At the beginning of the article, the author explains its idea—to explicate the conceptual approach to war as the most important structural element and mechanism for maintaining social order. The author claims the existence of a stable tradition of theorizing based on the argument about the social functionality of the structural violence, which allows interpreting war as a special type of sociality. The representatives of this conventional line of argumentation mentioned in the article are such key figures in the history of ideas, as Thomas Hobbes, Carl von Clausewitz, Carl Schmitt and Michel Foucault. The author formulates ten theses, which problematize the heuristic aspects of war in relation to the theory of social order and are accompanied by short comments explaining the ambivalent status of war topics in the philosophical tradition and sociological classics, because neither of them developed a complete theory of war relevant from the social theory perspective. The key theses state that war experience is constitutive for human societies, and reconstruct the line of argumentation that emphasizes the constitutive function of war for social institutions and political order and the role of war as a major factor of social transformations in the modernity for this role is often underestimated in sociological theory. In conclusion, the author states the need for analytical explication of the organized violence functionality in relation to the structures of social action typical for the modern era. He also claims that within the proposed social-theoretical perspective the war can become a heuristic key to understanding the nature of the social, because this approach allows not only to consider war as a cultural-universal phenomenon, but to analyze more realistically the structural role of violence in the processes of production, reproduction and transformation of social orders.

In 2010th protest publics became an important driver of political change both in authoritarian and democratic states. “Indignados”, “Arab spring”, #Occupy movement” in USA (and worldwide), protests in Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Venezuela, Ukraine – all these events has been happening from December, 2010, till today – in Bangkok, Caracas, Kiev. The main goal of the research is to evaluate the protest publics’ impact as drivers of political changes in Brazil (time period is from June 2013 till March 2014). So, as the focus of the research is what protest publics have changed in political process during these periods of time and what status quo of different drivers (factors and actors) we had had before them (especially socio-economic ones); to show both the reasons and the results of the protest publics activities. Empirical base of research consist of information of two types: socio-economic and political statistics (World Bank, OECD, IMF; Freedom House and Transparency international rankings; World Values Survey Data); expert interviews with the specialists and scholars that study the protest movements in Br

Historians’ interest toward the history of disasters, primarily epidemics and pandemics, is longstanding, nevertheless, the 1997 publication by David M. Herlihy was a pioneering one since it offered a new and well grounded vision of the influence the 14th century Black Death had on the development of Western Europe. Significantly, besides its influence on the social, cultural, scientific and technical development, the Black Death effect on the late-medieval economy was also noted. Following that publication, Disaster Studies were no longer seen as a marginal area, and research literature on the impact of epidemics, earthquakes and tsunamis around the globe from the Caribbean (Haiti) to the Central Asia (Uzbekistan) in various historic periods, started to appear, and here the books edited by David Herlihy, Samuel K. Cohn Jr., Rosemary Horrox, etc. may be mentioned. A broad discussion followed, with some researchers insisting the pandemics had solely devastating effects on the European civilization (Philip Ziegler, Robert S. Gottfried, Guido Alfani), but it has failed to fully explore the impact such disasters had on the economy in general and the entrepreneurship specifically.

It is noteworthy, the arguments of both sides ignore Russia’s experience of stimulating impacts the plagues had on business, namely, the emergence and development of the major centres of the Old Believers denominations (soglasiyas). The religious dissidents became economy leaders (in textiles, grain supplies, etc.) at the Russian industrialization’s initial stage. Abundant historic documents, both published and archive kept, illustrating the Old Believers’ activities (religious communities constituent documents, sets of rules, statutes, police reports, denouncements), are available and exhibit the mechanisms of the Old Believers’ major economic and religious centres and entrepreneurial networks establishment and development.

Due to ruthless persecutions of the late 17th and first half of the 18th centuries, the Old Believers fled to the outskirts of the Russian Empire and could not legally return to its central areas. Operating from the enclaves by the White Sea in the north, in the Ukraine in the south-west, and in other areas, they built up businesses based on the new labour ethics, new business perceptions, and new corporativity. Still, their contribution to the national economy was insignificant due to the regional marginality and de facto illegality of their activities.

Plagues in Russia were less dramatic compared to Europe, but in 1771-1772 the most devastating plague in Russian history hit Moscow where the authorities had no mechanisms to fight epidemics. The help came from the merchants, Old Believers primarily (somewhat 300 major traders), so the authorities had to accept public support. It was an emergency measure towards persecuted Old Believers which allowed lawful establishment of certain institutions. It was permitted to arrange two private quarantines on rented lands nearby Moscow, the then biggest economic enclave in European Russia. The rare Moscow Old Believers nursed the ill, set hospitals, dorms, orphanages and tabernacles. Many Moscovites brought to Preobrazhensky and Rogozhsky quarantines accepted the faith of their life-savers while dying patients left their assets seen by the Old Believers as Christ's property, to religious communities.

Later, an official status was granted to the enclaves where almshouses for survived and children of the dead, and actually headquarters of two main Old Believers' denominations were located and archdioceses of soglasiyas emerged. They became religious and economic centres of the denominations and supported communities and businesses of other towns. Within two decades various confessional, ethic, legal, social factors brought up thousands of industrial and merchant companies shaping foundations for the Old Believers’ economic power. Moscow communities formed around plague cemeteries and hospitals of the epidemics period, remained major centres.