How does peripherality challenge methodology and theory-making? This book examines how the peripheral can be incorporated into ethnographic research, and reflects on what it means to be on the periphery—ontologically and epistemologically. Starting from the premise that clarity and fixity as ideals of modernity prevent us from approaching that which cannot be easily captured and framed into scientific boundaries, the book argues for remaining on the boundary between the known and the unknown in order to surpass this ethnographic limit. Its ethnographic case studies engage with a series of empirical and theoretical issues, including: What is at the centre and what is at the periphery of what we do? How can we represent what lies beneath the threshold of verbal reasoning, or does not respond to the criteria for widely recognised forms of knowledge? Does learning entail unlearning? Peripheral Methodologies shows that peripherality is not only to be seen as a marginal condition, but rather as a form of theory-making and practice that incorporates reflexivity and experimentation.

This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. 

The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands. 

The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions. 

Like all empires, the Soviet Empire was also based on the distinction centre–periphery. Although the Soviet Empire no longer exists, relationships between centres and peripheries still shape realities in the region. The book analyses the relevance of this distinction for the understanding of political, economic, and cultural realities in the post-Soviet space. Case studies provided by scholars from different countries of the former Soviet Union explore the potential of the distinction in historical as well as in economic and political perspectives.

 

A collection of essays written in 2012-2019 on the evolution of Putin's regime in Russia in the perspective of Russian history, society and political culture. 

This book explores Russia’s efforts towards both adapting to and shaping a world in transformation. Russia has been largely marginalized in the post-Cold War era and has struggled to find its place in the world, which means that the chaotic changes in the world present Russia with both threats and opportunities. The rapid shift in the international distribution of power and emergence of a multipolar world disrupts the existing order, although it also enables Russia to diversify it partnerships and restore balance. Adapting to these changes involves restructuring its economy and evolving the foreign policy. The crises in liberalism, environmental degradation, and challenge to state sovereignty undermine political and economic stability while also widening Russia’s room for diplomatic maneuvering. This book analyzes how Russia interprets these developments and its ability to implement the appropriate responses. 

This book addresses the challenges and opportunities of contemporary and future development of Eurasia. The main theme of the first part of the book is examining the reaction evoked in different countries by the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative.” The second part analyses other national and international integration and infrastructure projects in Eurasia. This unique publication brings together in one volume works by leading researchers from different countries, all united by their common interest in the political and economic processes unfolding in the Eurasian continent. By offering various points of view from experts from all over the world, this book provides a multi-dimensional analysis of the Eurasian future and will be of value to a wide range of readers, including scholars, publicists, the international business community and decision-makers.

The book focuses most of all on women's and partly on men's agency, to discuss variant ways in which women and men actively use their scopes of action - through political activism, protest, movements, in the military. The book is aiming to dicuss variant perspectives on these issues in different contexts witin Eastern Europe.  How do these in change affect conservative societies and the concepts of masculinity?

The volume is structured in four parts:

I) Floating concepts of Femininities and Masculinities

    (essentially this is a discussion on the role of feminism in the transformation period in Eastern Europe)

II) Political Activism

    (this part deals with political participation of women - also within conservative parties - and of variant forms of protest)

III) Nationalism and Militarization of societies

 (also papers on violence)

IV) Social Roles and Concepts of Women and Men

Provides an overview of the developments and advances in the field of network clustering and blockmodeling over the last 10 years

This book offers an integrated treatment of network clustering and blockmodeling, covering all of the newest approaches and methods that have been developed over the last decade. Presented in a comprehensive manner, it offers the foundations for understanding network structures and processes, and features a wide variety of new techniques addressing issues that occur during the partitioning of networks across multiple disciplines such as community detection, blockmodeling of valued networks, role assignment, and stochastic blockmodeling.

Written by a team of international experts in the field, Advances in Network Clustering and Blockmodeling offers a plethora of diverse perspectives covering topics such as: bibliometric analyses of the network clustering literature; clustering approaches to networks; label propagation for clustering; and treating missing network data before partitioning. It also examines the partitioning of signed networks, multimode networks, and linked networks. A chapter on structured networks and coarsegrained descriptions is presented, along with another on scientific coauthorship networks. The book finishes with a section covering conclusions and directions for future work. In addition, the editors provide numerous tables, figures, case studies, examples, datasets, and more.

