Institutionalization of demographic science in the Russian Federation (actor-network model)

The creation of the Institute for Demographic Research in the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2020 became one of the key stages in the process of institutionalization of demographic science at the current stage of development of the Russian Federation. This event played an important role and became an impetus for updating the most problematic issues in the development of academic demography in Russia. The urgent need for the development of demographic science at the level of the constituent entities of the country, the territorial scale of the Russian Federation, and the exclusivity of demographic problems in the regions of the Russian Federation determine the need for their systematic monitoring and research, and therefore the development of academic demography in the regions. The article systematizes data on the institutional development of demography in modern Russia and shows that a significant stage was the approval of the professional standard “demographer”. The paper proposes to use actor-network theory to analyze the processes of formation of the scientific community and institutionalization of demography in the context of aggravation of demographic problems in modern Russia. A scheme (model) of institutionalization is proposed, including actors-objects and actors-processes; an excursion into the history of the formation of demography is given (world practice, Russian practice, and the development of demography in the Republic of Tatarstan). Today, regional institutions that monitor the demographic situation are formed only through the interaction of government, universities, and the academic community. At the same time, it was stated that despite the relevance of the institutionalization of demography, a unified approach to the formation of appropriate institutions in the regions has not been formed in scientific discourse. The actor-network theory made it possible to determine the role of actors-objects and actors-processes in the development and strengthening of professional cooperation with the Russian academic community (using the example of an analysis of the activities of the Center for Family and Demography of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan).