Article
Возможны ли перемены в сетевой России?
The capter is dedicated to the description of the fragmentation of the Russian media-based public sphere, in particular - to the dymanics of media use of the participants of the 'For fair elections' political protest movement in Russia of 2011-2012. Authors counclude that: 1) socio-economic divisions in today's Russia are mirrored in the media use patterns; 2) traditional textocentricism of Russian intelligentsia shows up and shapes media preferences and opinion leading: 3) changes in political behavior online (weakly) correlates with differences in online media use patterns; 4) a nation-wide public counter-sphere has formed in the Russian big cities. A prediction is made that fragmentation of the Russian public sphere will be deepening.
It is for the first time when the phenomenon of the political class is being investigated in the Russian political science literature. In this edition, the political class is viewed as a community of persons professionally involved in the sphere of politics. Political elites, administrative and political bureaucracy, deputy corps, party functionaries, analyst center staff, expert community, political consultants, political journalists are regarded as important segments of the political class. The study of political participation of corporate business is also paid attention to. An important advantage is the combination of theoretical, methodological and applied aspects of the research, as well as a comparative perspective: the features of the formation of a political class in Ukraine and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe are considered.
The book reveals the interconnection between social, cultural and political protest movements and social and economic changes in a post-communist country like Russia still dominated by bureaucratic rulers and "oligarchs" controlling all basic industries and mining activities. Those interests are also dominating Russia’s foreign policy and explain why Russia did not succeed in becoming an integral part of Europe. The latter is, at least, wished by many Russian citizens.
This article revisits the evolution of intergenerational social mobility in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. In particular, it looks at historical changes in the residential, educational and occupational mobility of Russians. The study contributes to the literature by extending the spectrum of institutional and historical contexts, in which the (in)equality of opportunity has been considered so far, re-examining existing evidence by using alternative datasets and a different methodology.
For an empirical investigation I utilize data from four representative cross-national surveys conducted in Russia in 1994, 2002, 2006 and 2013. Following the theoretical arguments developed in the comparative social mobility research and being informed by their empirical findings, I anticipated (1) a trend towards lesser openness in the late years of the Soviet era; (2) a temporary discontinuity of mobility patterns during the turbulent 1990s; and (3) the stagnation of social mobility in the more stable years of Russia’s post-Soviet history. However, my findings reveal no unambiguous trends suggested by previous research, moreover they contradict some of the earlier evidence. In particular, I found (1) steadily decreasing residential mobility both in absolute and relative terms (implying increasing closure of residential communities); (2) a weakening link between parental and child educational attainment in the post-Soviet era; and (3) the invariance of social fluidity in terms of occupational attainment both in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the remaining questions and possible directions for future research.
Published here is the second part of the article. It begins with discussion of loglinear modeling, a technique which is used to analyze mobility tables and to explore the patterns of relative social mobility. In the rest of the article I discuss the empirical findings with regard to the three dimensions of social mobility outlined above. Finally I draw the conclusions, which generalize findings from both parts of the article.
The research targets the interrelations between new monuments construction process and Post-Soviet society’s cultural and historical memory creation. More specifically the goal of the project is to evaluate the last Russian Emperor Nicolas II’s statues and memorials in contemporary Russia (1990s – 2010s). The period in question is marked with evoking of conscious interest to the national past. However, the image of Nicolas II is extremely contradictory and keeps provoking debate.
