Vol 17, No 3 (2017)

Ethiopia was created by the Abyssinian King Menelik II in the late XIX century; he was the only African monarch to participate in the fight for Africa with the European states. He expanded his territory to the southern neighboring countries and colonized them. According to the historical facts, com-pared to other colonial conquests the Abyssinian colonization was the most brutal occupation in terms of number of people killed and sold in slavery. After the occupation, the land and the peoples of the new territory were divided among the Abyssinians. The new colonial landless subjects were forced to farm the land of the new landlords, to handover up to 75% of their agricultural products to the landlords. That is why the people struggled to regain their stolen land for decades. The slogan “Land to the tillers” of the stu-dent movement was secretly introduced by the Oromo President on the paper stamp of Haile Sellasie’s Parliament and the Oromo Chairman of the University Students Union Baro Tumsa. As D. Horowitz wrote about the 1974 Revolution “in Ethiopia, a major effect of a land reform was to take land from Amhara and distribute it to the Galla, and for a time the revolution is suspected of being a Galla plot” [19. P. 8]. The revolution was gradually highjacked from the colonized nations by the Abyssinian military elite. The revolution led to the land reform of 1975 that destroyed the colonial landlords; the military government nationalized the land but refused to redistribute it among the landless people. The state became the only landlord in the country, and the military government tried to destroy the Oromo national movement by reset-tling seven million Abyssinians on the Oromo territory and by moving the Oromo people to new villages to control them. The collective struggle of oppressed peoples overthrew the military government in 1991. The contemporary government formed and led by the Tigrean Liberation Front (TPLF) monopolized the military, political, ideological and economic power in the country. This group collaborates with a new ‘super-class’ of the world by selling the land of the colonized peoples. The author considers the land own-ership under three regimes of the Ethiopian government to answer the question “Why Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world though it possesses large water resources, fertile land and hardworking people?”.

Based on the data of sociological research the article examines the influence of ethnic stereo-types on the choice of intercultural interaction strategies. The example of the Udmurt ethnos proves the importance of behavioral stereotypes as a program of interpersonal relations and a reference point in interac-tion with representatives of one’s own and other ethnic groups. The author identifies autostereotypes that reflect the emotional perception of ethnic identity and allow predicting further ways of ethnic development. Ethnic stereotypes of the Udmurts were determined by the influence of their cultural environment and adaptation to the social reality. The majority of Udmurts positively perceive their ethnic identity and recog-nize the uniqueness of ethnic culture and the need for positive interaction with other peoples, which explains the author’s cautious optimism when considering the future of the Udmurts. Their historical interaction with the cultural environment had various consequences: on the one hand, it explains the negative self-esteem of the ethnos including self-doubt; and uncertainty often leads to isolation and fear to show one’s cultural identity, and striving for social mimicry. Thus, the author considers the low social status of the Udmurts and their weak adaptive abilities as one of the key factors in strengthening the assimilation. On the other hand, the Udmurts opposition to the cultural domination of other ethnic groups makes them take an active stance and to seek ways to preserve their ethnic identity. Thus, the Udmurts of the Republic of Tatarstan should be as active as the ethnic majority of the region (the Tatars) in the search for new strategies of intercultural interaction and adaption to the social reality. The field ethnographic data allow the author to supplement statistical data with new facts, and help the readers to ‘hear’ the voices of the people and to ‘see’ their emotional perception of social and cultural realities.

In recent years, both experts and public opinion tend to assess the involvement of the Rus-sian youth in social activities as rather low: the post-Soviet generations are called apolitical and indifferent to anything except personal well-being and interests. At the same time, the largest research centers (Public Opinion Foundation, Russian Public Opinion Research Center, Levada Center, and Institute of Sociology) conduct sociological studies of various aspects of social and civil activities, political participation and protest potential of younger generations and Russian society as a whole. The article presents some recent data that prove the low level of political and social activity of the Russian population. The author believes that this level is higher among the younger generations, especially the students. To prove that, first, the author considers the category ‘social activity’: its motives (primarily socially significant needs), subjective ‘measurement’ (personal needs and interests), goals (pragmatic and altruistic, collective and personal, etc.), forms (personal, collective, etc.) and external and internal factors. Secondly, to assess the motives and restraining factors of the youth social activity, the article presents some results of the surveys conducted in the RUDN University and of the Russian public opinion polls. The author identifies reasons for the youth’s lack of interest in public activities (lack of material benefits, desire/time/motivation, information, and nega-tive image of public associations), motives of social activity (social, selective, mobilization, etc.) and for be-coming a member of public associations (self-realization, the desire to change the world, combination of the two, etc.), and factors that determine the youth’s perception of social activity in general (estimates of so-cial situation, value orientations and social well-being).

The development of science-intensive technologies is crucial for the social and economic stability of the nation. The current technological system calls for a unification of scientific and technological approaches in the innovation-driven development. The introduction of innovations is necessary for moderni-zation of the national economy and for making Russian companies more efficient. Without the constant development of science and education, there is a threat of social and cultural stagnation; while the world trend of changing and improving the production involves the emergence of new formats of economic interac-tion in which the science-intensive and convergent technologies play the key role. The science-intensive development requires the full-fledged institutional interaction, the joint activity of stakeholders, i.e. the devel-opment of special territories where economic, infrastructural and social-cultural conditions allow the intro-duction of new technologies. Technoparks represent one of the most popular formats of such territories. Today the Russian Federation has several technoparks. However, their work is not always satisfactory and needs optimization, especially for the greater efficiency of the science-intensive technologies. To identify the most effective ways of upgrading the Russian technoparks, the authors studied the experience of 12 most successful technoparks abroad, and make recommendations for improving the management system of tech-noparks and enhancing their scientific and innovative activities. The article describes the features of sci-ence-intensive technologies; the challenges the innovative organizations face; the role of technoparks in ensuring the growth of the innovative potential of the state; the formats and structure of technoparks as well as the recommendations for making them more effective in developing science-intensive technolo-gies. The article also presents the results of the studies of the Russian technoparks over the last ten years. The authors try to identify the main methods for optimization and modernization of technoparks to increase their role in the innovation-driven development of the state.