INSTITUTIONAL TRUST AS A SOCIAL CAPITAL IN MODERN RUSSIA (ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING)

Abstract

Based on surveys by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Center for Scientific Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 2014-2021, the authors analyzed the statics and dynamics of Russians’ trust in state and public institutions. It is shown that the correlation of trust in different institutions demonstrates the lack of rootedness in political democracy in Russia, since citizens systematically trust the institutions of the "vertical of power” more, with much weaker trust associated with political competition. At the same time, Russians most often do not have confidence in the majority of both, and for more than 50% of Russians, trust is consistently observed only in the president and in the army. At the same time, the level of institutional trust is changing in waves: if in the mid-2010s it reached its maximum, then it began to decline. Using the example of antiquarian measures, it is shown that institutional trust is a social capital that brings benefits to society. In particular, citizens with higher trust in the president showed increased loyalty to antiquarian measures and, as a result, were less likely to get sick. Thus, although the characteristics of the social capital of Russians associated with institutional trust significantly complicate the long-term modernization of the Russian nation, they are still sufficient to significantly smooth out the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis in the medium term.