Review: The subject of this research is the analysis of such indicator of the level of self-governance potential of population as the citizens’ representations on the nature of local self-governance, which imply the impact of the state and other social actors upon the local self-governance, as well as the citizens’ role in implementation of administrative activity at the local level. The examination of such representations allows determining the peculiarities of administrative and self-governance processes at the local level alongside the prospects for development of the municipal practices in Russia. The article provides the data of sociological monitoring conducted in Tver Region over the period from 2009 to 2018 (2009-2011 Tver; 2012-2019 Tver Region). The object of research are the residents of the cities, urban-type settlements and rural localities of Tver Region aged 18 and above. The method of formalized interview was applied in the course of the study. The author explores the representations of regional population about the optimal models of organization of administrative system by the modern Russian society, essential characteristics of the local self-governance, potential sources of influence upon the activity of the municipal authorities, as well as evaluation of the level of impact of ordinary citizens upon the work of government agencies. The author’s special contribution lies in tracing the dynamics of representations of the residents of Tver Region on the local self-governance throughout the recent decade, which allows determining the substantial growth of activist orientations of the Russian citizens, as well as the existence of barrier for realization of self-government potential of population. The acquired information can be valuable for the state and municipal authorities with regards to involvement of population into the self-governance practices.

Keywords: barriers to the implementation of self-government potential, activist attitudes, influence of citizens, self-governing practices, sources of influence, dynamics of representations, models of management organization, self-government potential, local self-government, trends of the development

Review: The subject of this research is the existing in the current political discourse representation about nation as the carrier of sovereignty. The task consists in explication of genealogical link between the concept of nation and the conceptual field of political theology. Special attention is given to the critical analysis of the proposed by Judith Butler redefinition of nation as a public group that transforms their vulnerability into political power and source of sovereignty. The concept of sovereignty is problematized on the basis of Giorgio Agamben’s concept of sovereign power. The author raises a question on the boundaries of political theology in modern reality. Methodological grounds contain the performative interpretation of the social and political (J. Butler, J. Alexander), genealogical method of M. Foucault, criticism of political theology of G. Agamben. The main research results consist in the following: substantiation of performative interpretation of the concept of nation; explication of philosophical and political context of the proposed by Judith Butler hypothesis that these problems are the aftermath of questioning the dependence of the concept of nation from the logic of political theology. The article describes the genealogical scheme of transformation of representations about nation as the source of sovereignty, since the origins of medieval theology of power to the present forms of representative democracy, as well as demonstrates the link between the idea of sovereign nation and the problems of exclusion and violence.

Keywords: messianism, sacred, collective body, performativity, political theology, sovereignty, people, exception, violence, direct democracy

Review: This article analyzes the influence of crisis phenomena of social life upon the mentality of population. Crisis phenomena are viewed as one of the fundamental factors of the emergence of social fears. The author discusses the role of social conflicts and competition in the context of the emergence of social fears. The theoretical basis of the research contains works in the area of sociology and philosophy dedicated to the problematic of fear, study of social crises, and theory of risk society. Based on the concept of trauma, the crises phenomena are considered as disastrous events, generating the growth of social fears. In the course of this research, the author uses the work of the nationwide sociological studies demonstrating the shifts of mood resulted by the escalation of risk processes in the society. It is underlined that the crises phenomena in various spheres of social life shatter the institutional order, disturb the predictability of the system of social relations and interactions, as well as sustainability of social binds. On the background of growing uncertainty as a characteristic of social life, the author observes not only the increase of anxiety and fear, but also the establishment of the “culture of fear” that reflects vulnerability of the majority of groups within the risk society. Conflicts and competition intensify the effect of crisis phenomena upon the population wellbeing; contribute to formation of the specific fears among various social groups, as well as transformation of fear repertoire.

Keywords: trauma, social moods, instability, social changes, competition, conflict, social crisis, social fears, risk, uncertainty

Keywords: reading, reading culture, information, information channels, sociological survey, reading tradition, spelling reform, language reform, literary genres, reading preferences

Review: The subject of this research is the Walter Benjamin’s representation on the state of emergency in the context of modern issue of correlation between sovereign power, right and violence. The intention of W. Benjamin consists in overcoming the state of demonic existence, which residue is the right, and liberate human being from guilt, in the virtue of which the natural life is included into the order of right and fate. In his criticism of violence, W. Benjamin attempts to validate the possibility of the existence of violence beyond the limits of right, i.e. “on the far side” of “vicious circle” of the dialectics of violence establishing right, and the violence, supporting right. Methodological framework contains hermeneutic ontology (M. Heidegger, H. Arendt), adhering to the principle of the identity of language, existence and reasoning. The main conclusion lies in substantiation of the original thesis that the genuine state of emergence, marked by W. Benjamin as “divine violence”, is the reasoning process, manifesting as the metaphysical “revolutionary” force underlying the sovereign subjectivity, because the reasoning interrupts the non-reflectable flow of natural life.

