DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2025-5(2)-186-198

Social paradoxes of domestic political absenteeism of the first half of the 20th Century

Oleg Leibovich

Perm State Institute of Culture, Perm, Russia
о[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0001-5191-939X

ABSTRACT

The article examines the characteristics of post-Soviet political absenteeism in the 1990s as a historically conditioned sociocultural phenomenon in contemporary societies: its genesis, content, and sociological interpretations in domestic and foreign (primarily French) literature. To analyze domestic absenteeism, the article draws on panel studies conducted by the author as part of a research team in Perm from 1993 to 2006. The article presents approaches to studying absenteeism in Europe and Russia and substantiates the thesis that different scientific schools share common views on its social characteristics. The prevailing opinion is that political absenteeism is a side effect of social, economic, and cultural polarization in modern societies. It reflects social protest, preoccupation with everyday problems, and a mismatch between democratic procedures and the artistic demands of contemporary youth. The author argues against the thesis that the origins and content of post-Soviet absenteeism are identical to those in Western Europe, presenting the following arguments: different historical institutional conditions of its genesis (from the Soviet electoral system); the dominance of absenteeism from above over absenteeism from below; disappointment in democratic procedures. Russian absenteeism is seen as both a form of social self-determination for the emerging bourgeois classes and an instrument of social stratification in Russian society. The 'new Russians' thus created a protective barrier between themselves and the rest of the population by refusing to participate in egalitarian political procedures. Absenteeism from above implies the dominance of private practices in the presentation and protection of personal and corporate interests in the face of authority, the deformation and narrowing of the public political space, and the erosion of political language. Like any cultural phenomenon that originated in an elite community, political absenteeism spreads to lower strata and becomes part of youth subcultures. The absenteeism of the 1990s belongs to history; its evolution requires further study.

KEYWORDS: Russia,1990s, political absenteeism, sociological concepts, urbanism, social structure, socio-cultural genesis, private and public practices.

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Information about the author

Oleg L. Leybovich

Dr. Sci. (History), Professor,

Head of Cultural Science and Philosophy Department

Perm State Institute of Culture 18, Gazety Zvezda St., Perm,

614000, Russian Federation

ORCID: 0000-0001-5191-939X

Web of Science ResearcherID: R-4154-2016

Scopus AuthorID: 57191610916

e-mail: о[email protected]

For citation:
Leibovich, О. L. (2025). Social paradoxes of domestic political absenteeism. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and Semiotics of the City, 5(2), 186–198. https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2025-5(2)-186-198