The article considers the issues of social sentiment and protest mood among the young population of the Vologda Oblast. The paper presents the dynamics of the social sentiment index and the index of protest potential and intentions of the youth aged 18–29 for the period from 2008 to 2013 in the Vologda Oblast as a whole and in the city of Cherepovets in particular. The author carried out the comparative analysis of the social sentiment index and the indicators of protest mood among the youth of Cherepovets and the entire Vologda Oblast. According to the research results, during the whole period under consideration (2008–2013) the indicators of protest mood of the young generation in the Vologda Oblast have weaker dynamics in comparison with those for Cherepovets. Similar trends can be observed among the indicators of the social sentiment index, the highest level of this indicator was in 2008 in Cherepovets and the oblast in general; then there is a clear trend of decrease in the values of the social sentiment index (SSI). It should be noted that the values of SSI in Cherepovets are somewhat higher than in the Vologda Oblast as a whole, but the difference is insignificant (no more than 6 points). The analysis of the protest potential and protest activity among the Cherepovets youth identified the following trend: when the estimated probability of protest actions is at its peak, the respondents demonstrate a minimum percentage of readiness to participate in them. This observation allows us to speak about a rather low level of social tension among the young generation of Cherepovets, since only a quarter of respondents is ready to participate in protest activities and about one third does not deny the probability of such events. According to the results of our research, we can conclude that in order to forecast the dynamics of protest mood among the population, it is not enough to consider only the social sentiment index; it is also necessary to study the respondents’ attitude to protest actions, their willingness to participate in such events, etc. It is this integrated analysis that will make it possible not only to estimate the level of protest potential in the population of the country or its given region, but also to forecast further trends concerning the issue
Keywords
protest potential, young people, social sentiment index, protest activity