---

Douglas W. BLUM Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and Adjunct Associate Professor of International Studies at the Thomas J. Watson, Jr., Institute of International Studies at Brown University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1991. His general research interests center on cultural globalization, as well as the connections between globalization, identity, and security in the former U.S.S.R. He has published and spoken on a number of related themes, including Russian and American policy, foreign policy, energy geopolitics, and environmental security in the Caspian basin. His most recent works include a book length manuscript (currently under review) entitled Globalization, Identity, and State-Society Relations: Youth Socialization in Post-Soviet Eurasia; as well as an edited volume entitled Russia and the World: Security and Identity in an Era of Globalization (Woodrow Wilson Center, forthcoming)

---

RUSSIAN YOUTH POLICY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS

ABSTRACT

Since the fall of the U.S.S.R., Russia—like the other former Soviet republics—has been involved in the twin process of nation-building and state-building. One focus of this work is the socialization of young people, something that has become all the more urgent in the aftermath of the Colored Revolutions. Russian youth policy thus represents part of a larger attempt to anchor state and society within a sound institutional framework, which, under Putin, is marked by a typical mixture of delegation and centralization. Substantively, youth policy is characterized by the pursuit of modernity and “normalcy,” and the wish to remain a culturally distinct, unique actor in world politics. At the same time, there is widespread agreement that national development requires creating market institutions and attracting foreign capital, as well as re-socializing the populace to behave like far-sighted, value-maximizing, rational individualists. This article reviews the pattern of current youth policymaking in Russia, while also drawing parallels to similar processes underway in the Southern Caucasus.

Introduction

The collapse of the U.S.S.R., and the resulting devastations of Russia’s economy, brought with it a multitude of acute social problems. At the same time, the sudden, massive exposure to globalization constituted a double-edged sword: while opening up a world of possibilities, it also exacerbated cultural fragmentation and diminished social cohesion. The unenviable lot that fell to Boris Yeltsin was to put all the pieces back together in some stable fashion. In short, since 1991, Russia—like all of the other post-Soviet states—has been embroiled in the process of nation-building, involving the creation of new institutions of governance as well as new systems of meaning and order. This has culminated in a number of official programs, designed to achieve development, stable and efficient social organization, legitimacy, and national pride. In examining these programs and the discussions surrounding them, one finds a consensual demand for modernity and normalcy, along with the wish to remain a culturally distinct and unique actor in world politics. At the same time, one finds widespread agreement that national development requires creating market institutions and attracting foreign capital, as well as re-socializing the populace to behave like far-sighted, value-maximizing, rational individualists.

Increasingly, the focus of such efforts has been on the socialization of youth. This, in turn, stems from recognition within policymaking circles that successful nation-building depends on enlisting the loyalty and active participation of young people, something which requires appropriate social mechanisms. Youth policy thus represents part of a larger attempt to anchor state and society within a sound institutional framework—one which, under Putin, is marked by a telltale mixture of delegation and centralization. The following article reviews the pattern of current youth policymaking in Russia, outlining the contours of the relevant legislation as well as the nature of the political process involved.

The Predicament of Youth

The chief object of nation-building was to be the still-malleable generation of young people, which came of age during perestroika or after the fall of Communism. In a sense, this was nothing out of the ordinary: all societies see their youth as holding the hope of the future, and naturally seek to mold young people to become responsible guardians of the nation. Naturally, too, given the proclivities of youth, all societies experience some anxiety about the likelihood of achieving this goal. In Russia, however, there were particularly sound reasons to worry.

One source of concern is the absence of any cohesive national identity. Instead, since the end of the U.S.S.R. there has been a tendency toward cultural and intellectual fragmentation, as some segments of society wished to rapidly join the developed West, while others sought meaning in “authentically Russian” pre-revolutionary constructs, and still others tried to salvage Soviet ideas and practices. Furthermore, the inevitable difficulties of transition meant that many ideas which were espoused under Yeltsin, and which might under different circumstances have provided a solid foundation for cohesive identity formation, were often discredited by association. As a result, even fifteen years after the end of the U.S.S.R., no compelling new vision has emerged to replace the all-encompassing ideology of Soviet Communism. The younger generation’s outlook is marked instead by atomized individualism. Echoing the Putnamesque concern with dwindling participation in civil society organizations in the U.S., observers of the Russian youth scene have noted the prevailing tendency to resist any formal or routinized social attachments.¹ The same holds for young people’s political participation—or rather, their lack thereof. According to a 2004 survey, only 40% of youth voted in the parliamentary election (compared to 55% of those in the 36-54 age group, and 73% of those over 55), and 61% stated that they had no interest in politics.²

