Social tension versus the social situation

Abstract

The key characteristics of the social situation in their interconnection with the population’s orientations to various forms of protest activity are considered. The empirical base of this paper is the data of the comparative representative studies conducted in Moscow in 2008–2016. Analysis of these data has made it possible to fix negative trends in the development of the social feeling of citizens in recent years. The authors characterize the dynamics of social tension and citizens’ attitude to various forms of defending their interests. The use of binary logistic regression makes it possible to build a hierarchy of the social situation’s factors that demonstrate the probability of active participation in protest. Such factors include negative phenomena of social life, a critical attitude to the existing political system, and adoption of orientations at participating in a conflict on the side of one’s ethnic group. Consideration of the above factors in the practice of social management can minimize the potential of social tension.