Государство как ценность: репрезентация образа будущего в речах российских парламентариев

Abstract

The article is devoted to studying the representation of state as value in the speeches of the deputies of the State Duma from the viewpoint of the image of Russia’s future. As a starting point, the authors used the pentabasis model, where the image of the future is presented in the form of five elements, one of which is the state, interpreted via trust in political institutions. The theoretical basis of the study was the concept of Stein Rokkan and his followers, according to which the state formation involves building socio-cultural boundaries that indicate belonging to a political community. The empirical basis was the transcripts of speeches of deputies on current socio-economic, political and other issues at the plenary sessions of the State Duma of VII— VIII convocations. The research was carried out by the method of discourse analysis. The obtained results clearly demonstrate that national parliamentarians are deeply concerned about the problem of trust. Although decisions on the most fundamental issues are made via consensus, deputies feel a lack of trust among certain groups of the population, which requires them to exert additional efforts to justify their initiatives. The topics they most often turn to include welfare state, center-regions relations, and economic development. At the same time, they rarely directly touch upon the prospects of domestic political institutions, as well as the topic of the image of the future in general, which may be explained by both a shortage of strategic ideas and external restrictions on parliamentary discourse.