On the Genealogy of Preparedness for Daily Threats in Russia in the 1990s

Abstract

The article explores the genealogy of preparedness for everyday threats to safety in the first postSoviet decade in Russia. Preparedness is governmental rationality for dealing with the possible destruction of critical infrastructure which fully developed during the Cold War. I examine preparedness from the standpoint of Foucault’ idea of “conduct of conduct” to show the continuity between the Soviet preparedness for the political enemy’s subversions and the post-Soviet preparedness for daily disasters. I further focus on the newly emerging institutions and discourses such as the Ministry for Emergencies, disaster education and self-help survival guides to show the expert visions of a disaster and the technologies of power and to argue that in the post-Soviet liberalizing Russia preparedness relied on the “conduct of conduct” more through the apparatus of discipline rather than that of security.