Keywords: right, violence, subjectivity, decision, sovereign power, state of emergency, metaphysics, divine violence, thinking, Walter Benjamin

Keywords: children, school, development, parents, students, teachers, inclusive education, problems, limited opportunities, child

Keywords: Weber model, progressive era model, new public management, digital governance model, public administration, public services, Internet-applications, open data, cloud technologies, big data

Keywords: values, orientations, work, work values, work capacity, social potential, crisis, instability, youth, regions of the Volga region

Keywords: human logistics, rotational employee, rotational work, employment behaviour, labour motivation, social research, oil-and-gas field, Rosneft, Verkhnechonskneftegaz, Verkhnechonsk oil and gas condensate field

Keywords: country image, marketing research, sociological studies, perception, Russia, Mongolia, cooperation, history, culture, convergence factors

Keywords: socio-economic situation, security, social security, personal security, population, region, regional problems, social risk, security threat, social problems

Review: This article is dedicated to examination of the patterns of interpretation of the events related to dissemination of USSR within the modern Russian media discourse. Based on the content analysis of the most significant media projects on dissemination of USSR, the author determines the key media strategies of apprehension of this historical even and framing of the cultural trauma in media discourse of modern Russia. Therefore, the author conducts content analysis of cultural trauma in the context of peculiarities of the modern mythology. A number of classification categories were determined: 1) image of victim; 2) image of enemy; 3) images of fate; 4) image of the “reviving” state. The content analysis was aimed at estimating the vector and function of the expression, its intensity and space; the estimation units were the related text fragments that contained reference to dissemination of the Soviet Union. Thesis on the “fictitious”, “framed” character of cultural trauma should be interpreted through the lens of moderate constructivism. Nostalgia for the Soviet in the political and cultural life of modern Russian becomes the method of reproducing particularly the traumatic structures of memory. The stages of framing the cultural trauma in Russia, associated with the events of dissemination of USSR, in many ways reflect the peculiarities of the political processes. Namely, after 2011, there was a rapid increase in the number of small and large TV projects dedicated to the topic of dissemination of the Soviet Union. Content analysis demonstrated the transformation of narrative from the factual description of 1990’s to the description saturated with the interpretative context. Part of the projects implement the critical strategy of interpretation, while the rest demonstrate the traumatic interpretation of the events of dissemination of USSR. The author underlines the growth of TV show dedicated to the discussion of alternative to dissemination of the Soviet Union and finding those responsible for this historical event.

Keywords: USSR, constructivism, traumatic narrative, social mythology, media, cultural trauma, collapse of the USSR, Gorbachev, content-analysis, nostalgia

Keywords: religious values of modern youth, family values, motives of behavior, marriage relationship, the conceptual model of researc, multi-religious, socialization of young people, marriage model, sociological research, religion

Review: This article analyzes the problem associated with objectivity and capability of the modern humanitarian thought to reveal the theoretical aspects of the state. Leaning on the ideas of multiple philosophers, the author demonstrates that the existing conventional research methods in various social disciplines constantly remain under the powerful influence of the state as the institution that possesses the meta-capital. Besides the concept of symbolic power developed by Pierre Bourdieu, there is a number of other ideas that have previously substantiated the impossibility or extremely high probability of the fact that any research, which attempted to give meticulous explanation of impact of the state upon human and limits of state’s authoritative powers, are doomed to failure. For analyzing the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Theodor Adorno and other thinkers related to the topic under discussion, the article uses the methods accepted in sociology of knowledge and social philosophy: contrastive-comparative, hypothetical-deductive, and critical methods. The scientific novelty lies in the author’s attempt to not only emphasize the strong facets of certain methods of studying the stat that claim the possibility of balancing the “effects of the power” or influence of the state, but also to indicate that the application of such inventive methods dos not allow the researchers to fill their works with the sufficient analytical and forecasting power, as the actions of the state constantly outpace the actions of the humanitarian scholars.

Keywords: philosophy of science, symbolic power, symbolic capital, social science, Humanities, Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, sociology of knowledge, state