One of the acute issues of contemporary Russian reality is understanding the youth and their ambivalent attitude to work. Based on a series of empirical studies examining Russian university students` work values, the author concludes that the main dilemma of future professionals lies in the choice between personally beneficial (presumably highly paid and prestigious) and socially significant labour market positions (not always rewarded with status and money). Developing the theory of embeddedness in networks and institutions, the author derives and substantiates a conceptual apparatus for describing the mechanism of choice formation in favour of one of these two approaches to work. The following concepts are introduced to scientific discourse: (1) agents supporting market orientation towards work (influence of parasocial connections and psychological legitimation of individualistic work values); (2) anchors that form values oriented at social utility (rootedness in family and professional communities, strong-weak ties and models of virtue as the basis for collectivistic work values` formation); (3) the perception of institutional problems as symbolic and positional, hindering or implying the active participation of young people in their professional activities. The proposed concepts draw on classical sociological sources (G. Simmel, E. Durkheim, M. Weber, M.Scheler, K. Polanyi), as well as contemporary approaches in economic sociology (network, sociocultural, and institutional). The author emphasizes the social determinacy of young people’s choice of future career path, which stems from the nature of their relationships with the others and institutions, which shapes their ways of perceiving the existing structural conditions as limiting or motivating to act.
This article examines Martin Greiffenhagen's concept of "technocratic conservatism." It provides an overview of the key tenets of the social theory held by its proponents and outlines the role of Carl Schmitt, as well as the specific ways his ideas were appropriated by conservative intellectuals in the 1960s. The central focus of the analysis is Rudiger Altman's "formierte Gesellschaft"("formed society") project, which addresses the crisis of political representation and the problem of political decision-making within a technocratic ("conservative-technocratic") order. The article investigates Altman's attempt at a "Schmittian" resolution for this crisis. Conceding the impossibility of reviving a "genuinely political" state under 1960s conditions, Altman nevertheless insisted on the persistence of a domain for sovereign governmental action. He sought its foundation in the objective constraints (Sachzwang) of industrial-technocratic society itself, seeking through it to justify a Schmittian model for legitimizing sovereign political decision-making via the category of authority. Altman's proposed synthesis was thus intended to resolve the fundamental crisis of the "technocratic conservative" order, which was being challenged by a resurgent left-wing political activism. The present research is part of a series of publications examining the history as well as philosophical and political foundations of German post-war conservatism and the German
The article analyses the content of the recently emerged research direction of human-machine communication (HMC) as a new thematic area of interdisciplinary communication studies. We evaluate the contribution made by researchers united by the Human-Machine Communication (HMC) journal project to understanding the process of formation of a new configuration of communication space. All articles published throughout the entire period of the journal's existence from 2020 to 2025, comprising 11 volumes and 95 articles, were analysed. A conclusion was reached regarding the emergence of a new thematic area, formed in the interdisciplinary field at the intersection of the sociology of technology, social communication studies, and artificial intelligence technologies, and aimed at studying the interaction of human and nonhuman agents. As a result of the HMC project, the study of human-machine communication has evolved into several thematic areas: the specifics of communication between heterogeneous communicants; human perception of machines as agents of communication; ethical aspects of communication; manifestations of gender and status; usage of emotions; the problem of trust to devices; emergence of autonomy and agency. The contribution made by the HMC direction includes the substantiation in the latest publications of the need to transition to the & laquo;Act - Mean - Relate & raquo; paradigm as a new perspective on the ontological factor in shaping the communication configuration of heterogeneous agents.
