concluded that there are two “majorities” in Russia. When asked if they support the special military operation, 60% respond affirmatively. Yet when asked if they oppose it, 50-52% say they do, adding that they are unwilling to act on this conviction. As of March 2024, a record high of around 50% would support a hypothetical decision by Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine unilaterally. Thus, we can say there is a floating 60% that both supports Putin and is moderately antiwar. People with either firmly prowar or firmly antiwar views constitute the minority. As a result, we have 10-15% of convinced supporters and 10-15% of convinced opponents of the war; the rest fall somewhere in the middle.
Pro-war picket in Kazan, Russia.
Vyacheslav Kirillin / Wikimedia Commons
Vyacheslav Kirillin / Wikimedia Commons
Is it not so important because there are no elections or because both groups are marginal?
They are not marginal. After all, 10-15% is a very large number, but they are politically unrepresented. Antiwar Russians, for example, have no representation, no power, no leader who could advance their interests. That is why they are so unheard.
But the ardent supporters of the war are very vocal. They have representation in the form of voenkory, but they are marginal because this representation is not supported by the majority of the country. In other words, antiwar Russians are marginal because they have no voice, while the Z cohort is marginal because they have a voice, but that voice is unpopular.
But voenkory are not elected representatives...
Voenkory are, in a sense, a form of representation. After all, they meet with Putin and can bring various issues to his attention. And if we look at their electoral success at different levels – from the federal Duma to municipal legislatures – that, too, shows the limits of their appeal.
How do these 15% and 15% understand each other’s genesis, each other’s views? Are they capable of dialogue?
I think there might not be any reason for them to talk to each other. Our research shows that there is another important cohort: people who, strictly speaking, do not support the war but do support the changes taking place in Russia.
They say: “we like that we have started thinking more about our homeland, that our economy is growing, that we have a normal country.” These are people who welcome what is going on [in the country], welcome economic change, welcome the Kremlin’s economic policy, though they do not necessarily like the war. They are the so-called “winners” [from the war], the economic beneficiaries of the war, and come from the middle class; in some respects, they are very similar to Navalny’s supporters. They are convinced Russia is seeing economic growth, technological progress, a fight against corruption and a strengthening of the rule of law.
We are talking about IT professionals, creative-sector professionals (for example, highly paid ad directors who now have more government contracts after the departure of Western firms), managers and engineers. Some are connected to the military-industrial complex, but many are not at all.
At the same time, there are people who think that, in principle, things may not be so bad but that their own lives have become worse than before. For some, the changes are for the better; for others, they are for the worse. These groups, for example, have many similarities.
Why are the latter worse off?
Some people in this group suffered from inflation. If we are talking about public-sector employees, the portion of the budget allocated to them has been reduced. These may be business owners engaged in trade with the West. We are talking about very different people.
I know them less well than the “winners,” because we study the latter, while we study the opponents of the war and the “losers” much less.
People with different views learn to understand one another because they all live in the same reality. Their views do not change. For example, people who were and remain antiwar have a firm conviction that everything is bad. They still hold that conviction. But they learn to communicate and establish dialogue with people who are more likely to support the war or more likely to be loyal to the regime.
These people understand they share a common experience. They did not emigrate to the West; they live in a similar world, where funeral notices arrive, where everyone fears mobilization, where everyone fears an escalation of the war, where everyone fears inflation, where no one knows what tomorrow will bring – and, at the same time, where everyone feels some degree of resentment toward those who left the country. And this shared experience pushes them to seek some common ground.
They are not marginal. After all, 10-15% is a very large number, but they are politically unrepresented. Antiwar Russians, for example, have no representation, no power, no leader who could advance their interests. That is why they are so unheard.
But the ardent supporters of the war are very vocal. They have representation in the form of voenkory, but they are marginal because this representation is not supported by the majority of the country. In other words, antiwar Russians are marginal because they have no voice, while the Z cohort is marginal because they have a voice, but that voice is unpopular.
But voenkory are not elected representatives...
Voenkory are, in a sense, a form of representation. After all, they meet with Putin and can bring various issues to his attention. And if we look at their electoral success at different levels – from the federal Duma to municipal legislatures – that, too, shows the limits of their appeal.
How do these 15% and 15% understand each other’s genesis, each other’s views? Are they capable of dialogue?
I think there might not be any reason for them to talk to each other. Our research shows that there is another important cohort: people who, strictly speaking, do not support the war but do support the changes taking place in Russia.
