Global threats and national specifics of social capital formation in Russia

The article presents the author’s view on the global challenges faced by the key participants of geopolitical competition and, in particular, the Russian Federation in the 21st century. In this context, some national features of the public consciousness of Russians formed in the post-Soviet period are considered. The goal of the study is to describe global and national conditions that Russia has to face and to show how these conditions affect the role and features of the development of social capital in our country. It is concluded that the trends of evolutionary development actualize the importance of human potential and along with it the subjective perception of key events and processes occurring in domestic and foreign political and economic life. Simultaneously with the increasing importance of human potential as a factor in geopolitical competition, the whole complex of issues on which its formation and development depends is exacerbated. Among them, a special place is occupied by the scientific interpretation of the specifics and laws of formation of social capital accumulated in relationships between people, as well as between the population and various institutions that dictate the basic rules and vector of social development. The article concludes that despite the objective necessity of social capital development conditioned by global challenges, national features do not contribute to this process. The nature of the social consciousness of Russians, which was “injured” (according to experts) by the consequences of the collapse of the USSR, throughout the post-Soviet period became the ground for social atomization of the population, which is clearly manifested in the current level of interpersonal and institutional trust. However, the results of this study allow us to say that in Russian society there is a potential for more effective implementation of social capital. In particular, the events of the “Crimean spring” has shown that the consolidation of society on the wave of patriotic sentiment is possible even in the case where there remain unresolved issues of socio-economic nature, including the key one - significant social stratification of the population, which demands the need for social justice. The information base was made by sociological research conducted by RAS Institute of Sociology, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, Levada-Center at the national level; the monitoring of public opinion carried out by Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the territory of the Vologda Oblast; the results of a survey conducted within the framework of a project under the Russian Foundation for the Humanities in the territory of two subjects of the Northwestern Federal District.