Book review: Chan A.S. (2025) Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, Oakland: University of California Press. — 262 p. ISBN 978-0520402843
Review of the book: Simms B. (2023) Die Rückkehr des Großraums? Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. — (Carl-Schmitt-Vorlesungen, Band 6). ISBN: 978-3-428-19022-5
The political is intimately bound to death. It is precisely in the horizon of death that the primary need for politics arises, and all the variations of the ways of satisfying this need, from the ancient to the contemporary, may be considered within the same horizon. In particular, there is the question of immortality — not literal physical immortality, but symbolic, attainable or at least approximable by political means. Sociologically, it is less important whether the matter concerns otherworldly salvation, this-worldly salvation, or hybrids thereof. In any case, some form of political soteriology is constructed that, in one way or another, relates domination and salvation. The modern state is a specific form of domination that, in the course of its emergence, increasingly claims to be, if not the sole, then the principal operator of salvation goods and provider of immortality, displacing and ousting competitors through the appropriation and modification of their practices (above all church practices). Of all the Weberian types of legitimate domination, the charismatic type is most closely linked to the themes of death and immortality. It is salvation — deliverance from all manner of sufferings and calamities, and ultimately eternal life— that the charismatic leader promises to his followers. Although in the second half of the twentieth century the understandings of political charisma and of salvation underwent significant transformations in comparison with the original Weberian formulations, their linkage has, so far, persisted. A temporary, purpose-limited shift into theological discourse allows one to discern a non-obvious window of opportunity for continuing the history of political charisma. At present, political charisma is more readily coupled with political programs and orders oriented toward the production of political evil than with those oriented toward the production of political good (it is precisely theological discourse that allows one to operationalize the notions of good and evil — and, in fact, it alone does). Accordingly, salvation is more easily conceived as the alternative salvation known from that same theological discourse — not in eternal life, but in eternal death, achieved through violence and unfreedom and consisting in them. For the first time, political charisma per se was declared suspect in the second and third quarters of the twentieth century. This was followed by its partial, selective rehabilitation. Now the a priori suspicion has again become warranted — and, arguably, on firmer grounds than before.
The revolutionary process in the 21st century has undergone significant changes, and with the decay of democracy and the transformation of the world order, the number of revolutionary episodes with new goals and tactics has only increased. Across the Global South, with the population growth, millions of people began to take part in revolutionary protests, and in the Middle East and the Sahel, the rise of radical Islam led to the emergence of bloody Islamist armed insurgencies. Existing data sources focus on longer historical periods, which complicates the analysis of current processes, and have a number of shortcomings, such as the “streetlight effect,” i.e. the omission of cases that can distort the effects associated with the data. Therefore, we present our own database describing successful and failed revolutionary events from 2000 to 2024 with their unique characteristics, such as goals, tactics, number of participants, the roles of the military, other states and ethnic minorities. The article describes all the presented variables, their operationalization and the data collection process with examples, as well as the methods used to minimize such problems as selection bias and description bias. Empirical tests of conventional factors of the emergence, success and outcomes of revolutions are conducted as well, depicting the compliance of the results with the theory of revolutions. As a result, the database expands the opportunities of the research of revolutions, which are integral elements of the changing international order and the reconfiguration of the World System.
The article presents the results of a study that aimed to test some sociological assumptions at the macro level, via analysing micro-processes of social action. Namely, we have tested the predictions of Cultural Evolution Theory (CET) regarding the role of cultural and social capital in the materialisation of social behaviours. CET postulates the impact of two factors on action: the level of development of these capitals and the prevailing source of their origin, which can be either environmental or social. These factors determine the way individuals act: either by adhering to established cultural standards that govern our behaviour or by creating a tailored personal strategy. These represent a social mechanism enabling a dialectic process of cultural conservation and evolution. Our Actions Escalation Structural Theory (EAST) provides theoretical and empirical instruments to differentiate between these forms of behaviour as “prescribed” vs. “deliberate” actions. The research was conducted in the form of a mass poll and revealed a consistent correlation between the cultural and social characteristics of particular groups and the proportions of their “prescribed” and “deliberate” actions. We consider this to be a theoretical contribution to CET discussions. Some methodological output was demonstrated through the creation of a CET-EAST hybrid model, which has proven to be effective as an analytical instrument to test the assumptions of both theories. Certain specific observations regarding the operation of the EAST instruments were also recorded.