However, while the majority of young people remain aloof from politics, analysts are concerned about the possibility of creeping radicalization. The most insidious development in this regard is the so-called “colored revolutions,” or the successful popular movements in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). Ominously, in each of them young people played a leading part in storming the barricades of power. As if such unrest was not disturbing enough, there are other signs of perverse politicization as well. One is Islamic militancy. No longer confined to Chechnia, instances of terrorism—and popular as well as official persecution of Muslims—have been reported in a number of areas throughout the Northern Caucasus. The worry is that militancy might deepen and spread to Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and elsewhere. Also troubling is the proliferation of skinheads and other right- and left-wing extremists, which has resulted in a number of highly publicized episodes of violent racism.³ Although young people are obviously not the only carriers of such ideas, they remain the most volatile element in society, capable of causing major disturbances if such attitudes become more widespread.

On top of these disturbing attitudinal trends, objective indicators suggest that the country’s youth is plagued by a number of major afflictions. Chief among these are the following: high levels of unemployment and under-employment; a rise in juvenile crime; increasing rates of emigration among youth; rampant drug abuse and alcoholism; epidemic levels of tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS); high mortality rates associated with various risk factors in the 15-24 age group; lack of social infrastructure for young people, including housing, education, and health care; and lack of infrastructure necessary for participating in modernization, including access to the Internet. Furthermore, at a time when globalization and immigration necessitate high levels of tolerance, data suggest that many young people are actually intolerant and xenophobic. According to one survey, 35% of young people (aged 18-35) admitted to having negative feelings toward ethnic minorities, and 51% said that they would support evicting certain ethnic groups from their region.⁴

In short, available evidence suggests the emergence of an asocial, apolitical, unhealthy, often delinquent, and generally disaffected younger generation, with all this implies for the future of Russia.

Youth Policymaking: Discursive Foundations

Already by the mid- to late-1990s, awareness of these spiraling problems led to mounting anxiety that Russia was truly on the verge of “losing an entire generation.” Repeatedly, public and private commentaries as well as official policy statements have reflected the same concerns: i.e., that young people are losing their national grounding, and, moreover, are becoming self-indulgent idlers with no clear sense of responsibility. According to one typical report, nothing less than the very fate of Russia was at stake, inasmuch as the younger generation “grows within itself the shape of the future,” and yet is also especially likely to make “erroneous choices.”⁵ This inherently problematic situation is said to be exacerbated in post-Soviet reality by globalization and an accompanying, hedonistic shift in youth values. For example, public discourse reveals widespread disgust over uncensored media content, including its pernicious effects on youth culture. And of course, such concerns are compounded by anxiety over the potential for youth-sponsored political unrest, along the lines of the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine. For all of these reasons, there has been a growing demand within the political elite to “do something” about the predicament facing young people—and by extension, Russia as a whole. This shared understanding translates into a general agreement—at least among adults—about the need for a comprehensive government program to manage the issues relevant to young people (young people tend to be skeptical about the validity of such a program). Yet despite broad agreement about the existence of a problem and the need to do something about it, a public debate has arisen about what, exactly, ought to be done. The debate itself is interesting for what it reveals about prevailing attitudes toward democracy and the desirable role of government.

Essentially two opposing positions have emerged, each representing a fundamentally different perspective as well as a different institutional base. The first position has been articulated with the Ministry of Education and Science, which tends to be staffed (or at least advised) by true experts on youth affairs, who are relatively conversant with the views and values held by young people. While sharing the general belief that the younger generation can be guided from above, those associated with the Ministry have some real sensitivity for the complexities involved, and clearly understand that a heavy-handed, didactic approach will almost certainly backfire. As a result they seek to foster some degree of real, independent initiative on the part of youth, and thus to include young people directly in policymaking. From this perspective, youth participation in NGOs—which are formally independent from, yet systematically linked to the state—is viewed not only as an indicator of social health, but also as a means of contributing to effective governance. In contrast, many others involved in the political debate—including from the Parliament and the State Council—call for “taking the process of socialization of youth under state control,” through a combination of propaganda and centralized supervision. This approach would involve creating specialized media organs, making schools once more into centers of moral instruction, and even forming a new “federal service for socialization.”

