Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2016. 6.

This article is devoted to the analysis of democratic values in contemporary Russian society. It is based on data from the research project Political Values and their Perception in Modern Russian Society, conducted by the Department of Sociology and Psychology of Politics of the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University in 2013–2016. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research was the political-psychological approach.

The author discusses the hierarchy of democratic values in the minds of current citizens, paying particular attention to the socio-demographic factors (gender, age, education, region of residence) and party affi liations that determine citizens’ democratic orientation.

As a result of the analysis, the author reaches the conclusion that democratic values in Russian society are suffi ciently well understood and determine the citizens’ ideas that the democratic type of social structure is the best — the optimal variant. At the heart of a democratic society should be the values of freedom, human rights, legality and a strong state, the author concludes.

The problem of studying informal institutions of power has existed as long as political relations have, but only in the last quarter-century has this problem begun
to reach the level of scholarly conceptualization. Informal institutions of power exist well beyond the borders of developing states; they are an integral part of the
political process of both Western countries and modern supranational political structures. This article is devoted to the problem of linkage between of the theory of informal institutions and lobbyism, an issue not widely treated in the Russian political science. The activities of interest groups are a key element of the functioning
of modern political systems, including in Russia, but only in a small number of countries does the interaction of interest groups and authorities take the form of a
formal institution. Drawing on the approach of American authors Gretchen Helmke and Stephen Levitsky, the article attempts to analyze the relationship between the
formal and informal aspects of the institution of lobbying.