Crash of strategy of «administration of fear»
Important political special feature of the agenda of the second period of the administration of Putin – is increased "political solitude" of Kremlin authority. The scales of dialogue with the society are decreased, dialogue itself increasingly more frequently is supplemented (but sometimes substitutes) by unilateral decisions, stimulated by war with the "terrorism", using for the advance its projects and the initiatives.
 
 "Administration of fear", which can be considered as "ersatz" of mobilization ideology continues to play important role in interaction with the public opinion, and is called to complete the scarcity of public. The use of "unusual" for the legitimating of old pro-Soviet political reform is the attempt to extend the model of the interrelations of authority with the public opinion, finished in the situations of "terrorist" danger ("anti-terrorist agreement"), to the wider regions, which do not refer direct to this problem.
 
This indicates the transfer of society into the state of permanent mobilization around the authority under the slogans "terrorism". The theme of war with the "terrorism" was convoluted in the political rhetoric of the Kremlin for some time. But only some period of taking the doubtful measures in Chechnya, connected with the designations and the expansion of marionette structures.
 
For this period the stretched reins of the propaganda of "terrorist threat" noticeably weaken, but only for this period, and Kremlin killers always leave after themselves the possibility to return to the theme of war and external threat. They present to society no arguments, which confirm seriousness statements, that Russia is in the state of war, but the ability to create the necessary psychological atmosphere in the country is the ancient skill of the Kremlin.
 
Psychological mobilization around V. Putin is characterized by a number of special features. First of all, it passed under the sign of war. The public opinion of Russians qualified the created situation as the irreversible break with peacetime, and it sanctioned the complete "freedom of hands" for the authority. This was the traditional political mobilization of society around the authority in the situation of the sharp political crisis, created with war in Chechnya.
 
Already in the first period of the administration of Putin were revealed failures in the mechanism of control of public opinion, worked out in the context of the explosions in Russian cities in 1999 and of events on Dubrovk during October 2002. Then Russian society evaluated the actions of Kremlin authority as completely appropriate in the prevailing situation. But here the specific character of political mobilization after Nalchik consisted in the fact that the society did not perceive the reaction of authority to the events as adequate.
 
Substantial part from those, who accepted official thesis about the war with the "terrorism", refused to understand it literally. Part from those, who literally understood word "war", they did not mobilize event in Nalchik as much as simply they frightened. An entire series of the successful operations of the mujahadeen, culmination of which became Nalchik, led to the psychological destabilization of Russian society.
 
The sequential official statement of Putin about the "declaration of war by the terrorists" proved to be excessively strong signal. Public opinion approached the state, close to panic. Failures in the mechanism of mobilization were caused also by the fact that was proposed the political solutions, which already aren’t popular. For the larger part of the Russians under the conditions of the absence of certainty apropos of concrete enemy "international terrorism" became concept too abstract, and the aspect of the public opinion begins to search for it independently, and instead of the psychological mobilization of majority begins the behavioral mobilization of extremist minority.
 
This places under a question the main reaching of the Kremlin - political stability. Main role in the disruption of the "military mobilization" of the opinion of Russians, judging by all, played the steady unwillingness to go on collective victims into the name of official purposes. After events in Nalchik, precisely, Russians, whose fears relative to the operations of the mujahadeen were most actualized, more frequently spoke out persuasion, that the control of Russian special services on the particular life of citizens was prohibitive even for providing of safety.
 
In spite of the readiness of public opinion to be received by many for the victory of Putin on "terrorism", fear ceases to work as the universal tool of mobilization. Strategy of "administration of fear", which was being actively used by a Kremlin propaganda and agitation section, it is possible to say begins itself to exhaust, and to be activated the mechanism of psychological self-defense from the authority of Putin.
 
Alkhazur Jalilov,
Source:Daymohk
2006-01-27 13:25:59
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/01/27/4391.shtml