Theoretical issues. Рубрика в журнале - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
A new stage of Russian history: trends, specifics and prospects
Статья научная
The article discusses the trends and specifics of public sentiment in Russia in the1990s-2010s; it analyzes key events of the recent years that led to the understanding of the present stage of social development as a new era of the post-Soviet period. The authors consider the interaction between the society and authorities, the role of scientific knowledge in the improvement of public administration efficiency, the development civil society, and also several promising opportunities and current issues of social science. The article presents the experience of sociological research carried out by ISEDT RAS at the regional level. The authors discuss key factors that determine the efficiency of interaction between the society and authorities and the success of Russia's further development.
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Статья научная
The author considers the issue regarding modernization change in the set of economic, social and cultural transformations. The paper looks into the essence of modernization, its importance to man and society, and the problems of its implementation in Russia and regions. In the framework of various modernization doctrines quite a few theoretical-methodological concepts were designed to explain possible aspects of social development. The purpose of this study is to assess the degree of coherence among the economic, social, and cognitive components of the modernization process in the macro-region of the Russian Federation. The study has the following tasks: to review the data on evolutionary processes of modernization, obtained by the author in the framework of the program “Problems of sociocultural evolution of Russia and its regions” (supervisor - RAS Corresponding Member N.I. Lapin); to consider methods for measuring modernization and analyzing its components; to assess the consistency of these components in regions of the Northwestern Federal District (NWFD) in 2000-2012...
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Budget capacity in the system of capacities of the territory: theoretical issues
Статья научная
The paper considers theoretical and methodological aspects of budget capacity. Our goal is to determine the place and role of budget capacity in the system of capacities of the territory by studying the essence of this capacity. We define the concept of “capacity” and summarize the content of key elements of the system of territorial capacities. We analyze the evolution and modern interpretation of the term “budget capacity of the territory” on the basis of domestic and foreign works. We find out that so far there is no unique approach to the content of budget capacity in either domestic or foreign financial science. Scientific novelty of the paper is shown in the following: we carry out systematization and critical analysis of existing methodological approaches to the definition of budget capacity, consider the conceptual content of six main and optional approaches, and identify five key issues of the budget capacity methodology. First, many scientists, as well as Russian legislation, are investigating the problems of tax capacity alone...
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Convergence regions in European Union: features and the evaluation
Статья научная
The process of alignment of socio-economic development of countries and regions in the European Union (EU) - is an important aspect of European integration, which is ambiguous. Common Market Act, which is aimed at improving the economic efficiency of the entire EU, became the subject of many discussions of European researchers, which claimed that its viability on the political and socio-economic levels depends on the ability to fairly distribute the resulting gains between countries and regions in the EU. As the result of these discussions there was a significant increase in funds allocated for the development of the regions of the EU Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and consolidation goals to equalize levels of development of the regions in the first section of the Single European Act. How effective are these efforts shows the presented analysis and assessment of regional convergence (by GDP per capita at purchasing power parity) during the economic boom of the EU (1995-2004) and in the period 2004-2011, when 12 countries in Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU at the same time.
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Статья научная
The article considers industrial policy as a compulsory attribute of the state participation in the economic development of any country, singles out types of industrial policy and emphasizes contradictory understanding of industrial policy in Western countries and domestic economy. The author describes the features of industrial policy implementation in foreign countries and analyzes the stages of its development and implementation in Russia. The article substantiates the fact that the current trend of modern national economy development is new industrialization. It clarifies the research conceptual framework, describes the author's concept of new industrialization, reveals its functional-catalytic type and formulates the concept of “institutional contour of new industrialization”. The research develops theoretical-methodological bases and proposes the theoretical platform for industrial policy in conditions of new industrialization. The platform system base is the synthesis of the institutional theory provisions, the theory of long-term technological and economic development and economic synergy. The article reveals the evolution of the industrial policy implementation mechanism and singles out the modern mechanisms, typical for industrial policy of the 21st century.
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Exclusion as a criterion for selecting socially vulnerable population groups
Статья научная
The article considers theoretical aspects of a scientific research “The Mechanisms for Overcoming Mental Barriers of Inclusion of Socially Vulnerable Categories of the Population for the Purpose of Intensifying Modernization in the Regional Community” (RSF grant No. 16-18-00078). The authors analyze the essence of the category of “socially vulnerable groups” from the legal, economic and sociological perspectives. The paper shows that the economic approach that uses the criterion “the level of income and accumulated assets” when defining vulnerable population groups prevails in public administration practice. The legal field of the category based on the economic approach is defined by the concept of “the poor and socially unprotected categories of citizens”. With the help of the analysis of theoretical and methodological aspects of this issue, the authors show that these criteria are a necessary but not sufficient condition for classifying the population as being socially vulnerable...
