Regional Authorities and Population of the Volgograd Region: Vectors of Political Identity and Communication Strategy
Abstract
There are various instances of local identity in modern Russia. However, vying with it, regional features of national identity must not contradict. At the same time, ethnic, confessional, symbolic, historical markers are being structured in local regional communities in a number of ways. The main actors who are totally legitimate for building local identities in political discourse are regional political elites. By the identity politics of political actors, social space is structured and “typified”, and own strategies are legitimized. “Leader - electorate” relationship still remains as the key factor which can be used to manipulate public opinion. The article raises the issue of the current state of the political identity of the population of Volgograd Region. The results of the empirical analysis of the political identity structure are also presented. The authors conclude that the nature of the political identity of Volgograd Region population is determined mostly by its syntagmatic qualities being developed through the mismatch of ideological, electorate and personified levels of the political identity. Furthermore, key features of the political consciousness are inactivity and supineness of the people. Inhabitants prefer not to take part in policy decisions and take no responsibility. The achievements and the problems on the way of seeking regional political identity originated from the peculiarities of the regional dynamics are also analyzed in the work. Despite the domination of the negative ideologemes in the regional political development, sense and images of historic victories of the country are still the main unifying forces for the separate ways of thinking of Volgograd population.
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