Civil Society in Modern Russia: An Analysis of Non-Profit Organisations’ Political Behavior Based on a Questionnaire-Survey (R-JIGS1)

Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify the political behavior of non-governmental and non-profit organisations in modern Russia based on a questionnaire-type survey carried out from December 2003 to March 2004 in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The survey was designed by Prof. Yutaka TSUJINAKA (University of Tsukuba), Prof. Itsuro NAKAMURA (University of Tsukuba), and Prof. William Smirnov (Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences) with an aim to analyze the relationship between non-profit organisations and political actors: the central and local governments, political parties, politicians, the mass media, and others. The questionnaire is called the “Japan Interest Group Survey” (JIGS), because it was initially designed to determine the situation with interest groups in Japan. Since then, it has been developed into a global research project, conducted in 15 countries. Russia is among these countries in a similar survey form. In this paper, I examine the political behavior of Russian organisations using JIGS data. Many scholars have analyzed Russian civil society from multiple angles after the collapse of the USSR, based on the assumption that civil society would develop smoothly under a new political system. However, NPOs and NGOs did not grow as expected, because “marionette organisations” controlled by the government dominated Russian civil society. These organisations receive grants from the government directly or indirectly, and in many cases they are managed by retired government officials. Also, these organisations invariably support the government and often participate in government-sponsored conferences as “civil society representatives.” Researchers have claimed that such organisations do not contribute to the development of the civil society, whereas organisations opposed to the government depend largely on donations from abroad. Furthermore, scholars have demonstrated that the Russian people rarely trust outside organisations and systems, but tend to trust personal networks with relatives, friends, and acquaintances. This is seen as one of the reasons why the Russian people tend not to participate in NPO activities. As a result, it is the accepted view that Russian civil society is weak owing to weak NPOs and NGOs. While I recognize that Russian civil society is quite different from civil society in the developed Western countries, it is still important to analyze the actual situation of NPOs in Russia, where there were 85,185 “non-profit organisations” and 108,736 “public associations” in 2012. It is safe to assume that these organisations have some influence on Russian politics, and the question of their lobbying behavior remains open. Thus, I consider here the subjective influence of these organisations on problem-solving, the proposal or altering of policies, the frequency of their contact with administrations and political parties, political activities during elections, and lobbying methods. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address all the questions and responses to the questionnaire-survey, but I attempt to discuss the organisations’ political actions based on the above six points. In conclusion, I found that Russian organisations are very confident in problem-solving in their working areas and that they succeeded in proposing or altering policies more often compared to similar organisations in other countries. They have frequent contact with administrations, especially locally, and they often engage in exchanges of opinion. On the other hand, the organisations do not have close contact with political parties and do not participate in political campaigns during elections. Also, the organisations prefer the outside lobbying method (through mass media, demonstrations, etc.) to inside lobbying (through the politicians, political parties, administrations, etc.).