Vol 22, No 1 (2022)

The article considers the philosophical basis of Durkheim’s sociological theory, which consists of such ‘metaphysical’ concepts as ‘society’, ‘solidarity’, ‘sacredness’ and ‘human nature’. The author also focuses on the philosophical theories based on these concepts, which became the foundations of Durkheim’s sociological theory. There are ontological and epistemological philosophical foundations, on the one hand, and social-philosophical foundations secondary to them - on the other hand. The article raises the question about the connection between Durkheim’s theory and the philosophical systems of Spinoza, Kant and Renouvier. This, Spinoza’s ontological pantheism influenced the concept of ‘sacred’ in Durkheim’s theory. On the contrary, there is no reason to consider the influence of Kant’s philosophy on Durkheim’s ideas decisive. Although sometimes Renouvier is called a neo-Kantian, he developed his own philosophical system, the elements of which were used by Durkheim, especially for the concept of ‘social representations’. The author argues that sociological realism and holism of Durkheim oppose the sociological nominalism common for the British social philosophy and sociology, and believes in the conceptual continuity of Durkheim’s system with the theories of Montesquieu and especially Rousseau (the idea of society as a deified collective being). In the systems of Montesquieu and Rousseau, human nature is understood not as exclusively individualistic and selfish; therefore, in society, the main role is played not by competition, but by cooperation and integration. The article also considers French socialism of the 19th century, especially ‘Simonism’ as a direct ideological predecessor of Durkheim’s sociology. The author argues that Soviet works created a distorted, simplified and ‘demystified’ image of the French socialists of the 19th century (for example, of Leroux’s concept of ‘solidarism’ later developed by Durkheim). Although the founder of the French sociological school distanced himself from the ‘mysticism’ of the socialists of that time, he is undoubtedly their ideological successor.

The article is the second part of the essay on the phenomenon of alienation and its forms in modern societies (the first part was published in 2021, No. 4). In this part, the author focuses on technology as ‘fetishized’ by the modern thinking and on various manifestations of alienation in labor, which are not only (and not so much) a consequence of private ownership of the ‘means of production’ (according to Marx), but also a by-product of objective tendencies of social differentiation as aggravated in the course of historical development (division of labor) and the subordination of most spheres of the modern social experience to the logic of instrumental rationality. Excessive specialization, standardization, algorithmization, routinization of activities, technological and functional operationalization of the work process and professional roles, the dominance of means over goals, administrative and bureaucratic regulation and control have become ‘signs of the time’ and distinctive features of the ‘rhythm of activity’ not only in industrial enterprises, but also in non-physical labor. An important aspect (and a background circumstance) in the diagnosis of modernity is the fact that in recent centuries, modern societies have developed mainly in the urban social-ecological environment. The format and style of urban life with its role-based fragmentation and specific depersonification (and an increase in anonymity) also provoked a range of consequences that make alienation a challenge for modern societies. The author uses the concepts of classical sociological theory as a key tool for analyzing and describing the ‘universe of modernity’, and refers to the ideas of M. Weber, G. Simmel, L. Wirth, H.M. McLuhan, H. Marcuse, G. Friedmann, С. Lefort and others.

There is a growing understanding in social sciences that even purposeful human behavior cannot be fully explained by rational motives. The ‘behavioral economy’ developed a program for studying economic behavior considering more factors than the blind pursuit of one’s benefit. In social psychology, the theory of two groups of factors that influence human behavior has been developed: explicit factors are determined mainly by conceptual thinking, while implicit factors - by non-rational motives, often not obvious for the subject of action. It is argued that the study of both groups of factors is a prerequisite for the correct understanding and accurate prediction of behavior since they are of different nature, irreducible to each other, and have very different effects on behavior. The article focuses on the issue of the different nature of explicit and implicit factors. Can we say that the models of dual decision-making from social psychology are applicable to social action? We tested the nature of the interaction of the explicit and implicit components of the attitude towards the United Russia party with the basic judgments that, it would seem, should form this attitude. The results were paradoxical. It turned out that ideologically biased statements addressed to the political party form an attitude towards it on the implicit level. At the same time, the attitude to these statements depends on the attitude to the party, but at the rational level. Thus, this is a convincing evidence of the fundamentally different nature of explicit and implicit factors of social behavior.

Based on the expert survey of the Russian HR-managers on the employment of the elderly (the project “Specifics of employment and career of the elderly in contemporary Russia” was conducted in November 2020 - January 2021), the authors present the ideas of HR-managers on the problems in the employment of the elderly and strategies to solve them in the current Russian conditions. In the post-industrial society, older generations can, want and often need to work. The main motives for their employment are not only economic - the need to have an additional income (urgent need for money, feeling of financial independence, need to help children), but also social motives (fear of losing a proactive lifestyle, loss of social status and ability to keep social networks). According to the HR-specialists, older workers have many positive qualities for employment; however, some of these qualities are considered as the elderly’s willingness to accept any (non-prestigious and low-paid) job. Educational programs for older workers are underdeveloped in Russian organizations: even if there are such, they are formal or created by public employment services. Experts are positive about the state’s support for the employment of older people and consider it a primary condition for improving the situation. At the same time, experts support traditional administrative measures that require some budget funding. The survey identified age discrimination as the most important problem of the elderly’s employment as based on the stereotypes of HR-managers. Solving this problem seems to be the most important condition for improving the employment of older people in Russia - by developing educational programs, improving the institution of mentoring (in direct and reverse forms) and fair assessment of the older job candidates.

