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Security as a justification of state’s struggle with a civil society in contemporary Russia [in English]
Authors: Dębowicz Mateusz

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Instrumentalisation of law is a process, which can be found in most of the countries, in democratic and in authoritarian ones. As Russia is pretending to be a contemporary rule of law state, it tries to use phrases «threats/needs of national security» to justify introductions of new laws rising level of state organ competences in range of control of society. In fact, when analyze new regulations deeper it can be easily seen that they are mainly used to hinder activity of the civil society. Acts on extremism, bloggers, assemblies, surveillance and – so called – foreign agents gives a government instruments to struggle with NGOs and other independent from government societies and groups within Russia. Implementation of those regulations already proved how they can be used in favor of the state to hinder antigovernment activities and deter activists from undertaking new initiatives. On the other hand non of those regulations caused mass protests as surveys of Russian public opinion show that citizens value security and public order more than own political rights.
In such conditions it can be hardly expected that process to terminate and we should expect continuance of such activities and consent for actions similar to listed in the article.