The article presents statistical data (date, place, initiative groups that commissioned the erection of the monuments) arranged by decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s) as well as its comparative evaluation and demonstrates how throughout the Post-Soviet period there occurred a shift in social views on this historical personality
All contemporary societies are now culturally plural, with many ethnic, cultural, and religious groups attempting to live together in one civic space. The attention paid to how a reasonable degree of mutual acceptance can be achieved among these groups has been extensively examined by many disciplines. Psychologists have also examined these issues, using concepts such as ethnic attitudes, multicultural ideology, perceived threat/security, and prejudice. This study continues this psychological approach, while being rooted in the conceptualizations and findings available from these other disciplines. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia and other former Soviet republics faced new challenges of achieving mutual acceptance and adaptation among members of the larger society (representatives of the ‘host’ nations) and members of other ethnic groups as well as immigrants. In this paper, we portray the current context, including the immigration dynamics in contemporary Russia, as well as a description of migrants and the problems they face. We will then present the theoretical scheme underlying the study, including the hypotheses, the research methods, the main variables and the results of structural equation modeling.
This paper analyzes contemporary Russian family policy, focusing on the state’s ideological orientation and the political measures it has taken with regard to the family as a social institution. Documents representing official and normative discourse of family policy in contemporary Russia serve here as data for the study. The paper identifies stages of the formation and realization of Russian family policy. Analysis of these stages shows that, neither at the level of ideology nor in terms of specific tools of implementation, is this policy coherent. A pronatalist strategy ensures that many real problems faced by families stay on the periphery of family policy. This paper maintains that Russian family policy should take into account the diversity of modern forms of family relationships and increase societal support for citizens with family responsibilities, not limited to only family financial support.
New political, social and cultural reality in the first five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The current crisis between the EU and Russia is influenced by much more serious factors than political tensions over Ukraine or the US political agenda. We suppose that to some extent it has represented a consequence of the crisis of national identity in Russia during the post-Soviet period. And the ongoing crisis clearly reflects that unclear social, political and national identities allow some stakeholders to substitute an objective stimulus for sustainable cooperation with cultural and economic partners that have been historically close, i.e., Russia and European countries, by negative propaganda. The current perception of Europe and Europeans, which is widely shared by the majority of the Russian population, has switched from a thousand years of joint history, development and cultural enrichment to ‘irreconcilable divergences’. This dramatic process develops both in the EU and Russia nowadays but in this paper we focus on the challenge to Russian identity, its roots and modern aspects. The analysis we provide within this paper demonstrates some fundamental preconditions of the political crisis between the EU and Russia that started in 2014, related to identity challenge rather than to international relations per se or value conflict. The concluding part of this paper is dedicated to a search for new approaches to identity policy that might be implemented in Russia and would positively influence a political dialogue between Europe and Russia by making it more predictable.
The article deals with the processes of building the information society and security in the CIS in accordance with modern conditions. The main objective is to review existing mechanisms for the formation of a common information space in the Eurasian region, regarded as one of the essential aspects of international integration. The theoretical significance of the work is to determine the main controls of the regional information infrastructure, improved by the development of communication features in a rapid process.The practical component consists in determining the future policies of the region under consideration in building the information society. The study authors used historical-descriptive approach and factual analysis of events having to do with drawing the contours of today's global information society in the regional refraction.
The main result is the fact that the development of information and communication technologies, and network resources leads to increased threats of destabilization of the socio-political situation in view of the emergence of multiple centers that generate the ideological and psychological background. Keeping focused information policy can not be conceived without the collective participation of States in the first place, members of the group leaders of integration - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Currently, only produced a comprehensive approach to security in the information field in the Eurasian region, but the events in the world, largely thanks to modern technology, make the search for an exit strategy with a much higher speed. The article contributes to the science of international relations, engaging in interdisciplinary thinking that is associated with a transition period in the development of society. A study of current conditions in their relation to the current socio-political patterns of the authors leads to conclusions about the need for cooperation with the network centers of power in the modern information environment, the formation of alternative models of networking, especially in innovation and scientific and technical areas of information policy, and expanding the integration of the field in this region on the information content.
This article is talking about state management and cultural policy, their nature and content in term of the new tendency - development of postindustrial society. It mentioned here, that at the moment cultural policy is the base of regional political activity and that regions can get strong competitive advantage if they are able to implement cultural policy successfully. All these trends can produce elements of new economic development.