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Статья научная
Considering the problem of finding ways of significant life changes for the better as fundamental, the author focuses on the research subjects. He compares the guidelines of two important discourses: “Where is Russia going?..” and “Modernization of the Russian economy”, as well as the nature of their dialogue with the federal authorities. Using the results of these comparisons and based on summarizing diagnose assessments of the state of the Russian society produced by Russian scientists in 2017, the author proposes a methodology for a qualitatively new content of respondents’ surveys: it is important not to be limited by finding out the opinions about population’s pressing issues, but to identify the population’s preferences about significant life changes for the better. For this purpose, the author proposes an algorithm of successive stages of surveys. Being aware of the complex objectives and debatable proposals, the author considers it appropriate to announce a competition for best proposals to identify significant life changes for the better preferred by the population.
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Import of institutions: theoretical aspect and practical experience
Статья научная
The article is devoted to the problem of import of institutions, which is manifested in the form of society's borrowing of traditions, customs, and norms of behavior that developed in a different institutional environment. Such import is quite often accompanied by atrophy, regeneration of institutions and dysfunction of institutional macrostructure. Emerging so-called institutional traps cause serious risks for development of recipient countries. A historical example of the implementation of such risks was an attempt to transplant institutions of orthodox or radical liberalism in post-Soviet countries which expected modernization of their economies but received a diametrically opposite result - the primitivization of structures. An alternative to this course of events could be the usage of social market economy institutions (SME). Since the essence of the SME concept is a combination of market self-regulation mechanisms with a systematic state interventionism, it was possible to carry out a systemic transformation with, first, lower social costs and, second, without total deindustrialization. There is an existing need for a broader perspective on the formation of market equilibrium, which implies the inclusion in a number of independent market entities of the state that seeks to maximize its own function of social utility. It is the only approach that ensures the optimization of modern society's institutional environment in general and criteria for selecting imported institutions in particular. The novelty of the work is the justification of considering the interdependence of an exporting country's institutions, while choosing the most efficient one, and the need to assess consequences of its implementation in a recipient state's institutional environment. The authors conclude that the import of corresponding institutions should be accompanied by a synthesis of “social” and “market”. It could be achieved only with the harmony of complementarity of both these aspects, not with the construction of a hierarchy between them.
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Intellectual potential of population: theoretical and methodological framework for research
Статья научная
The article considers the theoretical and methodological framework for the research into the population’s intellectual potential. The presented materials show that this category is the subject of interdisciplinary studies, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, pedagogics, economics. One of the important conclusions drawn from the analysis of the essence of intellectual potential is the conclu- sion that the actual level of intelligence is the result of its development. It means that certain efforts on the part of such social institutions like family, education, government, promote not only the formation of smart people, but also the implementation of their potential intellectual capabilities in the production, creation of cultural values, society management, education, etc. when using this approach, the intellect ceases to be just a research object of related disciplines, but it acquires social dimension and becomes a socio-economic category. The basic theories, concepts and approaches, used in its study, were analyzed...
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Статья научная
The paper summarizes and systematizes theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the concept of “mentality”. The authors review historical-philosophical, cultural-anthropological, psychological, ethnographic, socio-cultural and sociological, socio-economic and interdisciplinary approaches. Special attention is paid to the system approach that considers how mental characteristics are manifested. The paper presents the structural approach that focuses on individual continents of mentality and an approach to the study from the standpoint of the “level of the nature of mentality” (conceptual-semantic, values-and-target, and behavioral levels). The authors substantiate the necessity of using an interdisciplinary approach to the determination of mentality. This is due to the fact that this scientific category is widely used in different sciences (sociology, psychology, the humanities), which requires unified conceptual analytical methods. The authors reveal distinctive features according to which mentality can be classified; they include: 1) the level of analysis (individual, professional, social mentality); 2) territorial feature (urban/rural (provincial)); 3) the level of historical development (primitive/ modern (civilized))...
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Metaphor for trust: the “umbrella effect” in global science
Статья научная
The purpose of the article is to consider the foreign experience in conceptualization and study of trust, to provide a critical review of the multidisciplinary issues of trust in modern world science, the relevance of which is explained by the increasing shortage of public trust. The research novelty of the study lies in the identification of forms, types, and trends in the subject area of trust in terms of determining the internal and interdisciplinary boundaries of various humanitarian fields. The interdisciplinary subject of trust in terms of the “umbrella effect” of competing paradigms and approaches is presented; the definition of trust as a multidimensional construct is conceptualized; the category-concept set of classification of trust include variables: resource pools (availability and configuration); rules of the game (resource share and coordination); target functions (efficiency, productivity); functions focused on people (social roles and practices, interpersonal relations); sense-making (realistic and perceived effect); focus on action (practical effects); focus on perception (interpretive effects)...