This article presents a reconstruction of the evolution of theoretical approaches to the city as a space of social interactions and everyday practices. Based on the analysis of relevant Russian and international studies, the author shows a consistent shift in the research “optics”: first in the general direction of the “spatial turn,” then to the analytical focus on places and everyday life, and finally to a multidimensional “reading” of urban space in the context of the “return of the material” in spatial theories. The identified stages in the shift in dominant conceptualizations of urban space are reflected in the article’s structure: from the premise of studying the city as a space of interactions the argument shifts to an interpretation of the city as a dynamic space, then as a set of sites of everyday practices or a multidimensional space, and finally as a spatial network. The author argues that the key conceptual difficulties of the sociological analysis of the city as space remain: multiplicity of “statuses” of space (as a context, a product, and a condition of interactions), difficulty in coordinating micro- and macro-levels of analysis, and the fluid boundary between the concepts of “space” and “place.” Thus, the choice of research “optics” determines the range of acceptable questions, the specificity of the categorical apparatus, and the type of conclusions: an emphasis on the social organization of the city increases the risk of spatial determinism, while a focus on everyday practices — the risk of reducing space to the subjective meanings of actors operating within it. The author concludes that sociology should interpret the city as a multidimensional, historically and situationally reassemblable configuration of places and connections, in which social relations simultaneously materialize and transform. This interpretation clarifies the theoretical-methodological framework of the analysis and suggests directions for further research: relationship between the “statuses” of “space” and “place,” coordination of levels of analysis, and justified inclusion of the material in the sociological description of the city.
The article offers a deconstructive reading of Schmitt's concept of the political, formulated within the framework of the Western metaphysical tradition, which focuses on the representation of being as presence. As a fundamental metaphysical abstraction, the concept of presence implies a serious attitude towards the possibility of grasping and maintaining the truth of being, thereby disqualifying and marginalizing the playful as unserious and inauthentic. In Schmitt's teaching, the political is assigned the role of centring the social existence as presence, which is revealed through the & laquo;friend/enemy & raquo; relationship and war as the highest degree of intensity of this relationship. In this light, the political can be seen as the rooting of human coexistence in the truth of being. According to Schmitt, the mortal threat contained in the existential confrontation elevates human life to the level of seriousness and authenticity, far beyond anything that can be described as a game. Schmitt's attempts to separate the seriousness of the political from the playful, the genuine war from the game of war, and the actual bloodshed between warring parties from the agonistic confrontation, are shown to be completely unsuccessful, which casts doubt on the scientific and philosophical respectability of his concept of the political. The article argues that Schmitt's blindness to the fact that play is the name, essence, content, and destiny of human reality is inherited from the presuppositions of Western metaphysics.
The article examines the transformation of the “Russian Golgotha” from a metaphor into a religious political myth and its role in institutionalizing the Russian Orthodox Church as a central mnemonic actor. Through the lens of cultural sociology, the study traces this evolution from 1918 through the so-called “Great Terror,” highlighting how the late Soviet infusion of soteriological meaning into Russian emigration narratives sacralised the trauma of repression. This myth first unified the Orthodox community and later shaped broader commemorative practices. Its institutionalisation occurred within a commemorative field formed at the intersection of religious and political institutional orders. The church secured symbolic dominance in this field through two key processes: 1) active interpretive work to highlight the role of Orthodoxy as the foundational pillar of Russian statehood, and 2) pragmatic myth-making that established “sites of memory” dedicated to the victims of the “Great Terror.” Thus, tracing the evolution of the “Russian Golgotha” mythic narrative reveals the contours of contemporary Russia’s memory politics and clarifies the Church’s institutional role within it.
This paper examines the transformation of medical expertise in Russia through the active involvement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in professional and everyday social interactions. Applying their concept of artificial sociality, the authors classify medical technologies into four groups: ‘AI for doctors’, ‘AI for patients’, ‘Internet for doctors’, and ‘Internet for patients’. Through primary and secondary empirical data, including interviews with doctors, practitioner surveys, and content analysis of academic papers, the authors explore how these technologies are utilized and impact medical expertise in Russia. The authors develop two hypotheses concerning changes in modern medical expertise: 1) The professional medical monopoly is losing its power because of straightforward access for the public to medical information online and AI instruments’ assistance; 2) there is a hybridization of various types of expertise. What are the primary scholarly outcomes of the paper? First, comparative study results refute the first hypothesis. Second, only the fourth type of technology, ‘Internet for patients’ (online search engines), calls into question the professional monopoly on medical expertise. Meanwhile, the second hypothesis is confirmed: many actors beyond the medical community produce medical claims, including pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, AI developers, medical associations, and others. In conclusion, the authors argue that universal AI technologies, such as online search engines and smartphone applications, rather than specialized AI technologies, have a significant impact on the transformation of medical expertise in Russia today.