Again, while specific policy drafts and ideas have been articulated by certain institutional proponents, they have wide social resonance, and frequently surface in informal discussion as well as newspaper articles, letters to the editor, and Internet blogs. The debate over youth policy thus expresses a basic tension in Russian society: a demand for civil society and democratic legitimacy, alongside an equally powerful demand for control, stability, and a guaranteed normative order. The resulting ambivalence is evident in policy recommendations, which combine a call for partial delegation, including encouraging autonomous initiatives on the part of well-socialized youth, as well as continued oversight by the state. This attitude was expressed by Putin, in response to a question about the ideal role of youth: “The earlier young people are brought into political activity, the better. All the more so since young people are devoid of stereotypes, which could hinder them from taking brave decisions. Of course, the number of youths in politics should be balanced, especially in the organs of power and administration, bearing in mind that in these organs there must be people with considerable experience, with professional knowledge.”⁶

Such views are in no way limited to Putin or his followers, but rather, appear to be widely shared among the elite. A striking example comes from a sociologist who took part in a round table on youth policy, who observed that the latest federal draft contained a subtle shift in emphasis toward delegating autonomy to youth NGOs. In her view, this was equally desirable and dangerous: “It is necessary, but may be effective only under conditions of definite control; otherwise, considering our mentality, we will get anarchy.”⁷

In keeping with such attitudes, by late 2005 a compromise position had been hammered out, combining key elements of the two opposing positions. Although its specific provision will be spelled out below, for the moment it is worth emphasizing the key innovation, which is the idea of a “transition to self-organized society.” This notion offers a revealing insight into how much has been learned, and not learned, since the fall of the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it represents an awareness that Soviet-style diktat is counter-productive, especially in the sphere of youth policymaking. Indeed, it also seems to reflect something more far-reaching: i.e., the understanding that any top-down, centrally organized approach to social and economic processes is doomed to failure in the modern world. Instead, according to this view, under conditions of globalization—with its massive transborder flows and neoliberal underpinnings—adaptive forms of organization are sub-state and flexible, exercising a high degree of autonomy and able to adjust rapidly to changing information and popular needs. For these reasons, according to the new latest policy guidelines, “The self-organization of citizens, nongovernmental organizations, business and their interaction with one another must become the foundation of the society of the future.” On the other hand, during the transitional period it was necessary to carefully prepare the ground for such a self-organized society, i.e., “to formulate and consolidate new norms of behavior and values.”⁸

Youth Policymaking: The Institutional Framework

This discursive demand eventually spawned a serious, state-led effort to rectify the problems of youth. Unfortunately, achieving such rectification was extraordinarily difficult, since the dislocation of young people happened to coincide with a general breakdown in social organization, economic functioning, and state capacity. The fledgling state was overwhelmed with the requirements of establishing sovereignty and managing a never-ending succession of crises, in virtually all areas of governance. The result was a near-vacuum at the institutional level: moldering offices staffed by gussied-up bureaucrats, with no resources and no real authority. Youth policy was in abeyance, consisting of a mixture of archaic or incoherent legislation which was hastily thrown together at the time of the Soviet collapse. Lacking a systematic, integrated legal foundation and institutional underpinning, these early policies were at best temporary measures, and in fact existed mainly on paper. Meanwhile, the previous system of institutional oversight and social welfare provision had disintegrated, leaving the younger generation unsupervised and adrift. Yeltsin did finally recognize the wasteland of youth policy, and, typically, addressed it as a mobilizational problem: a new campaign was launched, replete with bureaucratic excess and mounds of official paperwork. By the late 1990s this had resulted in the drafting of various “concept statements” and “target programs.” Despite their comprehensive analysis and lofty intentions, however, these programs were never adopted, and remained essentially theoretical exercises divorced from practical implementation.

With Putin’s accession, however, the preceding paralysis was quickly overcome, and a new initiative was launched to draft an effective national youth policy—one that would culminate in binding legislation. Primary responsibility for this project was granted to the Ministry of Education (renamed the Ministry of Education and Science in 2004), which led the process of drafting a new, even more comprehensive and systematic federal program. Second, a State Commission for Youth Affairs was charged with responding to ideas and drafts created within the Department of Youth Policy, as well as coordinating policy relevant to youth which fell within the purview of various other ministries. These bodies are complemented by an inter-ministerial Commission, which was formed in order to respond to ideas drafted by the Ministry, and to coordinate issues relevant to youth affairs which fell within the purview of other ministries. Third, as a check on the above institutions, in 2002 the State Council—an advisory body created by Putin and composed of the heads of Russia’s territorial units—was tasked with commenting on proposals and drafts emanating from the State Commission on Youth Affairs and the Department of Youth Policy. In addition, under the lower house of parliament (Duma), there also exists a Sub-Committee on Youth Affairs, which has at times been a significant participant in debating various documents and proposals.

With several other, auxiliary agencies also active in this area, the current Russian system thus includes a number of independent organs involved in formulating and systematizing new policy ideas.⁹ To an extent, the wide range of agencies simply reflects the immense scope of youth policy, which straddles education, information technology, health and social welfare, employment, and cultural affairs. At the same time, it also reflects the institutional redundancy which is typical of Putin’s rule, and which ideally prevents the emergence of any powerful locus of authority which might oppose the president on a given issue.