They say: “we like that we have started thinking more about our homeland, that our economy is growing, that we have a normal country.” These are people who welcome what is going on [in the country], welcome economic change, welcome the Kremlin’s economic policy, though they do not necessarily like the war. They are the so-called “winners” [from the war], the economic beneficiaries of the war, and come from the middle class; in some respects, they are very similar to Navalny’s supporters. They are convinced Russia is seeing economic growth, technological progress, a fight against corruption and a strengthening of the rule of law.
We are talking about IT professionals, creative-sector professionals (for example, highly paid ad directors who now have more government contracts after the departure of Western firms), managers and engineers. Some are connected to the military-industrial complex, but many are not at all.
At the same time, there are people who think that, in principle, things may not be so bad but that their own lives have become worse than before. For some, the changes are for the better; for others, they are for the worse. These groups, for example, have many similarities.
Why are the latter worse off?
Some people in this group suffered from inflation. If we are talking about public-sector employees, the portion of the budget allocated to them has been reduced. These may be business owners engaged in trade with the West. We are talking about very different people.
I know them less well than the “winners,” because we study the latter, while we study the opponents of the war and the “losers” much less.
People with different views learn to understand one another because they all live in the same reality. Their views do not change. For example, people who were and remain antiwar have a firm conviction that everything is bad. They still hold that conviction. But they learn to communicate and establish dialogue with people who are more likely to support the war or more likely to be loyal to the regime.
These people understand they share a common experience. They did not emigrate to the West; they live in a similar world, where funeral notices arrive, where everyone fears mobilization, where everyone fears an escalation of the war, where everyone fears inflation, where no one knows what tomorrow will bring – and, at the same time, where everyone feels some degree of resentment toward those who left the country. And this shared experience pushes them to seek some common ground.
A spontaneous anti-war picket in Yekaterinburg on February 24 2022.
Vladislav Postnikov / Wikimedia Commons
Vladislav Postnikov / Wikimedia Commons
You mentioned that the winners are somewhat like Navalny’s supporters. Can you talk about this?
They are similar in that they have a technocratic agenda: “we want an efficient, modern Russia, with beautiful cities, amenities, economic growth and technological progress.”
At the same time, the difference on the issue of democracy is important. This mattered a great deal to Navalny’s supporters: the fight against Putinism as a dictatorship and the fight for democracy. In reality, some of the people whom I am describing – the winners – also regret that freedom is being suppressed too much in Russia, that there is too much censorship and too much repression. They want less of all that.
They say: “the most important thing is that there is no iron curtain, that we have competitive but good relations with the West, so that any physicist from the US can come and see that we have better cities, higher salaries, and law and order.”
Does this group feel at risk of repression?
I think risk in Russia stems from the fact that you never know whether you are at risk or not. No one fully understands what it takes to put themselves at risk. In that sense, they feel much less at risk than people who directly express their dissatisfaction [with the government].
How prone are winners and losers to activism (particularly social activism)?
We have reason to believe that there is a surge in volunteering in Russia – prowar, war-related and purely peaceful initiatives. Why? For example, those who oppose the war need some legal means to make a difference, so they flock to efforts to rescue birds, children, dogs. Some antiwar-minded people may even volunteer for initiatives that indirectly support the war effort. The latter are structured in such a way that you often appear to be helping refugees, but some of that aid also goes to the military.
Very often, “winners” who are not exactly militaristic, prowar or bloodthirsty are drawn into volunteering. They are living better, their salaries have increased, and for them this is a step forward – from affluence to participating in civil society: “we got a raise and now we are volunteering.” They help weave camouflage nets or do something else.
For some, a relative has been taken for the war, and they go and weave nets because they hope this will keep their loved ones alive.
In this story, are state and society basically one, or is there still some sort of division?
There is a division. This is a particularly interesting point: at least for those winners who are “loyal” to the changes taking place in Russia, the state is not a representative of society or its leader. It is an authority beneath society that creates the conditions for economic development and personal fulfillment.
They are similar in that they have a technocratic agenda: “we want an efficient, modern Russia, with beautiful cities, amenities, economic growth and technological progress.”
At the same time, the difference on the issue of democracy is important. This mattered a great deal to Navalny’s supporters: the fight against Putinism as a dictatorship and the fight for democracy. In reality, some of the people whom I am describing – the winners – also regret that freedom is being suppressed too much in Russia, that there is too much censorship and too much repression. They want less of all that.
They say: “the most important thing is that there is no iron curtain, that we have competitive but good relations with the West, so that any physicist from the US can come and see that we have better cities, higher salaries, and law and order.”
Does this group feel at risk of repression?
I think risk in Russia stems from the fact that you never know whether you are at risk or not. No one fully understands what it takes to put themselves at risk. In that sense, they feel much less at risk than people who directly express their dissatisfaction [with the government].