Offers a clear and insightful look at the state of the art in network clustering and blockmodeling Provides an excellent mix of mathematical rigor and practical application in a comprehensive manner Presents a suite of new methods, procedures, algorithms for partitioning networks, as well as new techniques for visualizing matrix arrays Features numerous examples throughout, enabling readers to gain a better understanding of research methods and to conduct their own research effectively Written by leading contributors in the field of spatial networks analysis

Advances in Network Clustering and Blockmodeling is an ideal book for graduate and undergraduate students taking courses on network analysis or working with networks using real data. It will also benefit researchers and practitioners interested in network analysis.

Working Title: From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Liability

Subtitle: A Socio-Legal Study of Corporate Liability in Global Value Chains

Series: N/A 

 

This book discusses international migration in the newly independent states after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which involved millions of people. Written by authors from 15 countries, it summarizes the population movement over the post-Soviet territories, both within the newly independent states and in other countries over the past 25 years. It focuses on the volume of migration flows, the number and socio-demographic characteristics of migrants, migration factors and the situation of migrants in receiving countries. The authors, who include demographers, economists, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists, used various methods and sources of information, such as censuses, administrative statistics, the results of mass sample surveys and in-depth interviews. This heterogeneity highlights the multifaceted nature of the topic of migration movements.

The title of the book refers to the sociological survey, conducted by the "Public opinion" Fund in 2000. It is focused on the representation of Internet as a complex phenomenon in modern Russia. First, the Internet is considered as part of the media system that not only rapidly developing, but also significantly transforming the system as a whole. Second, it contains the analysis of main online markets in Russia. Thirdly, the Internet is analyzed in political, social and cultural contexts.

The paper provides findings of the research work and scientific discussions under the “Global Sustainability Strategy Forum” (GSSF) that aims to develop evidence-informed judgments on challenges and solutions. It views attaining sustainability as a set of closely-coupled societal and environmental challenges and opportunities that require integration of multiple disciplines, new research methods, and new knowledge sources with sensitivity to regional and cultural diversities. The project is designed to produce innovative insights and strategies to support effective governance of transitions to sustainability of our complex global social-ecological system within its inherent resource limitations, and to develop sustainable lifestyles that are practical and appealing in the different regions and cultures of the world. 

Language policy and usage in the post-communist region have continually attracted wide political, media, and expert attention since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. How are these issues politicized in contemporary Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine? This study presents a cross-cultural qualitative and quantitative analysis of publications in leading Russian-language blogs and news websites of these three post-Soviet states during the period of 2004–2017. The most notable difference observed between Ukraine and the two Baltic countries is that many Russian-writing users in Ukraine’s internet tend to support the position that the state language, i.e. Ukrainian, is discriminated against and needs special protection by the state, whereas the majority of the Russian-speaking commentators on selected Estonian and Latvian news websites advocate for introducing Russian as a second state language. Despite attempts of Ukraine’s government to Ukrainize public space, the position of Ukrainian is still perceived, even by many Russian-writing commentators and bloggers, as being ‘precarious’ and ‘vulnerable’. This became especially visible in debates after the Revolution of Dignity, when the number of supporters of the introduction of Russian as second state language significantly decreased. In the Russian-language sector of Estonian and Latvian news websites and blogs, in contrast, the majority of online users continually reproduce the image of ‘victims’ of nation-building. They often claim that their political, as well as economic rights, are significantly limited in comparison to ethnic Estonians and Latvians. The results of Maksimovtsova’s research illustrate that, notwithstanding differences between the Estonian as well as Latvian cases, on the one hand, and Ukraine, on the other, there is an ongoing process of convergence of debates in Ukraine to those held in the other two countries analyzed in terms of an increased degree of ‘discursive decommunization’ and ‘derussification’.

In America today, two communities with sub-Saharan African genetic origins exist side by side, though they have differing histories and positions within society. This book explores the relationship between African Americans, descendants of those Africans brought to America as slaves, and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who have come to the United States of America voluntarily, mainly since the 1990s. Members of these groups have both a great deal in common and much that separates them, largely hidden in their assumptions about, and attitudes towards, each other. In a work grounded in extensive fieldwork Bondarenko and his research team interviewed African Americans, and migrants from twenty-three African States and five Caribbean nations, as well as non-black Americans involved with African Americans and African migrants. Seeking a wide range of perspectives, from different ages, classes and levels of education, they explored the historically rooted mutual images of African Americans and contemporary African migrants, so as to understand how these images influence the relationship between them. In particular, they examined conceptions of ‘black history’ as a common history of all people and nations with roots in Africa. What emerges is a complex picture. While collective historical memory of oppression forges solidarity, lack of knowledge of each other’s history can create distance between communities. African migrants tend to define their identities not by race, but on the basis of multiple layers of national, ethnic, religious and linguistic affinities (of which African Americans are often unaware). For African Americans, however, although national and regional identities are important, it is above all race that is the defining factor. While drawing on wider themes from anthropology and African studies, this in-depth study on a little-researched subject allows valuable new understandings of contemporary American society.