Official Youth Policy

The creation of a new policy structure was followed by a spate of decrees and legislative acts, which in turn led to a series of draft frameworks. Finally, in late October 2005, the Ministry of Education and Science completed a draft program, entitled “Strategy of State Youth Policy in the Russian Federation (2006-2016).” In addition to calling for massively increased outlays and a new system of institutional oversight, the Strategy identifies three overarching goals for youth policy:

1. “Drawing youth into social practice and informing them about potential development possibilities in Russia.” With regard to drawing young people into social practice, the government’s plan is to fund—and therefore, hopefully, to coopt—youth groups involved in such “productive endeavors.” The second component—informing the youth about potential developments—encompasses a number of measures (especially the Internet and television), designed to enlist young people in addressing the priority areas of state policy.
2. “Fostering youth’s creative activity.” The underlying emphasis is on practical innovation, as well as creative activities more broadly. As such, this initiative is connected to planned improvements in education, especially through strengthening critical reasoning skills and increasing access to computers. In addition to promoting Russia’s competitiveness in such areas as science and engineering, the goal is to produce a new generation of market-oriented, information-savvy entrepreneurs.
3. “Integrating into society youths who are in difficult living situations.” This broad category includes invalids, orphans, migrants, social deviants, addicts, ex-convicts, and young people living in “hot zones” (like Chechnya). While the specific means of achieving such integration vary from one category to the next, the common underlying assumption is that youth alienation may be diminished—and productivity enhanced—by giving young people a stake in society, through a combination of fulfilling work and political involvement.

In addition to these fundamental goals, six other subsidiary projects were sketched out in a larger programmatic document produced at around the same time.¹⁰ Much like the three basic principles listed above, these goals are telling indicators of the key concerns and values motivating Russian policymakers. These six projects consist of the following:

1. “Healthy Generation”—attempts to inculcate a “healthy way of life,” based on morality, rational individualism, social responsibility and national identity.
2. “Citizen of Russia”—stresses the importance of political activity and “self-organization” of youth. This ties in with encouraging the formation of NGOs (discussed below), as a means of overcoming apathy and alienation. According to one official statement, though participating in such organizations, “young people are given an opportunity to become a subject of the law and of social activity, thereby testifying to their laudable civic character.”¹¹
3. “Young Family”—counters the decline in Russia’s overall population, as well as the falling share of Great Russians within it. Numerous studies suggest that young couples increasingly live together and have children outside of marriage. The concern, then, is that demographic decline is related to inadequate employment and housing opportunities for young families. In addition, part of “strengthening the family” involves educating young parents about proper childrearing.
4. “Professionalism of Young People”—geared to creating remunerative jobs, this project helps connect young people to available openings through employment networks.
5. “Youth in Difficult Living Situations”—calls for special support services for invalids, orphans, migrants, delinquents, and young people located in unstable “hot spots.”
6. “Youth in Informational Space”—promotes the use of high-tech systems, including multimedia and interactive telecommunications, in order to attract young people to become involved in the above projects. Given the youth’s proclivities in this area, the emphasis on information systems thus constitutes both the form and substance of youth policy work.

Of course, these comprehensive programmatic documents are only part of a larger effort to instill appropriate values and shepherd young people along a desirable path. A number of other, more specific programs have also been mobilized, involving a wide range of institutions, to address issues of general social importance, which are also especially relevant for the youth.

One example is the federal “E-Russia” program, which is intended to “accelerate economic growth” and “eliminate bureaucratic barriers” by increasing Internet use across all sectors of society. This obviously dovetails with the project on “Youth in Informational Space,” but also goes beyond it in fostering integration into the international economy, promoting computerization of schools, and creating sponsoring government websites as well as other forms of state-society information linkage.¹² Another is Russia’s involvement in the European Union’s Bologna process, which is dedicated to promoting academic autonomy, common intellectual standards and degree equivalency in higher education. With regard to combating the social and cultural ills of globalization, one finds numerous campaigns: to promote safe sex, to stamp out smoking, to prevent alcoholism, and so forth. In addition, the government has established a Federal Service for the Control of Drug Trafficking, and there are plans to install filters on school computers to prevent downloading of drug-related websites, and even to begin testing students for drug use.¹³ And certainly there is no skimping on moral and patriotic education; in fact, there exists a systematic approach for encouraging the development of appropriate attitudes in young people. In the words of the official policy statement outlining this initiative, the plan is “to conduct scientifically based organizational and propaganda activities with the goal of further developing patriotism as a pivotal spiritual component of Russia.”¹⁴

