The Importance of the Politics of Friendship for Contemporary Russia

Some observers hold that the friendship ties that are so prevalent in post-Communist Russia may prove to be a saving grace for the country. With other resources for ensuring peaceful social cohesion severely depleted, friendship may indeed turn out to be the only extensive resource available. Standard projects for creating civil society as a set of free citizens' associations that (potentially) oppose the state are inappropriate in Russia since the disappearance of the monopoly of legitimate violence. Defending the individual from the encroachment of just one powerful predator (the state) does not make much sense in a country filled with a multitude of similar predators–semi-public and semi-private firms and corporations providing protection services and enforcing business contracts. By contrast, civil, civilized, and peaceful cohabitation may be fostered if one uses the extensive resource (friendship) spread throughout contemporary Russia. […]

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