The aim of the presentation is to explain the terms of political preferences formation in Russia as an indicator for measuring the political consistency of civil society. Scholarship of Russia´s political culture proceeds from the view that popular attitudes have ambivalent nature: democratic values like political freedom and rule of law shared by majority are combined with support for authoritative policy. Where such preferences do came from? What consequences do they entail for civil society´s political consistency? The exclusive character of representative institutions in Russia don´t allows making moral reasoning appropriable. The aspiration to common interest acquires irrational character against impossibility of actual support by the majority of the general norms. The result of perception of democratic institutions as difficulties for achievement of individual purposes is utilitarian approach to their use. The transformation of these purposes in egocentric ones is based on refusing to evaluate own preferences from the other´s point of view. Shortcomings of institutional publicity encourage utilitarian homogenization and atomization of society by means of restricting communication directed toward mutual understanding by narrow circles of persons (kinship). Such communicative domestication among like-minded people does not encourage growth of public solidarity since there is no communication across differences, capable to overcome individual´s bias and selective exposure. Communicative incompetence as one of the major sources of authoritarianism in Russia proves to be true data of last polls showing obvious interdependence between public sphere narrowing and growth of support for authoritative means of political rule.