As demonstrated by the above programs and campaigns, official youth policy incorporates both moral and pragmatic objectives. This is vividly reflected in particular youth activities prescribed by the framework documents, such as Patriotism and Business: The Contribution of Russian Entrepreneurship to the Patriotic Moral instruction of Citizens, or Russian Folk Culture as a Basis for Morality. In these ways, the official approach to national youth identity formation reflects the typical global practice of “hybridization.” As elsewhere around the world, this strategy represents an attempt to absorb certain global (hegemonic) practices, while rejecting other “excessive” or offensive ideas, and asserting a unique, supposedly indigenous identity. More specifically, in Russia’s case hybridization includes the embrace of rationalist models, including market institutions and individualism, along with the promotion of a “quintessentially Russian” cultural narrative. These sentiments were crisply articulated by Sergey Mironov, chairman of the Federation Council: “I personally belong to those who are strongly convinced that contemporary political activity is unthinkable without a serious moral foundation. This thesis contradicts the ideology of success, achieved by any means, which is so popular today. To be honest, I don’t like an arrangement whereby exclusively pragmatic, rich young egoists should dominate in Russia.”¹⁵

In short, the ultimate goal of youth policy is to achieve a unique synthesis of entrepreneurial dynamism and creativity, while also consolidating a shared value system as well as a national sense of belonging.¹⁶ While official approach incorporates both carrots and sticks, on the whole it seeks to influence youth identity not by punitive means, but instead by creating a network of social organizations to provide education, healthcare, employment counseling, and various other support groups. In all of this, as the following section discusses, an increasingly prominent role is played by officially approved (and formally registered) organizations, operating below the level of the federal government.

Implementation

So far, none of the ambitious programs on youth policy has gotten far off the ground. This sad state of affairs has reflected a host of obstacles, including inadequate funding, weak state capacity, and clashing priorities. Until fairly recently this was equally true at the local level, where municipal offices were woefully underdeveloped and incapable of carrying out such plans. Most were threadbare carryovers from Soviet period, but now absent the supporting ideology and system of institutions. In the ensuing climate of desuetude and distraction, little in the area of youth policy was accomplished, or even seriously attempted. In addition to the above shortcomings, policy implementation was also handicapped for some time by broad social resistance to the re-imposition of any ideological order. To some extent this was attributable to the delegitimation of Communism, and the early euphoria over democratization. In any case, the result was to stigmatize the previous, “Soviet-style” administrative mentality, marked by its penchant for conformity and top-down control. For all of these reasons, the tendency throughout Yeltsin’s rule was to muddle through in a state of bureaucratic inertia, while in practice accommodating social disarray and idiosyncratic forms of expression.

Gradually, however, along with Putin’s tightening grip on the political hierarchy, top-down institutional mechanisms were strengthened again. The result was creation of an institutional web for tailoring policy to local conditions, and ensuring its steady enactment. In an obvious case of cultural carryover, this includes, first, building a semi-official (or pseudo-independent) movement to oversee youth activities on the ground. The goal here is to essentially recreate the Komsomol, the pervasive youth organization in which all well-socialized and upwardly mobile Soviet youth were expected to participate. However, given the ostensibly pluralistic character of the regime, the monolithic Communist Party organization has been replaced by a cluster of seemingly autonomous, purely spontaneous youth groups. The first of these, “Moving Together,” was essentially supplanted by “Ours,” without any real difference in character. Both were intended to counter youth oppositional activity, and appeared to receive their backing from the Kremlin. Besides these supposedly independent groups, there are also youth wings of the pro-presidential parties, United Russia and the Russian Party of Life.

All around the country, this initiative involves both fostering and, hopefully, taming youth NGOs. Doing so requires drawing a distinction between highly desirable, politically screened and officially registered “socially-positive youth organizations,” and unimportant or even undesirable “informals,” whose activities are not consistent with the state’s objectives. As a supplementary measure, new legislation requires foreign NGOs to register (or re-register) with the government, a step which—depending on its implementation—could lead to harassment of foundations as well as domestic NGOs which the regime views with suspicion. Perhaps more important than the letter of the new law is its underlying rationale, which seems aimed at preventing the radicalization of youth organizations by unsavory foreign elements.

In addition, the attempt to create an organizational web involves establishing direct ties between NGOs and state authorities at all levels. One way of achieving the latter goal is by creating pseudo-civil society bodies, such as the Youth Chamber, which exists under the State Duma, and to which representatives of regional youth parliaments from around the country are invited. Like the regional youth parliaments themselves, the purpose of the Duma’s Youth Chamber is partly to help members learn the ropes and to provide substantive input on legislation projects. In this way, it—much like the approved NGOs and party youth wings—offers a kind of proving ground for politically ambitious youth. It also responds to demands on the part of certain youth groups for participation in policymaking, a demand which arises partly for kindred ideological reasons, but partly because of purely practical concerns, such as the need for new dormitories.¹⁷ According to Boris Gryzlov, Speaker of the Duma and leader of United Russia, “In this country we have hundreds, thousands of youth organizations. They want to make policy themselves—to send their representatives to the Public Chamber… in meetings they speak about this directly. Young people do not like it when things are explained to them, as if to little children, how to live, how to love the Fatherland or how to vote.”¹⁸

