It worries Ilya Gershchenkov that "politics is beginning to exist without the participation of the people themselves" and that soon "a model will be created that will speak to the authorities on behalf of the real people" This is quite understandable and even partially justified, but in our opinion, the danger is greatly exaggerated, because this threat has actually already been realized - in recent decades the significance of the influence of sociological data on the attitude of the voters to the planned decisions of the authorities has been steadily decreasing.
It cannot be said that the authorities now completely do not take into account the "voice of the people" heard from the results of sociological surveys. No, it takes it into account, but only takes into account dissatisfaction, and, as a rule, simply reduces the speed of implementation of unpopular, but necessary (or considered such) decisions, and also wraps them in an attractive "candy wrapper" (which is often found, again, with the help of public opinion polls). And even then not always.
This approach was most clearly expressed during the "pension reform": literally all the preliminary sociological studies, whether carried out by state centers for the study of public opinion or by independent companies, clearly showed that raising the retirement age is not acceptable to the citizens. But the decision was made despite the voters' disapproval of such a reform; This resulted in mass protests and a serious drop in the government's rating; As a result, it was necessary to adapt some provisions, and postpone the introduction of several changes for several years. But that's not the worst thing; The situation when taking public opinion into account when making management decisions can be much worse.
In order to illustrate such situations, an example is given from the "unwritten memories" of a sociologist about the "epic" periods of about a quarter of a century ago, ie.