Authors

Discussion

The conservative turn in Russian politics should be understood as a state project to shape political preferences and through that, collective action, or civic activism. If the state project is successful, traditional values should engender regime support and limit opposition activism. Relying on the 2021 LegitRuss survey data that provides unique measures of protest propensity and different value dimensions, this paper probes the relationship between values and citizen support for and engagement in civic activism, controlling for factors that push citizens toward or away from protest participation. The analysis confirms previous work showing that broad categories of values such as tradition, family or patriotism are comprised of distinct dimensions that define different constituencies. Importantly, adherence to traditional or values largely understood as conservative values do not uniformly dampen societal activism. These shared values, a more everyday source of values sometimes amplified by state messaging, define the citizens’ demands and grievances that underpin support for and potential participation in protest events. This support goes beyond protest related to traditional values to generate support for protest to contest election falsification, pension and health reforms, and other core social issues. In contrast, a narrow and distinct set of values underpins support for and potential participation in pro-regime rallies.