Still another, free standing Youth Chamber has recently been created, consisting of representatives of officially registered and acceptable youth NGOs.¹⁹ It thus parallels the Public Chamber, a handpicked debating society made up of prominent citizens. Much like the “adult” Public Chamber, the new Youth Chamber will apparently serve as a deliberative and advisory body on various matters pertaining to youth, including such thorny problems as the hazing of new army recruits. Since the announcement of its pending formation in February 2006, a cascade of regional level Youth Chambers have also been created. The entire hierarchy will therefore complement—or perhaps compete with—the preexisting Youth Chamber under the State Duma.

Yet while their specific activities and institutional bases (and presumably, their memberships) are distinct, both Youth Chambers are fundamentally alike: that is, they both offer the state a potential means of coopting the youth movement.

An additional part of the institutional web is local youth centers, which existed on a limited scale during Soviet times, but which were relegated to second place in their socialization role, behind the Komsomol and summer camps. Now, however, in view of young people’s reluctance to join social organizations, youth centers have become a more attractive vehicle for monitoring and socialization. To be sure, the moral instruction offered at such centers is generally very low key, which is in fact the reason that young people might choose to attend them—the centers basically offer a place to play games or hang out. Nevertheless, at least here young people’s activities are supervised, and perhaps social entrepreneurs can promote a “healthy way of life” using subtle, even subliminal methods. In any case, the new official youth policy aims to support large-scale construction of youth centers in the localities. Another striking throwback with similar objectives is the recreation of youth construction brigades. According to Aleksandra Burataeva, former head of the Unity Party youth wing and leader of the Duma’s Youth Chamber, “On the one hand these programs solve problems of job creation and employment, and on the other hand they are educational measures.”²⁰ Moreover, steps have been taken at the national and regional levels to reinstate Soviet-style youth rallies and summer camps, which seek to provide many of the same social and ideological functions. In all of the above ways, then, the goal is not so much to de-politicize as to re-politicize young people—yet in a way consistent with the purposes of the state.

Finally, it is worth noting that the official, top-down component of youth policy has a bottom-up corollary, which may lead to either a cooperative or competitive dynamic. The former is far more pronounced, however, while one observes a great deal of spontaneous collaboration at the regional and municipal level. Not only is the federal center forced to response to local governments and agencies regarding policy implementation, but local officials (and sub-state actors like teachers, youth center directors, and librarians) tend to share the same objectives, and are powerfully motivated to contribute to the programs’ success. On the other hand, there are also signs that opportunistic governors may attempt to gain control over youth organizations for their own purposes: i.e., to raise their popularity among young voters, and/or to gain extra leverage in pursuing their own policies vis-à-vis the center. An interesting case in point involved the governor of Perm, Oleg Chirkunov, who tried to use a right-wing youth group to push his anti-immigrant policy in the region. This move was quickly opposed at a round table for youth, sponsored by representatives of the pro-Kremlin group “Ours,” on the grounds that Chirkunov was pandering to fascists. The result was an ignominious (from the governor’s standpoint) public retraction.²¹ The episode suggests, however, that youth politics and movements may be becoming an arena in which various political battles are fought, including center-periphery jockeying as well as other more parochial contests.

Comparisons with the Caucasus States

On the whole, the emerging youth policies of Russia and the Caucasus states are remarkably similar, both with regard to the hybrid content of prescriptive national youth identity and the general process of engaging young people. For example, all seek to encourage the development of “patriotic” sentiment among the youth. In addition, all are attempting to create new youth centers, partly as a place for young people to congregate for wholesome activities, and partly as a vehicle for connecting youth organizations with local officials.

This similarity appears to be the result of several factors. One, certainly, is the shared cultural propensities of post-Leninist states. This is evident in the tendency to issue cultural directives, itself a vivid example of institutional holdover from Soviet times.²² Nevertheless, as a reflection of what we might call post-Leninist culture, it is striking that these impulses to control social and ideological processes are checked—partly from within the state, though largely from without—by a nascent democratic or “civil society” norm. The result is ambivalent: i.e., it includes an effort to maintain central control over youth organizations, while at the same time conceding to them substantial autonomy. It should be noted, however, that Georgia is becoming somewhat of an outsider in these respects, since under Saakashvili the trend has been to move away from top-down orchestration and toward more independent forms of civil society.²³

