No 4 (2014)

The article considers J. Foran’s sociology of revolution through the stages of evolution of his theoretical and methodological views and the works representing them. The trajectory of Foran’s sociology of revolution reflects in many respects the development of the contemporary comparative and historical sociology of revolution: from the fundamental historical research of a few classical cases to the quantitative study of an extremely wide range of examples and after that to the prediction of the ‘revolution-like’ events’ in future. According to Foran, there are three ways to consider the future of revolutions: 1) the analysis of the revolutions of the past, 2) the look into the future in terms of the existing theories, 3) the sources of sociological imagination. These three methods correspond to three stages in Foran’s sociology of revolution: after conducting the historical study of the situation and revolutions in Iran, the comparative analysis of 39 revolution events in the Third World countries and then an attempt to imagine patterns of future revolutions on the example of Zapatistas’ revolution in Mexico in 1994 and the struggle for global justice at the beginning of the XXI century. Despite the evolution of the subject and methodology of the theory, the concept ‘political culture of opposition’ remained the central category of Foran’s model. This complex notion describes such social process when under the influence of material and discursive elements the revolutionaries found out some common discourse that prescribed them to participate in collective actions to change their societies. Thus, Foran states that revolutions are the product of both structural conditions and human agency and the latter is due to both political-economic and cultural reasons. The cultural-structural character of Foran’s approach makes it relevant for the study of contemporary revolutionary events.

The concept ‘design’ that has recently become popular in everyday discourse and among social scientists has not received an unambiguous interpretation. The ambiguity of the concept is due primarily to the complexity of the interpretation of very diverse social practices, the history of which can be traced to the earliest cultural practices of the humankind. This gives the design a universal character and exceptional significance: through the prism of this concept, we can trace the evolution of human culture as a whole. Thus, the study of the concept ‘design’ in the article is based on this theoretical background and emphasizes its basic feature - projectivity genetically related to the project thinking as an essential attribute of human activity. The logic of the article corresponds to the sequence of the main historical stages of the project thinking formation marked by specific inventions. Such an approach allows us to trace the evolution of the design revealing its genesis in the connection with the key moments of the industrial development and scientific and technological revolution as well as the most important social events that contributed to the development of the modern society urban environment and predetermined its social structure.

Based on the sociological data the article determines the causes of emergence of social tensions in the country and society, estimates the reliance of such situations on the population’s satisfaction with the living conditions, and argues the importance of maintaining the sustainable stability for the sustainable development of the state. The author aims to build a comprehensive rating of ‘social concern’ of the post-Soviet states’ citizens as a sum of the following empirical indicators: economic problems of individuals and their families; chances to ensure decent living conditions (health care, access to education, security, etc.); environmental problems; political problems. The article also reconstructs an ideal-typical model of social transformation of post-communist societies consisting of three main stages: searching, stabilization, sustainable development. Based on the analysis of empirical data, the author states that some transitional societies at the turn of the third millennium (for instance, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan) have reached the stabilization phase. The author proposes to assess the level of social stability with the indicator of social tension obtained through the ‘many-stage data grouping’. The empirical data presented in the article are the results of the projects of the Center for Sociological and Political Studies of the Belarusian State University.

The article describes the phenomenon of social marketing in the Internet that has changed the idea of the relationships between the addresser and the addressee in the social networks. The author analyzes the typology, genesis and consequences of the virus marketing in social networks from the perspective of the sociological analysis of media. The article considers the influence of the Internet on the behavior of the Russians, the methods of measuring the impact of the emerging new media. The author identifies different strategies in the SMM-market, such as creative content, digital-projects, media planning, simple content, government, close-to-government and educational projects. ROMIR within the GemuisAudience project conducted a research among 20 thousand Russian respondents to monitor their behavior in the sphere with the help of special sensors that identify Internet preferences of the Russians. The first results of the project revealed a trend - the more interesting the content the more likely the user is to share the app with his friends.

The set of mechanisms for the implementation of the idea of the single European space of higher education including the access to higher education, advice and guidance for the students, their material support, providing equal opportunities and social equality allows the majority of young people to achieve a high level of education and facilitates their personal self-realization. The social dimension as one of the areas of the Bologna process implementations was first announced in the context of mobility support and the strategy of lifelong learning, in the present time it is a complex system of social support for students including accommodation, medical care, nutrition and other social services. All these aspects of the social dimension of the students’ life have become the subject of the European research project Eurostudent taking place in 25 European countries. Russia for the first time took part in this project as an associate member: in the spring of 2014, we conducted a survey with the methodology of the international research project. The methodological issues of the project techniques are considered in the article as well as some conclusions based on the results of the survey conducted at the People’s Friendship University of Russia.

The new stage of the Russian statehood development in the direction of the stable democracy dictates the need for transition from the virtual political space to the real. The key element of this transition seems to be the formation not only of the positive image but also the reputation of the Russian power. There is a variety of approaches to the study of the image and reputation features of various political subjects in the scientific literature due to the multifaceted and complex character of these phenomena - an object of different sciences. However, the scientific research dictates the need for a precise and accurate interpretation of the notions of reputation and power with reference to the social reality. The author proposes a way to reveal key differences between the concepts ‘image’ and ‘reputation’ based on the analysis of a number of research approaches and the results of the sociological research of the regional power reputation in the Smolensk region. The articles systematizes the basic approaches to studying the image and reputation (in particular, of the power), specifies the empirical indicators of these concepts, indicates the author’s interpretation of these concepts and their regional dimension (‘reputation of the regional power’) through the eyes of the main subject of its assessment - the population of the Smolensk region.

The unstable economics as well as difficulties associated with lack and scarcity of human, financial and investment resources cause the tightening of requirements to the organizational management. The market economy demands a systematic approach to the management based on the strategic planning combined with an opportunity to make situational decisions. Such management models are difficult to use for they require a lot of resources the lack of which is usually a marker of a crisis situation. That is why at the moments of the so called ‘market turbulence’ and socio-economic reduction indicators, organizations have to reduce the costs of management and social development that helps in a short-term perspective, but in the future can destabilize the organization and make it more vulnerable to the new ‘wave of crisis’. One of possible ways to preserve organizational stability is to apply innovative methods of management. Currently, the problems of innovation management are widely reported in the scientific and business literature focusing on the creation and implementation of the management innovations technologies that promise the greatest dividends, while the authors rarely consider the impact of the innovative management on employees’ social well-being, social development and social capital focusing on the staff resistance to innovations despite the fact that any innovation produces profound changes in the system of social management. Thus, the article aims at the theoretical study of innovation management factors’ impact on the social aspects of organizational life and states that the implementation of innovations into the organization management without taking into consideration their possible consequences for the social state of the organization in the long run is totally unacceptable.