Article
Особенности статусной идентичности и потребление среднего класса
The article analizes the caracteristics of identity and consumation of the middle class, its profesional composition and lifestyles
This paper represents a synthesis of few working papers of the author, published in various mostly foreign publications. In the paper the author examines social consequences and social prerequisites for specific role that Russian state and Russian audiences are playing in the media. In our opinion the situation in Russian media cannot to be perceived outside the context of social structure of the Russian society and the role of the state in this society.
The article is devoted to studying styles of consumption in the field of leisure, focusing on sporting clays which became popular among the Russian elite in the second half of 1990s. The study demonstrates that today people with medium and low income are also engaged in sporting clays. The question arises as to whether sporting clays stimulates social differentiation or social integration. The empirical data collected from participants of a sporting clays club describe the institutionalization process of sporting clays in modern Russia, show social and economic qualities of shooters, and present a typology of people engaged in this kind of shooting.
This paper represents an initial report on findings fro a study aimed at analyzing several key aspects of middle class development in the Russian regions, namely:
• Federal and regional government programs to stimulate the growth of the middle class (content, tools of implementation, effectiveness); • Behavioral strategies and economic behavior (consumption patterns, propensity to save, investment) of different sections of Russian middle class; • Middle class value orientation and political preferences (including preferences for democracy).
The selection of regions for our study was made after consultations with the leading Russian experts on regional problems: Irina Busygina, Leonid Smirniagin, Nikolai Petrov, and Rostislav Turovsky. Their expertise and readiness to help us significantly aided us in choosing our case studies. The criteria we used in selecting regions were the following:
• A relatively high level of urban development (this excludes backward regions); • Variation in the level of socio-economic development: region-donor versus region-recipient of federal financial assistance; • Political orientation of the regional government: democratic versus authoritarian.
We focus on one of these aspects of value theory that has remained relatively underexposed, namely the relation between individual social location and human values. Does one’s position in the social structure—indicated by socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education and income—affect the values that one prioritizes? We pay special attention to the cross-cultural robustness of the relation between social location and values: Can similar patterns be detected in various European countries? Or do cross-national differences in the relation between structure and values depend on elements of the national context?
We depart from Schwartz’ (1992, 1994, 2006) theory of human values, and make use of the value scale included in the European Social Survey (ESS). We believe that this study adds up to existing research in various ways. First, an exceptionally wide range of European countries is taken into account, including various Eastern European countries. Second, we take up the issue of the cross-cultural equivalence of the measurements. Prior to substantive analysis, we test to what extent different cultural interpretations of values affect the validity of cross-national comparisons. Third, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that explicitly addresses the question whether national context affects the relation between social location and values.
An attempt of research of a ratio of the theory and practice in François Guizot scientific and public work is undertaken in this article. Guizot is the central figure of the French liberalism of the first half of the XIX century. The theory and practice of this thinker synthesized liberalism and conservatism.
This paper represents an initial report on findings for a study aimed at analyzing several key aspects of middle class development in the Russian regions (subjects of Federation - oblasts, krays, autonomous republics), namely: Federal and regional government programs to stimulate the growth of the middle class (content, tools of implementation, effectiveness); Behavioral strategies and economic behavior (consumption patterns propensity to save, investment) of different sections of Russian middle class; Middle class value orientation and political preferences (including preferences for democracy).
The article presents a sociological interpretation of efficient management of research team’s social structure, based on the stationary action principle.A relevant mathematical model was designed, built on application of variational principle to social structure operationalised as probability density of research team’s social distinctions. The article also includes an overview of empirical testing of the model by conducting a sample study.
Research into social stratification and social divisions has always been a central component of sociological study. This volume brings together a range of thematically organised case-studies comprising empirical and methodological analyses addressing the challenges of studying trends and processes in social stratification. This collection has four themes. The first concerns the measurement of social stratification, since the problem of relating concepts, measurements and operationalizations continues to cause difficulties for sociological analysis. This book clarifies the appropriate deployment of existing measurement options, and presents new empirical strategies of measurement and interpretation. The conception of the life course and individual social biography is very popular in modern sociology. The second theme of this volume exploits the contemporary expansion of micro-level longitudinal data and the analytical approaches available to researchers to exploit such records. It comprises chapters which exemplify innovative empirical analysis of life-course processes in a longitudinal context, thus offering an advance on previous sociological accounts concerned with longitudinal trends and processes. The third theme of the book concerns the interrelationship between contemporary demographic, institutional and socioeconomic transformations and structures of social inequality. Although the role of wider social changes is rarely neglected in sociological reviews, such changes continue to raise analytical challenges for any assessment of empirical differences and trends. The fourth theme of the book discusses selected features of policy and political responses to social stratification. This volume will be of interest to students, academics and policy experts working in the field of social stratification.
The paper examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2012. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.
The results of cross-cultural research of implicit theories of innovativeness among students and teachers, representatives of three ethnocultural groups: Russians, the people of the North Caucasus (Chechens and Ingushs) and Tuvinians (N=804) are presented. Intergroup differences in implicit theories of innovativeness are revealed: the ‘individual’ theories of innovativeness prevail among Russians and among the students, the ‘social’ theories of innovativeness are more expressed among respondents from the North Caucasus, Tuva and among the teachers. Using the structural equations modeling the universal model of values impact on implicit theories of innovativeness and attitudes towards innovations is constructed. Values of the Openness to changes and individual theories of innovativeness promote the positive relation to innovations. Results of research have shown that implicit theories of innovativeness differ in different cultures, and values make different impact on the attitudes towards innovations and innovative experience in different cultures.
The paper examines the principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates proposed by BCBS in the consultative document published in December 2011. Moreover, the article proposes a number of suggestions worked out by the authors within the HSE research team.
We address the external effects on public sector efficiency measures acquired using Data Envelopment Analysis. We use the health care system in Russian regions in 2011 to evaluate modern approaches to accounting for external effects. We propose a promising method of correcting DEA efficiency measures. Despite the multiple advantages DEA offers, the usage of this approach carries with it a number of methodological difficulties. Accounting for multiple factors of efficiency calls for more complex methods, among which the most promising are DMU clustering and calculating local production possibility frontiers. Using regression models for estimate correction requires further study due to possible systematic errors during estimation. A mixture of data correction and DMU clustering together with multi-stage DEA seems most promising at the moment. Analyzing several stages of transforming society’s resources into social welfare will allow for picking out the weak points in a state agency’s work.