The article examines the history of Nikolai Berdyaev’s relationship with Marxism. Although this topic has been studied well, existing research predominantly relies on Berdyaev’s own discourse. The problem is further complicated by the fact that Berdyaev changed his position on Marxism, and by the ambiguity of the concept of “Marxism” itself. The article demonstrates that these methodological problems can be addressed by reading Berdyaev’s texts on Marxism as situational actions, while contextually explaining the philosopher’s changing position; Marxism, on the other hand, is suggested to be viewed as a certain logic that can develop in different directions. The article reconstructs in detail the emergence of Berdyaev’s key strategies (the rejection of materialism and class theory of truth, the idea of human being as the image of God and class as its shell, the doctrine of spiritual bourgeoisie) during his involvement in the critical Marxist movement and his polemics with orthodox Marxists. It further traces the evolution of Berdyaev’s position regarding Marxism from the moment of his break with the movement up to the texts of his later years. When analysing Berdyaev’s thought in the context of the further development of Marxism, we see that Berdyaev’s ideas can be considered as a version of Marxism that is far from exotic. Thus, in the mature period of his work, Berdyaev reassembled the logic of Marxism in such a way that it did not contradict Christianity, limiting the former’s totalizing claims.
Review of the books: Grigorichev K.V., Djatlov V.I., Timoshkin D.O. (2023) «Chastnyi sektor»: non-urban spaces and communities of the Russian city. Irkutsk: Izdatel’stvo «Ottisk». — 128 p. ISBN 978-5-6047697-4-4. Veretennikov D., Malyshev G., Semenov A. (2025) Circles of cap(italist) rom(anticism). Ekaterinburg: TATLIN.— 208 p. ISBN 978-5-00075-392-7.
This paper explores the cultural differences between Russian regions operationalized in terms of Minkov’s recent revision of Hofstede’s famous individualism — collectivism dimension (I-C). Using a large survey (N = 18,768) conducted in 2019-2020 and spanning 60 regions, we construct a cultural map of the Russian Federation illustrating withincountry variation in I-C. Our measure of I-C is based on respondents’ attitudes toward reproductive freedoms and gender equality in different spheres of life, aggregated to the regional level and then merged into a composite index via principal components analysis. The highest prevalence of individualistic norms is found in the Yaroslavl region, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, while the highest prevalence of collectivist norms is found in the Muslim regions of the Northern Caucasus. Such characteristics as average wage, geographical latitude of the capital, percentage of ethnic Russians and — to a somewhat lesser extent — freshwater availability per capita, predict higher prevalence of individualistic norms in regional culture. In addition, we find that the relative prevalence of individualism is associated with higher innovation rates, while the relative prevalence of collectivism is associated with less excess deaths per 100,000 during the active phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). At the same time, we do not observe the putative effects of I-C on the level of volunteer activity and the quality of regional governance. Finally, we report I-C scores for all 60 surveyed regions, in order to facilitate further research endeavors focusing on the interplay between regional cultures and socio-economic modernization in Russia.
This article offers a critical examination of the latest work by one of Germany's foremost political theorists and historians of political thought, Herfried M & uuml;nkler, World in Turmoil: the Order of Powers in the 21st Century (2024). The review pays particular attention to the conceptual apparatus and theoretical framework developed by M & uuml;nkler, who draws on two centuries of developments in the social sciences and humanities. This framework is designed to comprehend both the structure and symbolic legitimation of world orders and the dynamics of their succession. M & uuml;nkler's analysis centers on two interconnected global processes: the perceived return to an canarchy of a world of states >> and the nascent formation of a new corder of powers >> in global affairs. He characterizes the current state of international politics as the collapse of rules-based liberal globalization and the disintegration of the previous unipolar order, which rested on the imperial hegemony of a single power, the United States. Looking to the future, M & uuml;nkler envisions the formation of a pentarchy - a kind of directorate of five world powers (the United States, China, Russia, the European Union, and India) - that would set the rules of the game in world politics and ensure their observance in accordance with their own national interests and those of their allies. The article argues that, despite the debatable nature of many of the author's specific analyses and conclusions, his work of the past decade provides a number of crucial analytical and theoretical tools that significantly clarify the ongoing global geopolitical transformations of the contemporary world.