Contributors to this volume discuss a variety of ways the African past (African history) influences the present-day of Africans on the continent and in diaspora: cultural (historical) memory as a factor of public (mass) consciousness; the impact of the historical past on contemporary political, social, and cultural processes in Africa and African diaspora.

This volume is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).

Acculturation is the process of group and individual changes in culture and behaviour that result from intercultural contact. These changes have been taking place forever, and continue at an increasing pace as more and more peoples of different cultures move, meet and interact. Variations in the meanings of the concept, and some systematic conceptualisations of it are presented. This is followed by a survey of empirical work with indigenous, immigrant and ethnocultural peoples around the globe that employed both ethnographic (qualitative) and psychological (quantitative) methods. This wide-ranging research has been undertaken in a quest for possible general principles (or universals) of acculturation. This Element concludes with a short evaluation of the field of acculturation; its past, present and future

This book is based on the collection of articles centered around Russia and its policies. The articles are grouped under three parts. The first part contains articles on international relations, Russian foreign policy, and the situation in the world. The main themes they cover include Russian policy in Asia and the Eurasian integration — in which Moscow plays the most active role.

The second part looks at the theorization of Russia’s internal processes, issues concerning reforms to the communist system, its troubled transition from Communism, and analysis of the country’s current political regime. While elaborating on various reforms and transition from the communist system, the author has suggested certain alternatives concepts. Many of the articles analyze the shortcomings and inconsistencies of the modern Russian political system.

The third part is devoted to current issues in Russian politics, the democratization process, growing authoritarian tendencies, mass protests, and that evaluate the programs and policies of individual leaders. The book will be of interest to those specializing in Russian foreign and domestic policy as well as to all those interested in following the developments of this country, its role in the world, and the global situation in general.

A number of recent events in the last decade have renewed interest in Russian discourses on international law. This book evaluates and presents a contemporary analysis of Russian discourses on international law from various perspectives, including sociological, theoretical, political and philosophical. The aim is to identify how Russian interacts with international law, the reasons behind such interactions, and how such interactions compare with the general practice of international law. It also examines whether legal culture and other phenomena can justify Russia's interaction in international law. Russian Discourses on International Law explains Russia's interpretation of international law thrugh the lens of both leading western scholars and contemporary western-based Russian scholars. It will be of value to international law scholars looking for a better understanding of Russia's behaviour in international legal relations, law and society, foreign policy, and domestic application of international law. Further, those in fields such as sociology, politics, pholosophy, or general graduate students, lawyers, think tanks, government departments, and specialised Russian studies programmes will find this book helpful.

Do states manage to build education systems that produce students with political values they uphold? We test the indoctrination hypothesis using World Value Survey data spanning 96 countries. We devise an empirical strategy that can identify the effects of education on political values by using information about the political regime under which individuals live, and regimes under which they got educated. Our results suggest that state indoctrination is at work. For example, we find that higher education increases voting behavior by at least 45 percent more for cohorts that have studied in a democratic rather than an autocratic country.

By addressing social issues, rather than maximizing profits, social enterprises are said to contribute to the well-being of societies. In this paper, we test whether social enterprises fulfil this expectation. The paper applies regression analysis to a unique dataset obtained by merging survey data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor with official statistics on social enterprises in Luxembourg. Results suggest that social enterprises contribute to subjective well-being, which is an encompassing measure of people’s satisfaction with their own life. We find that when the share of social enterprises in a city increases, the ill-being of poor and unemployed people declines. Therefore, policy makers who seek to increase the well-being of economically disadvantaged people could adopt policies to promote the creation of social enterprises.

