Views of Moscow Citizens on Political Behavior Forms in Modern Russia: Features and Formation Factors

The work is devoted to the analysis of the ideas of Moscow residents about the forms of political behavior in modern Russia. The focus is on the positions of four main age groups – schoolchildren, youth, adults and the elderly. The relevance of the study is set by recent political shocks: the coronavirus epidemic, the beginning of a special military operation and a number of legislative measures limiting the forms of expression of political opinion in 2020-2024. All such exogenous shocks generate not only a unique context, but also new forms of political behavior not previously studied by political scientists. Based on the conducted empirical research, including focus groups and in-depth interviews, the authors managed to form a new classification of forms of political behavior relevant to modern residents of Moscow. The authors manage to question the well-established classifications of L. Milbart and G. Lasswell, as well as critically comprehend the methodology of Strauss and Hove's "theory of generations". Special attention is paid to the factors on the basis of which respondents identify forms of political behavior. The authors identify two types of shared forms of political behavior: "conventional" (participation in elections, protest actions, rallies, etc.) and "new" ones implemented in the digital space (hashtags, avatars, posts). For each age group, the co-authors manage to identify unique factors influencing the acceptability of various forms of political behavior. The co–authors also record common factors that turned out to be significant for all generations in the analysis - "fear of the state" and "digital technologies". The co-authors approach the partial refutation of the hypothesis of the existence of an insurmountable "generational split", and also introduce methodological recommendations for the application of the theory of generations in the Moscow research context. The work uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Based on the conducted focus groups, a classification was formed, as well as a questionnaire used during the survey. The main method of data analysis was regression analysis using an interaction variable to identify unique group trends.