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Metaphor of society (a sociological essay)
Статья научная
The essay by Academician G.V. Osipov, the patriarch of Russian sociology, is dedicated to one of the most cognitive topics of modern sociology - identification of sociological metaphor as such and its application in research projects. This topic is avant-garde for the world sociological thought, and in Russia such kind of research is making its first steps. However, its future importance is difficult to overestimate. Sociological metaphor, if a methodology for its application is developed, can provide scientists with qualitatively new synthetic research tools. It can also bring together scientific structures and artifacts on the space of interdisciplinary and inter-subject borderland and give them qualitatively new intellectual and sensuous (system and mental) technological capabilities for learning the surrounding world. The advantage of the following essay can be found in the fact that it is based on the objective analysis of the real embodiment of social metaphor in the work of art - a pictorial triptych “The Mystery of the21st Century”...
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On the axiomatic interpretation of the economic factors’ impact on economic growth
Статья научная
The article draws attention to the role of non-economic factors in the development of new models of economic growth. It indicates key axiomatic statements defining the basis for interaction of social science with the society and state. The study considers the results of twenty year reforms in Russia and their impact on the formation of public consciousness. It analyzes the role of the government and problems of social policy at the present stage of the Russian society development.
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Статья научная
The article represents the conceptual foundations of a unique interregional study on the population’s demographic behavior based on a sociological monitoring “Demographic well-being in Russia”, the key points of its methodology are described here, and a range of possibilities for analyzing sociological data is shown as well. The purpose of this paper is to define a comprehensive methodology that not only allows identifying individual practices of the population’s demographic behavior and the information field of its formation but also makes it possible to develop a model of optimal conditions for the formation and implementation of demographic attitudes. The relevance of this work is caused by the necessity to timely receive complete, scientifically justified data on the state and determinants of demographic development of Russian regions and the efficiency of demographic policy; in particular, while implementing the national project “Demography”. The theoretical foundations of the presented research take into account the institutional and evolutionary concepts of demography, sociology, economics, and philosophy in relation to its object - the population’s demographic behavior - implemented in a sociodemographic approach that defines the demographic behavior of the population as a set of demographic attitudes (ideas) and actions that result in the acquisition of demographic status relative to childhood, marital status, health status, and territory of residence. The uniqueness of the monitoring is an opportunity to assess demographic behavior in the cohesion of its types (reproductive, matrimonial, self-preservatory, migration), as well as the efficiency of the demographic policy. The authors describe options of analyzing demographic behavior, such as cross-analysis of components and determinants of the demographic behavior, search for territorial features of socio-demographic processes and its regulation, and determination of the characteristics of the population’s socio-demographic groups. The results of the first wave of this monitoring allow getting a detailed picture of a current demographic situation, provide ample opportunities for obtaining and analyzing information, and it will become a foundation for determining directions of an in-depth research and a search for ways and mechanisms to adjust Russia’s socio-demographic policy. All-Russian nature of the study contributes to a balanced approach to an analysis and adjustment of the situation in the regions, which is extremely important because it will make it possible to take into account regional specifics and identify successful practices. As the result, a model of conditions may be created. In it, demographic attitudes and real behavior patterns, which lead to the results determined by the country’s demographic policy, are formed.
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Political blackmail - the eve of the global catastrophe
Статья научная
The article by the leading Russian sociologist and political scientist, who has been studying Russia-U.S. relations for decades, raises an acute issue concerning the necessity of immediate cessation of confrontation between the U.S. and Russia and transition to joint control over the processes going on in the world, and establishment of the multipolar model of the global community. The author provides numerous examples of interaction between the superpowers and the newly emerged countries, former Soviet republics; he shows that particular threat comes from the quasi-states of the former USSR, who seek to fuel the U.S.-Russian confrontation for their own selfish purposes. This policy was manifested especially clearly in the actions of the “Maidan” authorities in Ukraine, who launched the armed terror against its own people in the East of the country to accommodate the U.S. interests and the NATO alliance controlled by this country. The author believes that the response of Russia to such hostile actions of the USA and their Ukrainian proteges should be adequate; it should be composed and peacekeeping, but when the “red” line is crossed - hard and adamant...
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Post-industrialism: the experience of critical analysis
Статья научная
A cycle of research, devoted to the genesis of the concept of postindustrial society, has been completed recently in the Governance and Problem Analysis Center (Moscow). This article was written based on those studies by the Scientific Director of the Center Vladimir I. Yakunin, and it was offered to be published in our journal.
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Prerequisites for global geopolitical inversion
Статья научная
The article considers a possibility of change of the current global world economic leader - the United States. The author introduces the concept “geopolitical inversion”, which means the change of the global economic center. The article describes a common globalizing trend in the formation of the world centers of capital, provides quantitative characteristics of this process - the indices of territorial and demographic dominance. The article uses the example of the UK and the USA to show five steps in geopolitical inversion and give their chronology. The author makes some suggestions concerning a new global leader that could succeed the USA.
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