Doctoral Dissertation Research: Consumption in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates how and why consumption tastes and practices have changed in Russia from the late-Soviet period to the post-Soviet period. In the last 25 years, party-state control over production and distribution of consumer goods, so central to the organization of Soviet power, has been supplanted by private production and exchange. As Soviet scarcity of goods has given way to post-Soviet scarcity of money, Russians have developed diverse strategies for provisioning themselves and their households. Despite the emergence of a market economy, then, consumption in Russia differs from that in western capitalist nations, and the changes taking place there require separate study. Further, since existing theories of how class and status affect consumption in western capitalist societies may not explain the changes in Russian consumption, theoretical work on the topic needs to be revised and extended. In addressing these needs, this project contributes both to a specific understanding of changes in consumption in one former socialist nation, and to a broad-based understanding of the importance of the political and economic context to consumption. To reach its goals, the project surveys consumers of different socioeconomic status in a medium-sized Central Russian city (Kaluga). The retrospective interviews used in the survey draw on the memories of consumers who lived through the great transformation, and describe changes in the correspondence between status, class, and consumption. The analysis uses quantitative techniques to describe types of consumption lifestyles, position in the stratification system, and upward and downward mobility. It also uses qualitative techniques to analyze preferences and values not easily captured with quantitative techniques.