Abstract

Russian and Ukrainian societies, by virtue of a common historical destiny, in some cases demonstrate close to its cultural and civilizational filling reactions to the challenges of the external and internal environment. Nevertheless, the trends of the last few decades show significant differences in the sociocultural matrix of the two societies. The basis of legitimation of power is a complex of institutional, technological and socio-cultural mechanisms, functioning of which in Russia and Ukraine has its features. Institutions of legitimation give to power completed status, include it in the system of administration and contribute to the realization of its social functions. One of the key institutions of legitimation of political power in the modern world is the institute of elections, as well as other methods and procedures of rotation and cooptation of the political elite. To the institutes of legitimation it is possible to attribute formal and informal feedback mechanisms through which political community can assess the effectiveness of government. The institute of elections in Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, is a real instrument of elite competition and the political process in general is characterized by greater unpredictability, causing «jumps legitimacy». In terms of social and cultural schisms and unresolved social problems this feature contribute to systemic instability of the political system. In Russian society the legitimacy of power is largely due to absence of alternatives created by the system and the personification of power. Russian and Ukrainian societies have experienced social trauma as a result of transit from the distributional socio-economic system to spontaneously market, which affected the social mood and character of social adaptation of the population. Paternalism the most of the population met with tacit refusal of the state from a number of social functions. In conjunction with the social differentiation, criminalization, crisis public morals it is caused delegitimation of social order in the eyes of not only dezadaptants, but many of those who are able to adapt to new conditions. Naturally, the extrapolation of a critical attitude towards the social order on attitude towards the power and its institutions in the conditions of the domination paternalistic expectations became quite natural. In both societies it is enough high level of estrangement of the society from authority - both in operational, and in sociocultural aspect. By virtue of a series of reasons the complex of social problems, common for both countries, in Ukrainian society received a much more sharpness. Periodic change of the central authority led just to periodic redistribution of influence and properties between clans. The inefficiency of the state, weakness of the central authority in the conditions of in-elite and sociocultural splits make the processes of de legitimation of power in Ukraine by more probable and active.