Abstact. The article is based on the data of the sociological survey conducted in the Republic of Bashkortostan in August-October 2021. The study focused on the public perception of the influence of the ideology of extremism on the situation in the region and of the activities of the authorities to counter terrorism. 1030 respondents representing all 63 municipalities of the region and its social-demographic structure were interviewed with the formalized guide. The relevance of the study is determined by the potential of the destructive impact of the extremism and terrorism threats on the public consciousness - from anxiety and fear to apathy and aggression, which affects the social-political situation, estimates of the authorities and the state development trends. In recent decades, extremism and terrorism as means of influencing the authorities and society have attracted increasingly more participants and supporters, have globalized their goals, modified strategies and adapted to the measures of state-legal and social counteraction. Such quantitative and qualitative changes of extremism and terrorism explain the need for their more active study and a tough, irreconcilable, anticipatory reaction to them from both the state and society, which requires various means, including sociological, to monitor the dynamics of these phenomena, measure their destructive potential and the efficiency of measures to counter and prevent them at all levels of the social organization, including regional and local. Based on the statistical data for 2018-2020, the article considers the state and trends of the extremism and terrorism threats in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan, and based on the sociological data of 2021, the author identifies the peculiarities of the public perception of the extremism and terrorism threats in the region. The article also presents estimates of the interethnic and interreligious relations for problems and contradictions in this sphere often become causes and a favorable environment for extremist ideologies and terrorist practices; and the respondents’ assessments of their level of security and their attitudes to measures to counter the threats of extremism and terrorism.

In the past three decades, the higher education system of China has shown the most dynamic development. One of the reasons is the president responsibility under the leadership of the Party committee, which was introduced in public universities in the early 1990s and corresponds to the national traditions as the fundamental management system in Chinese general universities. Recent changes in the Chinese society and economy have led to the establishment of private and joint universities, which determined transformations of this management system and the development of several university management systems. The article aims at describing the features of the contemporary university management systems of different forms of ownership in China together with their advantages and disadvantages. The article provides a brief review of the history of the development of public university management systems from the founding of the PRC to the present day; explains the main features of the Chinese higher education system and the changes in the number of public, private and joint universities in the past ten years. The authors focus on the management systems of public, private and joint universities to show that the management system of the university of any form of ownership consists of three parts - decision-making, practices and control. The article explains the specifics of relations between the highest governing bodies of the university - party committee, president and governing board (board of directors) - and the real system of relations between the administrative and academic authorities. The article is based on the data of the Chinese Ministry of Education, laws and other regulations of the Chinese government in the higher education, websites of the leading Chinese universities, and publications available on the Chinese Internet.

In the 20th century, humanity finally chose the urban path of development as a priority. In the 21st century, the state strategic plans focus on large cities and urban agglomerations under the continuing urbanization. Rural territories are increasingly perceived by the authorities and urbanists as some dying forms, sacrificed for the development of cities. In the Russian Federation, this is especially true for a number of regions (Moscow Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, etc.), in which municipalities are turned into urban districts, and all administrative functions are transferred to the cities. The countryside is still rural, but its population is practically removed from decision-making. At the same time, there are reverse migrations - of urban dwellers to the countryside, which leads to further expansion of cities. The term ‘settlement system’ means a set of settlements located in a certain territory and connected by a common organization of management, services and labor market. Therefore, the Crimean region has both - overpopulated rural areas and developing cities. The article considers the settlement system of the Crimean Peninsula, in particular its urban part, as a basis of its demographic development. Based on statistical, cartographic, regional and historical approaches, the author considers the dynamics of urban settlement and such a phenomenon as urban agglomerations; identifies the main factors in the development of urban settlements, the subsystems of the urban settlement system and its central places. The article also describes the Simferopol-Sevastopol dual-core agglomeration which seems to break up into two autonomous agglomerations due to a range of factors.

This article is a review of Jiří Šubrt’s book The Sociology of Time: A Critical Overview (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer; 2021. 283 p.). The author places this work in a broader context of previous books by Šubrt in order to show that all these publications analyze the past and contemporary sociological theories, and focus on historical sociology and the conception of sociology as a science on social processes. Šubrt considers time in the context of the long-term development of knowledge, in which efforts have been made to control and master it. He also conducts a critical analysis of the views of previous generations of sociologists who developed ideas about the nature and functions of time. Šubrt examines different fields of the so-called ‘sociology of time’; however, his main interest is the temporalized sociology such as theories of Niklas Luhmann and Anthony Giddens, but especially the conceptions in the field of historical comparative sociology, which combine the object of sociological research with long-term historical processes. According to Šubrt, the basic aspect of time that should be decisive for sociology is its irreversibility associated with the idea of an open future.

The article presents the results of the sociological analysis of the temporal aspects of social care in the new conditions of the pandemic reality. The pandemic is considered as a set of conditions and factors that determine the specific dynamics of societal transformations that affect almost all aspects of the life of society including its temporality - the present and future. Digital technologies, distant models of social relations, mobility and cohesion become priorities for social policy and social care. The pandemic, on the one hand, exacerbates social inequality, on the other hand, levels it out in the ways of self-realization (network technologies), ways of obtaining benefits, primarily from the state (digital social, financial and other services). The pandemic has a binary impact on the practices of social care, programs and technologies for social services, social support, social assistance, and social protection. These practices are most effectively carried out in urbanized areas, where the quality of social care is partly determined by the quality and availability of the relevant urban infrastructure. Based on the results of the new Russian and foreign research presented at the conference under review, the forms, values and resources of social care in the pandemic society are described together with the specifics of distant culture and social inequality in the contemporary city, barriers to mobility (digital, social-perceptual, social-legal), challenges, actors and discourses of social work, lockdowns of social life.