No 6 (2023)

The article characterizes the process of emergence in social cognition of social contract ideas, first put forward and substantiated by the Enlightenment thinkers. They formulated ideas about its essence and content interpreted as a social contract between the people and the state with the focus of attention on latent, implicit nature of this process. A significant place is given to analysis of existing theories of the social contract, tо identifying their features on the basis of diverse options of its interpretation and implementation in the modern scholarship. Particular attention is paid to the identifying main characteristics of the social contracts, its semantic essence as a unity of goals of their participants accentuating observance of mutual trust, coordination of interests, constant feedback. Modern interpretations of the social contract are discussed, as well as attempts to offer new options for understanding practices of its implementation in current socio-political life. It is emphasized that the social contract as a noumenon contains not only obvious, but also latent criteria, expressing the constantly changing qualitative state of society and requiring regular customizable interaction between the people and the state.

The article presents the results of the empirical analysis of the relationship between the Russians' perceptions of inequality and their behavior in relation to investments in human capital. Empirical analysis of such a relation is based on the RLMS HSE data. The investments in human capital are operationalized by the expenditures for adult education, and the perceptions of inequality are measured by the subjective degree of fairness of access to higher education, and also by subjective factors of poverty and well-being that population finds most important in contemporary Russian society. The results of the analysis demonstrate that perceptions of inequality held among the population affect their behavior in relation to the adult’s human capital. The population's perception of access to higher education as fair, and the reasons for wealth as meritocratic, leads to a greater propensity to invest in the adults’ human capital. The perception of the causes of wealth as related to the specific parental family support or the institutional environment, which does not meet the principles of equality of opportunity, on the contrary, has a disincentive effect on investment in adult Russians human capital; understanding poverty as a consequence of the current institutional environment specifics in the country works in a similar way. The obtained results demonstrate another consequence of the population's perception of inequality as non-meritocratic (quite typical for Russians in general), affecting the range of possibilities for the implementation of Russia's development vector based on human capital as its driver.

This study aims to explore to what extent values determine informal social engagement in comparison to the effects of other factors. A heterogeneous sample of respondents from an online panel (N = 3711) is used for our analyses. Self-report in terms of two types of activity, utilitarian and sociotropic, respondents engaged in the last three years were used to create a typology of social participants using latent class analysis. The results of multinomial regression modeling using the obtained classes allow us to conclude that values have a significant impact on the likelihood of more active participation in initiatives for the benefit of society as a whole or its specific groups, and their effect majorly exceeds the effects of other predictors, including trust, identity, life satisfaction, religiosity, and socio-demographic characteristics. At the same time, activists who approach social participation from a predominantly utilitarian perspective prioritize "Self-enhancement", while the participants whose social activity is not limited by the interests of narrow circle, put more value on "Self-transcendence". Other values did not have a significant impact on the engagement pattern. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study and directions for future work.

In the 1990s-2000s, in the external orientations of Ukrainian society, polls recorded а balance of two main vectors with a certain predominance of the pro-Russian way. In the territorial viewpoint we could state a distinct polarization – the population of the western macroregion was largely oriented towards the European Union, the east and south regions — towards Russia (and the interstate structures it created), the center – in both directions. Consistent pro-European orientation of the Ukrainian government and almost the entire Ukrainian political class; a comprehensive program of “titling” of public life and socio-cultural exclusion from Russia, as well as a socio-demographic factor (change of generations) worked to gradually strengthen Western geo-civilizational vector in the public consciousness of the country's population. The catalyst for this process was the 2013-2014 socio-political crisis and a number of subsequent events caused by it. In the mid-2010s. the drift of the external political and economic orientations of Ukrainian society towards the European Union and NATO was noticeably accelerating. The beginning of the SMO becomes a new trigger for this systemic transit, recorded by all polls in 2022-2023. However, our analysis of their results suggests that while reliably recording the dynamic trends in public opinion, the polls did not reveal real extent of those shifts, they also did not provide correct information about the population's perceptions on a number of aspects of the political and socio-economic dynamics of Ukraine at all. The radical external convergence of geo-civilizational orientations of the inhabitants of the country macro-regions does not mean an equally tangible reduction of diversities in their collective ideas. It is also significant that polls are not able to assess the level of potential socio-psychological adaptability of individual regional communities in Ukraine, which can surface only with a significant change in social reality.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of territorial identity as a reflection of modern transformation processes and a relevant indicator of the potential for social mobilization of residents of local territories. The research objectives were to analyze the structure of territorial identity, the forms and mechanisms of reproduction of the external and internal social boundaries of the territorial identity area, and the role of social networks in its reduction. The analysis of the data is based on sociological studies conducted in the Saratov region, the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, and the Republic of South Ossetia. It describes the structural characteristics of territorial identity, the processes of formation of its social boundaries, and evaluates social networks as tools for its preservation, formation, and transformation. The authors conclude that territorial identity occupies a leading place in the structure of an individual self-identification and can be a powerful group consolidating factor.

The structure of value orientations and the specifics of the implementation social activity practices of nonresident students studying in the leading universities of the two largest cities in Russia - Kazan Federal University (Kazan) and the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg) are analyzed. Based on the results of mass representative surveys, a comparative analysis of the studied parameters was made, a correlation was revealed between different types of values in the system of value orientations of students of two universities. A factor analysis has been carried out and factors characterizing the structure of social activity of nonresident students in the cities under consideration have been identified. Factor analysis by preferred areas of activity made it possible to identify three specific groups of respondents among Kazan Federal University students and four groups at the Higher School of Economics-St. Petersburg.

The article examines the history of academic school of applied sociology of Professor G.P. Davidyuk (1923-2020), assesses his contribution to the revival of sociological science and the institutionalization of sociological education in Belarus. G.P. Davidyuk formed the first scientific structures of a sociological profile in Belarus (sector of social research, Department of sociological research of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR; sector of applied sociology at the Department of Philosophy of Belarusian State University in Minsk, etc.), he wrote the first textbooks "Fundamentals of Applied Sociology" (1975) and "Applied Sociology" (1979). Under his editorship, the country's first "Dictionary of Applied Sociology" (1984) was prepared, the foundations were laid for professional sociologists training at the Belarusian State University (BSU), personnel of the highest scholarly qualification. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Problematic Research Laboratory of Sociological Research of BSU, headed by G.P. Davidyuk, turned into the country's leading scientific center. The work of the Applied sociology sector at the BSU gave an impetus to the development of industrial sociology.