In the post-globalisation context, the state plays an increasingly prominent role in shaping social realities not only through economic and political strategies but also via cultural policy. This article examines cultural policy as a sociological institution capable of organizing everyday life, behavioural norms, and collective value systems amid conditions of rapid change and uncertainty. It focuses on Vietnam's nationwide program "All People Unite to Build Cultural Life" (APU2BCL), launched in 2000 to enhance community-level cultural life during processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, and globalisation. Drawing on policy documents, implementation reports, ethnographic observations, and interviews, the analysis demonstrates that the program extends beyond grassroots cultural or sports promotion. It has evolved into a mechanism of social regulation, establishing normative frameworks through criteria such as "cultural family" "cultural residential area" and "cultural organisation". These categories simultaneously draw on traditional moral values and align with modern governance objectives including safety, order, cohesion, and stability. The article situates this case within broader debates on sustainable development, highlighting how institutionalizing cultural practices contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to inclusive communities, cultural participation, and social well-being. Ultimately, the study argues that culture should be understood not merely as heritage or symbolic expression, but as a political and social language through which new forms of collective practice are produced. Vietnam's experience illustrates how cultural policy operates as a tool of social production, expanding state capacity for soft control and sustaining resilience in increasingly unpredictable environments.
The article considers evolution, institutional foundations, and contemporary dynamics of Brazilian agribusiness within the global food regime. The authors argue that Brazil's current position in the international agri-food system cannot be explained only by its recent economic development due to the long period of unequal land distribution, state-led modernization, and persistent political disputes. Based on the methodological combination of historical analysis, secondary data on production and exports, and a critical review of relevant research, the article presents four main findings. First, Brazilian agrarian structure consolidated a model of large-scale monoculture, which is based on a closed connection between landholdings concentration and political-economic power. Second, the state played a decisive role in ensuring technical and productive capacities of agribusiness by funding, infrastructural development, credit, and public research, particularly in adapting cultivars to tropical biomes. Third, agribusiness maintains a constant and direct political presence, affecting legislative and executive agendas. Fourth, agribusiness is ambiguously involved in contemporary crises: while some actors deny climate and environmental agendas, others adopt discourses of sustainability in such ways that often reinforce rather than reduce existing inequalities. The authors believe that Brazil represents a form of subordinate integration into the global food regime, both consolidating its export strength and reproducing structural tensions between productivity, inequality, and sustainability. By considering the Brazilian case as a part of debates on institutional change, dependency, and development, the study contributes to broader discussions on possibilities and limitations of the contemporary capitalist agribusiness-led growth.
From the mid-20th century a wide range of philosophical projects emerged that sought to articulate a normative architecture for global humanity-commonly referred to as "theories of global justice". Yet by the third decade of the 21st century, most of these theories had ceased to correspond to the realities of international politics, drifting instead into utopian constructs. Yet the question remains: to what extent have theories of global justice, as such, lost their relevance? The realities of the world increasingly plunged into a state of disorder demand at least minimal normative requirements to secure basic conditions of safety. This article seeks to revisit the contractarian tradition within theories of justice. Specifically, it engages with the contributions of two key figures: Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century English philosopher, and his twentieth-century intellectual successor, the Canadian philosopher David Gauthier. The analysis explores the extent to which a Hobbesian approach-further developed by Gauthier-can be applied to the formulation of a global theory of justice, examining both its strengths and its weaknesses. The results of the inquiry must be judged unsatisfactory: in the absence of a global sovereign-a Hobbesian requirement-and in the absence of the rational agency presupposed by Gauthier as a condition of contract-making, the construction of a global normative framework proves unattainable. The final part of the article attempts to analyse what transformations in world order might render contractarian theories operational at the global level. Then, in conclusion, the results of the entire work are summarised.