The paper describes the case of the European entrepreneurship summer school (EESS) supported by a consortium of universities from different countries. The paper develops a set of theoretical propositions and practical recommendations for creating a learning community and space around a summer school activity in the context of a larger ecosystem encouraging students to choose a career in the respective area. The core elements building the innovativeness of the concept of this educational initiative are analyzed. First, it is the complementarity of expertise which shapes a teachers’ learning community’. Second, it is the active involvement of students achieved through preselection of motivated participants, coaching, and an individual and group work. Third, it is a creation of a safety feeling among participants to increase the mutual trust and intensive interactions among students. Forth, it is the co-opetition among students collaborating but also competing with the group-project presentations. Fifth, it is the pre-school preparation of students to achieve a minimal level of common knowledge of related concepts and techniques. The limitations of the EESS model are: (1) the international team of teachers, (2) the geographical dispersion which negatively contributes to the students’ pre-school learning community, (3) the volunteering activity of the organizers and teaching staff, which is limited by their main workload, (4) the financial model which does not allow to become sustainable without a support of the participating universities.

Soon after the collapse of Soviet-type communism in Central and Eastern Europe, a new geopolitical division began to reshape the continent. Our study demonstrates that this newly emerging geopolitical divide has been underpinned by a corresponding cultural divergence, of which “emancipative values” are the most powerful marker. Using the European Values Study/World Values Survey 1990 to 2014, we find that the former Iron Curtain no longer constitutes a cultural boundary because the ex-communist states that joined the European Union have been converging with the West’s strong emphasis on emancipative values. Instead, a new and steeply growing cultural gap has emerged between the European Union and its Eastern neighbors. The two competing geopolitical formations in the West and East—the European and Eurasian Unions, respectively—have diverged culturally in recent decades. The divergence goes back to contrasting supranational identities that originate in different religious traditions, which rulers have increasingly accentuated to strengthen their nations’ endorsement or dismissal of emancipative values. Through this sorting-out process, emancipative values became an increasingly significant marker of a Western-vs-Eastern cultural identity. Our study is the first to link this groundbreaking cultural transformation to civilizational identities and geopolitical rivalry.

The evolution of social institutions, particularly of rites of passage, is a gradual process in West Africa, drawing on a centuries-long body of tradition, and influenced by various cultural, economic and political factors. Today, gathering piece-by-piece the oral tradition of the history of the rites of passage of a small ethnic group in eastern Ghana, one can find many examples of how these practices are adaptive by their very nature (Baiburin 1993). The structure of the rite has been shaped by various external factors and historical process. The attempt to explain such rites by saying simply that ‘the ancestors did it this way’ is insufficient. Rather, a regularized socialization practice, in this case rites of passage, shares its functions with a number of other socialization practices, while it continues to evolve.

Today the Western world seems to be witnessing the approach of a new totalitarian all-embracing theory that warrants the analysis of any social and historical phenomenon strictly from a “racial” (or anti-racist) point of view. Accusations of racism have been extending from public life not only to individual branches of knowledge, but also to science as a whole. These trends provide some insight into how international relations theory will evolve in the United States and Europe. The ideology of universal racism essentially consolidates American centrism by extrapolating the local American and partially Western European problem of racism to the entire world history, inflating it to the extent where it turns into the main, dominant factor of social development. Relying on its own tradition and inherent international nature, the Russian scientific school, together with 182 RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS The Theory of Universal Racism non-Western modern and traditional approaches, can play a leading role in the criticism of this new American centrism and reverse racism, while maintaining objectivity and normality in international relations studies.

Purpose – Video games are considered as a leisure activity that makes being unemployed more attractive than before. In this study, the authors use eSports prizes as a proxy for the popularity of video games to analyze its influence on total and youth unemployment. Design/methodology/approach – The authors develop a theoretical model and empirically test it using the total prize money won by representatives of a country in a given season in eSports tournaments, via a panel regression model with the country-year as a unit of observation. The data set includes information about 191 countries between 2000 and 2015. Findings – The authors’ results of regression analysis show a positive influence of the popularity of video games on the unemployment rate. In addition, the authors analyze this effect for countries with different levels of income and labor productivity. The authors found a significant inverse relationship between income level and the effect of the popularity of video games on total and youth unemployment. Originality/value – While previous studies rely mostly on self-reported data, the authors suggest a new approach to measure video game popularity. This paper contributes to existing knowledge with empirical evidence on how leisure activities affect unemployment at the country level.  