A second factor explaining the similarity in official youth policy is the existence of shared institutional ties, especially within the intergovernmental framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Despite its many weaknesses, the CIS has nevertheless provided a forum within which officials from various branches of government are able to exchange ideas and at times coordinate policymaking. Among other things, this includes periodic meetings between ministers or deputy ministers charged with managing various aspects of youth affairs. While it is often difficult to see such meetings as a “cause” of state policy, official contacts do appear to contribute to shared learning and a degree of legislative uniformity.²⁴

Yet another factor is the new states’ comparable positions on the periphery of the world system, and the broadly equivalent socialization pressures to which they are exposed. Officials at all levels are aware of international norms and standards in the area of youth policy, and of the work being conducted in this area by the U.N. and other leading IGOs.²⁵ Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are also members of the Council of Europe. The Council’s Directorate of Youth and Sport provides its own set of guidelines for developing youth policy, and ministerial officials regularly participate in seminars conducted under its auspices. Members in good standing are expected to observe institutional norms such as “achieving greater transparency, flexibility and rapidity in the implementation of youth policies” and “[encouraging] young people’s participation in civil society.”²⁶ Participating in the Council (and formally reproducing its tenets) provides a way of authenticating claims of Europeanness, and thereby enhancing domestic and international legitimacy.²⁷ It is true that Azerbaijan, and to a lesser extent Armenia and Russia, have often honored various membership requirements in the breach, especially those regarding local democracy and human rights. Nevertheless, the fact that such ideas are articulated may exert some constraining effect on official conduct.

Conclusions

Despite the dogged efforts of its proponents, as of this writing no comprehensive law on Russian youth policy was yet in force. The delay has been due, in part, to opposition over the enormous expenditures requested. According to one report, the cost of financing youth policy had skyrocketed from 96 million rubles ($3.4 million) in the previous year, to roughly 30 billion rubles ($1 billion) per year.²⁸ This was vastly out of kilter with prevailing budgetary assumptions. Not surprisingly, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Gherman Gref, has been an especially outspoken opponent. In contrast, supporters of the new youth policy concept appear to rest their hopes on private contributions from corporate sponsors, although the prospects of actually generating funds on this scale are questionable. For these reasons, the new official Strategy essentially skirts the entire issue of funding. Passage of the new Strategy has also been impeded by uncertainty about the nature of state-society and center-periphery relations, including the question of where ultimate responsibility lies for funding and implementing such measures.

While still evolving, and despite being marked by a certain ambivalence and even overt dissension, at this point the central pillars of youth policy seem fairly clear. With respect to state building, this includes the combination of centralization and decentralization which is so characteristic of political reform under Putin (often referred to as “managed democracy”). In the area of nation-building, we find the construction of entrepreneurial, proactive citizens, who will nevertheless remain stalwart nationalists and loyal subjects of the state. Much like the pursuit of democracy, then, the pursuit of hybridization is also highly ambivalent, as Russian society attempts to reconcile seemingly opposite tendencies. This is especially true in the sphere of youth affairs, where the allure of global culture—including its most libertine and potentially harmful aspects—is especially powerful, and where so much is at stake with regard to society’s bid to reproduce itself across the generational divide. Indeed, the lack of resolution in this area testifies to the complex, contentious process of policymaking in Russia, notwithstanding the “super-presidential” system in place. The process of youth policymaking thus offers key insights into the connections between state building and nation-building, as well as the difficulties in reconciling these two agendas, in the context of globalization.

