The Kremlin's Instrumentalization of Russian Youths in Policymaking: Russian Youths' Political Role and Russian Youths' Socio-Economic Problem Spot

This thesis aims to discuss the socio-political role of Russian youth historically and demonstrate how the Kremlin instrumentalized the younger sectors of Russian society to increase support of the Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev regime. The work explains how the socio-economic issues plaguing Russian youth have evolved throughout the last twenty years, starting with the ending of the Soviet Union. With Mikhail Gorbachev's failure to keep reformed communist ideology and with Boris Yeltsin's entrance into office, younger generations struggled to adjust to a new economy and a new political ideology. As can be seen from public policy documents, Putin genuinely attempted to reform youth policy in his first few years in office. However, after the events of the Color Revolutions, the Kremlin refocused its agenda on increasing Russian youths' political participation and creating feelings of nationalism. As this thesis will demonstrate, the Kremlin succeeded at this by introducing Kremlin supported youth groups, such as Nashi or Molodaya Gvardiya and instating history textbooks that paint a favorable picture of Russia's past through the use of positive history. As this thesis will demonstrate, the Kremlin, although successful in increasing nationalism and support for the United Russia party, has not focused on the real, daily socio-economic issues plaguing Russian youth. Thus, the younger sectors of society face the challenge of living in culture focusing on political activism, while well-being of the younger, productive, and educated generations seems to be put on hold. The thesis addresses these problems and gives some suggestions in how it would be possible to fix them.