Searching for the Desirable Future: Internal Political Agenda for Russia

Abstract

A most urgent issue in Russian public discourse is search for the best future and the way to achieve it. The authors present the results of a Russian expert survey carried out by the project «Domestic Political Agenda as a Unity Factor in Modern Russia». Experts’ views on the desired future for Russia, the foundations of value consensus and the problems of building national unity are examined in the paper. The domestic political agenda was analyzed via triple scholarly optics: official (government), civil and public (‘people’s’) agendas, i.e. public request for power. The government and public agendas are the most inharmonious and they need more civil alternatives suggested. The authors note weakness of converting the three forms into each other and the primacy of a foreign policy course, viewing this as a threat to Russia’s unity. All experts showed extraordinary unity in the assertion that there is no consolidated agenda in modern Russia.