This article examines agenda-setting theory. I compare the results of Levada Center surveys on the most memorable issues of the month with the number of publications on those issues in the Russian press from 2014 to 2016. In total, 884 issues are analyzed in the article. The results of the study confirm the impact of discussions in the media on people’s attention to an issue. The results also show that the discussions in the media one week before the date of polling are more important than the issues covered over the entire month. People better remember those issues that took place shortly before the polling, as well as those issues with intensifying discussions during the period. It is also important to note the role of regional publications in the sensitization of the public to various issues. Issues covered by national newspapers and news agencies but ignored by the regional press are significantly less remembered by the population.

Lacking state-imposed quarantines, we’ve been abandoned to personal choices. Advising us to save ourselves and our neighbors by staying home, our governments struggle to keep the wrong doubts from going viral. The Russian state, in particular, has announced crackdowns on fake news: citing the danger of Covid-19, new laws harshly penalize the “spread of false information.” But accusations of falsity are as bottomless as the hoaxes they try to contain. States accuse each other of spreading disinformation, and scholars show that these accusations are themselves often false, that “an EU-funded body set up to fight disinformation ends up producing it.” The falsity of such accusations of falsity gives fodder for new accusations. And thus the battle against an infectious pandemic becomes overshadowed by the battle for faith, against doubt. In this “infodemic,” America’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urges citizens to do these “three easy things: Don’t believe the rumors; Don’t pass them along; Go to trusted sources of information to get the facts about the federal (COVID-19) response.”

Can a state agency order citizens (not) to believe?

Vecchione et al. (2015) demonstrated effects of four higher-order values on political participation across 20 European countries. In their Study 1, they found that political participation was related positively to self-transcendence and openness to change values while negatively to conservation and ambiguously to self-enhancement values. Moreover, these effects were stronger in more democratic countries. The current study attempted a replication of the Vecchione et al.’s Study 1 using more rigorous modeling approach. The multilevel structural equation models with latent variables for both participation and basic values replicated the main effects of self-transcendence and conservation values but demonstrated a negative effect of openness values (vs positive in the original study), a positive effect of self-enhancement values (vs ambiguous or insignificant in the original study), and counter-intuitive cross-level interactions pointing to a lower effects of values in more democratic countries (vs the opposite in the original study). Overall model fit and explanatory power was much larger in the models with less assumptions. These discrepancies resulted mostly due to the original study’s implicit assumption that basic values’ measurement errors were zero. The new results have an important substantive contribution as they indicate a counter-intuitive similarity of effects of the supposedly opposite values. I suggest that self-transcendence – self-enhancement is a politically activating value dimension, whereas openness to change – conservation is a dimension that discourages political participation regardless of a preferred extreme.

Background. Reporting of daily hospital COVID-19 deaths in the UK are promoted by the government and scientific advisers alike as a key metric for assessing the progress in the control of the epidemic. These data, however, have certain limitations, among which one of the most significant concerns the fact that the daily totals span deaths that have occurred between 1 and 10 days or more in the past. Data and methods. We obtained daily data published published by NHS England up to and including April 25 in the form of Excel spreadsheets in which deaths counts are presented by date of death according to age and region. Simple descriptive analyses were conducted and presented in graphical and tabular form which were aimed at illustrating the biases inherent in focussing on daily counts regardless of when the deaths occurred. We then looked at how a less biased picture could be obtained by looking at trends in death counts stratifying by an individual period of delay in days between occurrence of death and when the death was included in the daily announcement. Findings. The number of hospital COVID-19 deaths announced daily overestimates the maximum number of deaths actually occurring so far in the epidemic in the UK, and also obscures the pattern of decline in deaths. Taking account of reporting delays suggests that for England as a whole a peak in hospital COVID-19 deaths may have been reached on April 8 with a subsequent gradual decline suggested. The same peak is also seen among those aged 60-79 and 80+, although there is slightly shallower decline in the oldest age group (80+ years). Among those aged 40-59 years a later peak on April 11 is evident. London shows a peak on April 8 and a clearer and steeper pattern of subsequent decline compared to England as a whole. Interpretation. Analyses of mortality trends must take account of delay, and in communication with the public more emphasis should be placed on looking at trends based on deaths that occurred 5 or more days prior to the announcement day. The slightly weaker decline seen at age 80+ may reflect increased hospitalisation of people from care homes, whereas the later peak under the age of 60 years may reflect the higher proportions at these younger ages being admitted to critical care resulting in an extension of life of several days.