How prone are winners and losers to activism (particularly social activism)?
We have reason to believe that there is a surge in volunteering in Russia – prowar, war-related and purely peaceful initiatives. Why? For example, those who oppose the war need some legal means to make a difference, so they flock to efforts to rescue birds, children, dogs. Some antiwar-minded people may even volunteer for initiatives that indirectly support the war effort. The latter are structured in such a way that you often appear to be helping refugees, but some of that aid also goes to the military.
Very often, “winners” who are not exactly militaristic, prowar or bloodthirsty are drawn into volunteering. They are living better, their salaries have increased, and for them this is a step forward – from affluence to participating in civil society: “we got a raise and now we are volunteering.” They help weave camouflage nets or do something else.
For some, a relative has been taken for the war, and they go and weave nets because they hope this will keep their loved ones alive.
In this story, are state and society basically one, or is there still some sort of division?
There is a division. This is a particularly interesting point: at least for those winners who are “loyal” to the changes taking place in Russia, the state is not a representative of society or its leader. It is an authority beneath society that creates the conditions for economic development and personal fulfillment.
Distribution of humanitarian aid to residents of the Kursk region.
Governor of the Kursk Oblast Alexey Smirnov
Governor of the Kursk Oblast Alexey Smirnov
So, in some sense, this is a story of humility — a perception of the state as a kind of natural circumstance that simply exists?
On the one hand, we see a growing popularity of the political regime because it creates conditions for improving people’s well-being. This group has begun to live better and though they do not consider the state to be their representative, they still think, “A good state, despite the sanctions, was able to ensure economic growth for us and for the entire country during such difficult times.” This satisfaction can fuel patriotic sentiments.
But there are other groups, particularly the losers, whom we have not yet studied in depth. There are groups affected by the war and they, on the contrary, become disillusioned with the state. For example, there was mobilization and there are the wives of the mobilized. In their eyes, the state loses legitimacy because it is technically unable to solve their problems. The state does not know how to help them. These women go to various authorities, no one helps them and they eventually turn into a protest movement.
The state wants everyone to live as if the war does not exist, but gradually people are emerging who are directly affected by the war — the same residents of Kursk Region we studied. Unlike the winners, they do not act as a source of renewed legitimacy for the state; on the contrary, they undermine it, though they blame local authorities rather than the Kremlin for their misfortunes. Residents of Kursk Region were unable to be properly evacuated, then they left on their own and then for a long time no one explained to them how to obtain new housing to replace what had been destroyed.
How do these groups perceive each other? For example, how do winners perceive stories about the problems with evacuation from Kursk Region?
Middle-class winners believe that improvements in their own lives mirror improvements in society as a whole. They often volunteer, including, I believe, to help Kursk refugees. But if we look at absolute figures, the picture is different. A nationwide Levada poll shows that, though almost everyone knew about the invasion, only about a third of respondents cited the occupation of Russian territory as the most alarming event. And the Kursk refugees themselves, like other groups directly affected by the war, most often feel abandoned by society.
On the one hand, we see a growing popularity of the political regime because it creates conditions for improving people’s well-being. This group has begun to live better and though they do not consider the state to be their representative, they still think, “A good state, despite the sanctions, was able to ensure economic growth for us and for the entire country during such difficult times.” This satisfaction can fuel patriotic sentiments.
But there are other groups, particularly the losers, whom we have not yet studied in depth. There are groups affected by the war and they, on the contrary, become disillusioned with the state. For example, there was mobilization and there are the wives of the mobilized. In their eyes, the state loses legitimacy because it is technically unable to solve their problems. The state does not know how to help them. These women go to various authorities, no one helps them and they eventually turn into a protest movement.
The state wants everyone to live as if the war does not exist, but gradually people are emerging who are directly affected by the war — the same residents of Kursk Region we studied. Unlike the winners, they do not act as a source of renewed legitimacy for the state; on the contrary, they undermine it, though they blame local authorities rather than the Kremlin for their misfortunes. Residents of Kursk Region were unable to be properly evacuated, then they left on their own and then for a long time no one explained to them how to obtain new housing to replace what had been destroyed.
How do these groups perceive each other? For example, how do winners perceive stories about the problems with evacuation from Kursk Region?
Middle-class winners believe that improvements in their own lives mirror improvements in society as a whole. They often volunteer, including, I believe, to help Kursk refugees. But if we look at absolute figures, the picture is different. A nationwide Levada poll shows that, though almost everyone knew about the invasion, only about a third of respondents cited the occupation of Russian territory as the most alarming event. And the Kursk refugees themselves, like other groups directly affected by the war, most often feel abandoned by society.
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