Renovation and the New Civic Infrastructures in Moscow’s Neighborhoods

• In Event: Policy Processes, Societal Engagement, and Regime Support

Abstract

The announcement of Renovation in early 2017 seemed to spark an unprecedented movement activity across Moscow's neighborhoods affected by the program. All spring and summer, activists, both pro- and anti-Renovation, were engaged in organizing, fighting opponents, building alliances, collecting signatures, and rallying. However, when the program was finally signed into law in August 2017, the activities seemed to mostly cool down. In my presentation, I aim to explore the extended effects of mobilization in four Moscow's neighborhoods. Based on interviews and observations collected in two periods: in the summer 2017 and in the spring 2018, as well as digital ethnography conducted in the neighborhood groups on the social media over the span of 2 years, I argue that, although some Renovation activists demobilized and returned to apathy, some have built new networks and organizations that shape new local level civic infrastructures that Renovation unintentionally triggered.

Author

• Anna Zhelnina, CUNY Graduate Center