This research studies the role of culture in reproducing inequality through educational decision-making (VE) students in Russia. We show how the way they meaningfully map their options affects their decisions and outcomes. We built upon the conceptual approach of Hodkinson, specifically “horizons of action” in studying how young people are restricted by the “horizon of action” in their opportunities to see all the options available to them. We expand Hodkinson’s approach by suggesting that the “horizon of action” is a symbolic structure that renders reality as a meaningful frame of reference which is the result of meanings shaping young people’s outlook. Using this approach, we extract four complexes of meanings which we call “symbolic logics”. We investigate further how “serendipity” and “agency” are woven into young people's symbolic logics of choice. We show that students rely on a meaningful frame that allows them to be agents enacting a narrative of “bringing adulthood closer”, but they are also highly uncertain about their future and are open to serendipity which plays a large role in their trajectories.

Multilevel modeling (MLM, also known as hierarchical linear modeling, HLM) is a methodological frameworkwidely usedin the social sciences to analyze data with a hierarchical structure,where lower units of aggregation are ‘nested’ in higher units, including longitudinal data.In economics, however, MLM is usedvery rarely.Instead, economists use separate econometric techniques including cluster-robust standard errors and fixedeffects models. In this paper, we reviewthe methodological literature and contrast the econometrictechniques typically used in economics with the analysis ofhierarchical data using MLM. Ourreview suggests that economic techniques are generally lessconvenient, flexible, and efficientcompared to MLM. Theimportant limitation of MLM, however, isits inability to deal with the omitted variable problem at the lowest level of data, while standard economic techniques may be complemented by quasi-experimental methods mitigatingthis problem.It is unlikely, though, that this limitation can explain and justify the rare use of MLM in economics.Overall, we conclude that MLM has been unreasonably ignored in economics,and we encourage economists to apply this frameworkbyproviding ‘when and how’ guidelines.

This paper investigates the underlying nature of the demand for state support in Russia in the labor market and employment, social investments, and material support. Based on recent findings from social policy studies, the authors tested four different mechanisms: (a) the demographic features of the population, (b) household incomes and disposable assets including human and social capital, (c) interests, and (d) locus of control and cultural attitudes. Drawing on an all-Russian representative monitoring survey conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2018, the authors argue that the popula- tion’s demand for state support has a very complex nature. The relative effect of income has a para- doxical nature. On the one hand, the Russian data confirm the hypothesis of ‘the altruistic rich’, de- veloped in recent studies, which predicts that, in societies with high inequalities, higher incomes boost the likelihood of demand for redistributive policies. On the other hand, higher incomes foster state escapism among those Russians who do not consider the state as a reliable agent capable of solving their problems.

The paper is focused on the interrelations between citizens’ everyday mobilities and the ways they cope with urban fears. It describes situations when people expect and experience security threats that trigger their fears, while moving in the city. To deal with fears urban citizens develop coping strategies - a set of actions that helps them to manage their emotional experiences. Coping strategies transform various elements of everyday urban mobility and, thus, rearrange and redefine it. The paper is based on semi-structured interviews with Moscow residents and digital diaries of emotions.

The article analyzes how Russian students interpret and practice digital technologies of self-tracking (fitness trackers, apps and wearables), that allow to collect biometric and activity data. It is based on the results of reflective thematic analysis of students’ essays on this topic. How do students describe their experience in using self-tracking technologies? What discourses of self-tracking are represented in their essays? How do they imagine the digital future and further development of the systems of self-surveillance? The research demonstrated that many students have certain experience with quantified self-tracking, whereas some tend to limit it or refused from it for some reasons. Based on the students’ stories (former and active users), the author offers to distinguish three styles of self-tracking: ‘gamer’, ‘manager’ and ‘transformer’. A ‘gamer’ is looking for the feelings of thrill, pleasure and novelty; a ‘manager’ aims at putting one’s head and life in order; a ‘transformer’ wants to change one’s life and mind radically. In reality any self-tracker combines all three roles, though one of them might dominate. According to the students, the existing technologies of self-measuring cannot give strong enough motivation for self-optimization, but in the future their effectiveness may increase. This study also resulted in defining four types of discourse on self-tracking: ‘progressivist’, ‘pragmatic’, ‘critical’ and ‘anti-utopian’. They represent the differences in conceptualization of self-tracking as a cultural phenomenon. Some students are prone to optimistic or balanced evaluation of the potential of self-tracking technologies; others focus on risks and hazards of ‘datafication’ of people and social life. The outcomes of the study develop the previous research on styles of quantified self-tracking, providing additional analysis of the reflections of (non-)users, concerning self-tracking as a cultural phenomenon.

