Article
Demographic Trends and the Accessibility of Higher Education in Russia
Fertility, mortality and migration are constantly changing the population dynamics in Russia. Various historical events (economic crises, the collapse of the USSR, etc.) had a huge impact on the age and sex pyramid of the population. The consequences of the demographic crisis also influenced the number of potential university enrollments. An analysis of demographic trends in the Russian higher education (HE) system made it possible to identify several patterns.
Youth are, by definition, the future. This book brings initial analyses to bear on youth in the five BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which are home to nearly half of the world's youth. Very little is known about these youth outside of their own countries since the mainstream views on "youth" and "youth culture" are derived from the available literature on youth in the industrialized West, which is home to a small part of the world's youth. This book aims to help fill in this gap.
The handbook examines the state of youth, their past, present and permits the development of insights about future. The BRICS countries have all engaged in development processes and some remarkable improvements in young people's lives over recent decades are documented. However, the chapters also show that these gains can be undermined by instabilities, poor decisions and external factors in those countries. Periods of economic growth, political progress, cultural opening up and subsequent reversals rearticulate differently in each society. The future of youth is sharply impacted by recent transformations of economic, political and social realities. As new opportunities emerge and the influence of tradition on youth's lifestyles weakens and as their norms and values change, the youth enter into conflict with dominant expectations and power structures.
The topics covered in the book include politics, education, health, employment, leisure, Internet, identities, inequalities and demographics. The chapters provide original insights into the development of the BRICS countries, and place the varied mechanisms of youth development in context. This handbook serves as a reference to those who are interested in having a better understanding of today's youth. Readers will become acquainted with many issues that are faced today by young people and understand that through fertile dialogues and cooperation, youth can play a role in shaping the future of the world.
The author shows that demographic transition is an organic part of civilization developments. Such phenomen as death rate and birth rate, changes in character of migration are connected with stages of development of a civilization.
Un nou factor a fost adus constant în prim-plan în cadrul analizei şi proiectării politicii de învăţământ superior. Acest factor se referă la perspectivele demografice, deoarece acestea includ probleme legate de demografia în sine, cât şi la alte subiecte cu o referinţă mai largă, cum ar fi fluxurile de migraţie şi ciclurile de viaţă ale persoanelor, în această perioadă de modernitate. Sunt instituţiile de învăţământ superior din Europa pregătite în mod adecvat pentru a reacţiona la schimbările demografice fără precedent? Cum pot ele răspunde cel mai bine la astfel de provocări, în contextul evoluţiilor regionale, cum ar fi Procesul de la Bologna? Care sunt bunele practici de urmat? Publicat în cadrul seriei “Învăţământ Superior pentru o societate a cunoaşterii” a UNESCO-CEPES, acest volum oferă câteva reflecţii şi analize, şi ridică o serie de preocupări legate de astfel de anchete de actualitate. Volumul beneficiază de contribuţiile unei echipe multidisciplinare internaţionale de experţi şi prezintă studii de caz naţionale din ţări ca Estonia, Germania, Polonia, România, Suedia, Federaţia Rusă, Turcia şi Marea Britanie, precum şi studii tematice referitoare la migraţie şi la ciclurile de viaţă. Cea mai mare parte a datelor prezentate în lucrare sunt foarte recente, şi analiza ar putea avea impact asupra politicii de învăţământ superior. Acest volum se adresează tuturor celor interesaţi şi preocupaţi despre schimbările demografice actuale din Europa şi despre impactul acestora asupra învăţământului superior.
The paper discusses the development of the organizational practices in a Russian university under the influence of the environment. In the latter, the key factors are legislation and regulations of the Ministry of education and science. This influence is ambiguous and varies in different aspects, so to understand combined effect one needs detailed analysis using purposebuilt tools. The paper introduces such tool based on ideas of business model canvas by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and organizational design theory by Henry Mintzberg. This instrument makes it possible to conduct a system analysis of the organizational design of the university, the integrity of this design and its fit to the environmental conditions. In particular, this analysis shows, how the system of restrictions and stimuli, created by the Ministry of education and science leads to the degradation of education quality in a classic university
The main reason the so-called "crisis of education" covers not only the rap-id changes in the system of knowledge and technology, but also the changes in the labor market, the prevalence of atypical employment. As a result, the univer-sity, by definition, can not train a specialist, fully satisfying the requirements of the employer. For example, the direction of "Advertising and public relations" proposes measures to resolve the existing contradictions.
In this paper, we discuss the methods of endowment management existing in the world and their applicability to the Russian university system. The endowment spending research focuses on the following issues: reinvesting endowment income; identifying the size of expendable endowment income; using the endowment body, not onlyincome; choosing endowment spending policy, rule and rate endowments, etc. We provide an overview of endowment fund financial indicators and endowment spending allocationin Russia. Based on the example of the HSE Endowment Fund, we analyze the use of endowment spending rulesand model of financial indicators for 2008–2014. The University’s Endowment Fund endowment spending policies implement the preservation principle, which may be reasonable in a stable economy. However, the viability of the principle is questionable in the crisis, the more so since the endowment is mostly in rubles. Using net asset valuation methods, the HSE Endowment Fund could provide equity betweengenerations with annual distribution of income in favor of the next and current generations.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.
The article is devoted to the study of the authoritarianism prevalent in the mass consciousness of Russians. The article describes a new approach to the consideration of the authoritarian syndrome as the effects of the cultural trauma as a result of political and socio-cultural transformation of society. The article shows the dynamics of the symptoms of the authoritarianism, which appear in the mass consciousness of Russians from 1993 to 2011. This paper proposes a package of measures aimed at reducing the level of the authoritarianism in Russian society.
This work looks at a model of spatial election competition with two candidates who can spend effort in order to increase their popularity through advertisement. It is shown that under certain condition the political programs of the candidates will be different. The work derives the comparative statics of equilibrium policy platform and campaign spending with respect the distribution of voter policy preferences and the proportionality of the electoral system. In particular, it is whown that the equilibrium does not exist if the policy preferences are distributed over too narrow an interval.
The article examines "regulatory requirements" as a subject of state control over business in Russia. The author deliberately does not use the term "the rule of law". The article states that a set of requirements for business is wider than the legislative regulation.
First, the article analyzes the regulatory nature of the requirements, especially in the technical field. The requirements are considered in relation to the rule of law. The article explores approaches to the definition of regulatory requirements in Russian legal science. The author analyzes legislation definitions for a set of requirements for business. The author concludes that regulatory requirements are not always identical to the rule of law. Regulatory requirements are a set of obligatory requirements for entrepreneurs’ economic activity. Validation failure leads to negative consequences.
Second, the article analyzes the problems of the regulatory requirements in practice. Lack of information about the requirements, their irrelevance and inconsistency are problems of the regulatory requirements in Russia.
Many requirements regulating economic activity are not compatible with the current development level of science and technology. The problems are analyzed on the basis of the Russian judicial practice and annual monitoring reports by Higher School of Economics.
Finally, the author provides an approach to the possible solution of the regulatory requirements’ problem. The author proposes to create a nationwide Internet portal about regulatory requirements. The portal should contain full information about all regulatory requirements. The author recommends extending moratorium on the use of the requirements adopted by the bodies and organizations of the former USSR government.