To a question of research factors affecting the political consciousness of modern Russian youth

The purpose of the study. The article considers the problem of taking into account and analyzing factors affecting the political consciousness of modern Russian youth. Theoretical and scientific-instrumental approaches of foreign and domestic political scientists and sociologists to the study of the political consciousness of youth, motives and archetypes of political behavior are analyzed. Socio-psychological, economic and political factors of the political consciousness formation and transformation of young Russian voters are identified and investigated. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the need to develop in Russian political science a methodology for analyzing the factors of modern Russian youth political consciousness, as well as to make copyright proposals for the development of this methodology. Conclusions. The author concludes that methodological approaches to studying the political consciousness of young people exist in Western European and American socio-political science (the concept of a “purposeful voter”, political behaviorism, globalization and virtualization of the political and social space) need some adjustment in relation to the study of the political consciousness of Russian youth. We must take into account the peculiarities of the national mentality such as antinomies of political consciousness, irrational motives for political participation. Another important factors are: specifics of the functioning of the Russian political system (“catching up” with the nature of political modernization, underdeveloped forms and mechanisms of political participation, scarcity of electoral democratic experience) as well as modern challenges and risks of the development of Russian statehood (multiple crises of socio-economic and political nature, characteristic of turbulence). The political consciousness of Russian youth, like the youth of any modern state, is characterized by instability and a tendency to radicalism. The political archetypes inherited by modern Russian youth from the generation of the 1990s do not contribute to the harmonization of their political consciousness. In these conditions, the most important theoretical and applied task of Russian political science is the development of a methodology for identifying and analyzing political factors that affect the political mentality of young voters in modern Russia.