Mobility of highly qualified personnel between countries and regions is closely related to the issue of the effective distribution of human resources and the prospects for the innovative development of the state. The focus of this study is the interregional mobility of Russian researchers: the geographical movements of scientists between different regions (subjects of the Russian Federation). The empirical base of the study is the data obtained in 2016-2017 during the questionnaire survey of 1880 Russian researchers. Two main aspects are analyzed: already accomplished movements of researchers (moving for the educational or working purposes) and the “attitude to mobility” - readiness to move in the future. The features of researchers depending on their mobility pattern are analyzed. Among the most researchers who had the experience of moving in the past (both for education and work purposes) develops the “attitude to mobility”. In the future, they are more willing to consider various options for moving both “for interest” (to participate in an important large-scale project), and “for money” (to get the job with acceptable level of remuneration). There exists a category of Russian researchers who are ready to move “anywhere”: both abroad and within Russia, to large and to small cities. Researchers who are not ready to move to the place that they consider as a small town in a remote region, are concerned about the prospects for professional growth, difficulties for the family, a different lifestyle, change of professional and personal social circle. These aspects should be taken into account in the development of various programs and measures aimed to stimulate internal academic mobility in Russia.

Using Monte Carlo simulation experiments, this paper examines the performance of popular SEM goodness-of-fit indices, namely CFI, TLI, RMSEA, and SRMR, with respect to a specific task of measurement invariance testing with categorical data and many groups (10-50 groups). Study factors include the number of groups, the level of non-invariance in the data, and the absence/presence of model misspecifications other than non-invariance. In sum, the study design yields a total of 81 conditions. All simulated data sets are analyzed using two popular SEM estimators, MLR and WLSMV. The main contribution of this paper to the methodological literature on cross-cultural survey research is that it produces revised guidelines for evaluating the goodness of fit of invariance MGCFA models with many groups.

This paper investigates the logics of teachers’ discursive resistance to the Unified State Examinations (USE) almost two decades after its introduction into the Russian education system. By drawing upon NVivo-aided Discourse analysis of online teacher discussions, interview and focus group data, the analysis critically examines the pedagogical underpinnings of USE vis-à-vis the traditional assessment system in the teaching community in two Russian cities: Moscow and Rostov-on-Don. Drawing on the concept of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ the analysis shows how, when interpreted through the lens of grassroots pedagogical values, the semantics of the globalized concepts of ‘educational standardization’ and ‘standardized testing’ takes on domestic culturally-specific meanings complementary and, at times, contradictory to the intended ones. In Russia specifically, the notion of ‘standardization’ comes into conflict with the pedagogical idea of a creative personalized and, therefore, profoundly ‘non-standard’ education, while academic assessment continues to be perceived as the non-quantifiable and subjective outcome of teacher-pupil interaction over time. The analysis underscores the interpretative and symbolic dimensions of educational policy and calls for more nuanced efforts to culturally tailor and translate borrowed educational meanings on the part of educational elites.

Background and Aim Occasionally, there is a need to split aggregated fertility data into a fine grid of ages. For this purpose, several disaggregation methods have been developed. Yet these methods have some limitations. We seek to identify a method that satisfies the following criteria: 1) shape – the estimated fertility curves should be plausible and smooth; 2) fit – the predicted values should closely trace the observed values; 3) non-negativity – only positive values should be returned; 4) balance – the estimated five-year age group totals should match the input data; and in case of birth order data 5) parity – the balance by parity has to be maintained. To our knowledge, none of the existing methods fully meets the first four criteria. Moreover, no attempt has been made to extend the restrictions to criterion (5). To address the disadvantages of the existing methods, we introduce two alternative approaches for splitting abridged fertility data: namely, the quadratic optimization (QO) method and the neural network (NN) method. Data and Methods We mainly rely on high-quality fertility data from the Human Fertility Database (HFD), Additionally, we use a large and heterogeneous dataset from the Human Fertility Collection (HFC). The performance of the proposed methods is evaluated both visually (by examining of the obtained fertility schedules), and statistically using several metrics of fit. The QO and NN methods are tested against the current HFD splitting protocol (HFD method) and the calibrated spline (CS) method. Results The results of thorough testing suggest that both methods perform well. The main advantage – and a distinguishing feature – of the QO approach is that it meets all of the requirements listed above. However, it does not provide a fit as good as that of the NN and CS methods. In addition, when it is applied to birth order data, it can sometimes produce implausible shapes for parity 1. To account for such cases, we have developed individual solutions, which can easily be adapted to account for other cases that might occur. While the NN method does not satisfy the balance and parity criteria, it returns better results in terms of fit than the other methods. Conclusions The QO method satisfies the needs of large databases such as the HFD and the HFC. While this method has very strict requirements, it returns plausible fertility estimates regardless of the nature of the input data. The NN method appears to be a suitable alternative for use in individual cases in which the priority is given to the fit criterion.