---

¹According to one survey, as of 2002 only 2.7% of those aged 14-30 were directly involved in youth NGOs (see: Polozhenie molodezhi v Rossii: Analiticheskiy doklad, Mashmir Publishers, Moscow, 2005, available at [http://stat.edu.ru], p. 100). _{Back to text}
²See: Molodezh: snova vne politiki? Foundation for Social Opinion, 22 January, 2004, available at [www.fom.ru]. _{Back to text}
³See: “Ministr vnutrennikh del Rashid Nurgaliev: Ot cheloveka s ruzh’em k sovremennym tekhnologiiam,” Izvestia, 2 March, 2006. _{Back to text}
⁴For data on the above points, see: Polozhenie molodezhi v Rossii; G.A. Cherednichenko, Molodezh’ Rossii: sotsial’nye orientatsii i zhiznennye puti, Russian Christian Humanitarian Institute, St. Petersburg, 2004. An official condensation is Polozhenie molodezhi i realizatsiia gosudarstvennoy molodezhnoy politiki v Rossiiskoy Federatsii: 2002 god, Department of Youth Affairs of the Ministry of Education and Science, 17 December, 2003, available at [http://www.ed.gov.ru/junior/news/]. _{Back to text}
⁵Doktrina molodezhi Rossii, Article 1.1. _{Back to text}
⁶“Vladimir Putin: ‘Rossia razvivaetsia vse bolee dinamichno’,” Oblastnaia gazeta, 3 February, 2006. _{Back to text}
⁷“80 kopeek—na cheloveka,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 16 September, 2005. _{Back to text}
⁸Proyekt Strategiia gosudarstvennoy molodezhnoy politiki v Rossiiskoy Federatsii, available at [http://mon.gov.ru/children/osnapr/]. _{Back to text}
⁹Within the State Duma there also exists a Sub-Committee on Youth Affairs (under the Committee on Physical Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs), as well as a Youth Chamber, both of which have at times been significant participants in debating various documents and proposals. _{Back to text}
¹⁰The Framework document is Kontseptsiia Federal’noy tselevoy programmy “Molodezh’ Rossii” na 2006-2010 gody, Moscow, 2005. _{Back to text}
¹¹Podderzhka molodezhnykh i detskikh obshchestvennykh ob’edineniy, konsul’tativno-soveshchatel’nykh struktur molodezhi, organov molodezhnogo samoupravleniia, Dept of Youth Policy, Education, and Social Defense of Children, Ministry of Education and Science, 2005, available at [http://mon.gov.ru/children/anob/] (see also: “Minobrazovaniia vospitaet ‘pozitivnuiu molodezh’,” Kommersant, 23 March, 2005). _{Back to text}
¹²For extensive background and links see [http://www.e-rus.ru/]. The larger context is ably analyzed in D.J. Peterson, Russia and the Information Revolution, RAND, Santa Monica, 2005. _{Back to text}
¹³See: “Studenty sdadut testi na narkotiki,” Kommersant, 20 September, 2005; “Drug Traffic to Be Filtered Out of School Computers,” RIA-Novosti, 15 September, 2005. _{Back to text}
¹⁴Patrioticheskoe vospitanie grazhdan Rossiiskoy Federatsii na 2006-2010 gody, available at [http://www.ed.gov.ru/files/materials/1641/full_version.doc]. _{Back to text}
¹⁵“Trebuetsia molodezhnaia politika,” Tikhookeanskaia zvezda, 24 September, 2005. _{Back to text}
¹⁶See: N.A. Moiseeva, “Globalizatsiia i ‘russkiy vopros’,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, No. 6, June 2003, pp. 13-21; Ye. Yasin, “‘Russian Soul’ and Economic Modernization,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 3, July/September 2003. _{Back to text}
¹⁷See: “Studenty trebuiut otdat’ vlast’ sovetam,” Kommersant, 14 February, 2006. _{Back to text}
¹⁸“B. Gryzlov: Legkikh deneg ne byvaet, esli govorit o chestnykh dengakh,” Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 11 August, 2005. _{Back to text}
¹⁹See: “Ekstremistam vkhod zapreshchen,” Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 8 February, 2006. _{Back to text}
²⁰Osnovnye napravleniia raboty FTsP “Molodezh Rossii 2006-2010 gg., available at [http://kreml.org/interview]. _{Back to text}
²¹See: Molodezhnaia politika: novyy resurs dlia ‘sil’nykh’ gubernatorov, Center for Current Politics in Russia, 13 February, 2006 (available via ISI Emerging Markets). _{Back to text}
²²See: A. Altstadt, “Azerbaijan’s Struggle Toward Democracy,” in: Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, ed. by Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 110-155. _{Back to text}
²³See: “Georgian Leader Dances at Youth Camp Free of ‘Soviet Nonsense and Rubbish’,” BBC Monitoring, 19 August, 2005. _{Back to text}
²⁴For example, the nature and timing of Ilham Aliev’s creation of a pro-presidential youth group in Azerbaijan strongly suggested the direct influence of Russian ideas. Baku had recently been visited by a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, including Sergei Apatenko, the head of the Department of Youth Policy (see: “Pervyi vitze-spiker Milli Medzhlisa prinial delegatsiiu Ministerstva obrazovaniia i nauki Rossii,” Trend News Agency, 3 February, 2005 (see also: “Armenian and Russian Youth Unite into New Organization,” ARMINFO, 30 April, 2006). _{Back to text}
²⁵See, for example, the remarks by Galina Kuprianina, Head of the Department of Youth Policy at the Ministry of Education, stenograph, meeting of the Social Youth Chamber, Russian Duma, 21 April, 2003, available at [http://www.duma.gov.ru/family/workpych.htm]. _{Back to text}
²⁶The Directorate’s webpage is http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/Youth/. _{Back to text}
²⁷See: J. Checkel, “Norms, Institutions, and National Identity in Contemporary Europe,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 1, March 1999, pp. 83-114. _{Back to text}
²⁸See: “Gosudarstvo pochuvstvovalo vlechenie k molodezhi,” Kommersant, 3 November, 2005. _{Back to text}