The article analyses representation of LGBT-movement activity, namely Saint Petersburg LGBT prides, in Russia. Framing theory, which views the media as an arena in which groups of interest promote their frames, or interpretations of the discussed issue, is used. Frames juxtapose elements of the text in such a way as to provide the audience with a scheme to perceive the message. Social movements are viewed as a group of interest that introduces new frames in the public deliberation. Two types of frames can be distinguished, namely collective action frames and status quo frames. In this study, usage of two collective action frames were examined (equality frame and victim frame), and two status quo frames (morality frame and propaganda of homosexuality). Additionally, the sources of quotes used in news stories were analyzed. The study focuses on articles dedicated to Saint Petersburg LGBT prides in years 2010-2017 in the most popular local Internet websites. The analysis shows that the coverage of LGBT prides can be divided into two distinct periods: 2010–2013 and 2014–2017. In the first period, LGBT activists dominated the coverage, quoted about twice more actively than government officials. Equality and victim frames were prevalent. In the second period, activists were cited significantly less often, with the propaganda of homosexuality frame dominating in the discourse. However, contrary to findings of previous studies on social movement representation, across the whole period under consideration LGBT activists were quoted more actively than government representatives. This finding calls for further exploration of the conditions which allowed for such coverage in the context of political heterosexism and homophobia.

The study analyzes the construction of the network links of Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny with various issues of Russian public discussion in the national print media. The theoretical framework is issue ownership theory, according to which political actors have a range of issues that are most strongly associated with them. Ownership by the politician of topics that are perceived as important in the society determines his popularity among the population. In this study, we use the Integrum database, which contains extensive print media archives of approximately 500 Russian magazines and more than 250 national newspapers. We analyze the period from 12.12.2016 to 12.12.2017, i.е., one year after Alexey Navalny's announcement of his intention to participate in the presidential election in 2018. The analysis shows that Putin has more opportunities to form an agenda, as he attracts much more attention from national media than Navalny does. Putin is often mentioned in connection with economic issues and international relations, which attract the attention of the population and are perceived as important, while his activity in these spheres is perceived as successful. Navalny is associated with the issues of corruption, NGOs and civic activism. Corruption is an important topic for Russians, but the low attention of the media to Navalny does not allow him to gain the maximum benefit from owning this story.

The availability of alternative information via online news sources is often said to induce social discontent, especially in states, where traditional media are under state control. But does this relation really exist, and is it universal? In contrast to previous studies, where generalized Internet use is treated as a proxy for online news consumption and general political participation is a proxy for protest participation, we render a test of relationship specifically between online news and protest participation. We explore survey data from WVS for 48 nations in 2010-2014. The analysis provides evidence that the likelihood of individual protest participation is positively associated with online news consumption. The study also shows that the magnitude of the effect varies depending upon the political context: surprisingly, despite supposedly unlimited control offline as well as online media, autocratic countries demonstrated higher effects of online news than transitional regimes, where the Internet media are relatively uninhibited.  

This article discusses the phenomenon of recent decades associated with the redevelopment of former industrial areas and factory districts. These areas previously had a homogeneous environment in which residents construct a local solidarity, but now functions and image of industrial districts are changing. Transformations of former industrial spaces is analyzed on example of two Moscow neighborhoods. The author’s research based on case study includes interviews with residents and developers, observations, analysis of media discussion and online communities, and secondary data analysis. Relying on concepts of social differentiation and social identity, the author considers former industrial neighborhood in terms of housing statuses, visual representations, senses and subjective perception.Redevelopment accentuates the differences between the “old” residents of industrial neighborhoods who live in the former factory buildings, and the “new” residents who buy dwelling in new buildings constructed on the former factory spaces or in nearby areas. These differences related with spatial representations and helps to build a model of socio-cultural and territorial dynamics of the industrial areas. The research shows that the formation of a new territorial identity occurs in conditions of social and housing inequality.