Sociological Methods Research Articles

Іntegrity and good faith in the european concept of good administration: framework for legal and scientific research

Clarifying the essence of the good public administration in the USA, United Kingdom, European countries, and Ukraine has led to the need for special studies of the Good Faith and Іntegrity principles. The purpose of this paper is to develop the framework for future study of the doctrine of good administration, within the European cultural and legal tradition. This study represents a “triune” system of methodology: 1) general (meta-theoretical) methods – theory “Law as Іntegrity” of Ronald M. Dworkin); 2) special (typical for the work) method – a legal operationalization; 3) applied methods – logical-linguistic and sociological methods of content analysis. The results of preliminary review of the theoretical works were significantly modified on a basis of the collection and study of empirical material of activities in the sphere of public administration. A significant body of legal texts were examined by using the content-analysis method which has been successfully applied in the framework of the empirical research. The conclusions contain a basic hypothesis for future research. The basic concept of the claimed research, which has been developed, in such a way, is reduced to object, subject and aim of the further study of the issues raised in the field of good public administration.

Literary allusion in sociological analysis: Mass Observation mantelpiece reports as epic and drama

This paper experiments with the use of literary analysis for the interpretation of participants’ writing. The dataset comprises 56 ‘Reports’ in response to a 2019 Mass Observation Directive. Mass Observation is a British archive. Its aim is to record everyday life through correspondents’ responses to thrice-yearly Directives. The paper contributes to lyrical sociology with its development of ‘textural’ analysis. The 2019 Directive asked volunteers to submit reports on what was on their mantelpieces and also about their treasured objects. I found this writing highly allusive of two literary works: Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, and the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ in Homer's ancient Greek epic poem, the Iliad. This led me not only to review the earlier reports but also to consider how literature can enrich the interpretation of participants’ writing. In conclusion, I argue that following up allusive ‘hunches’ can result in fruitful literary analysis, as a ‘textural’ approach to sociological method.

ROAD ACCIDENTS AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMY: LEGAL ANALYSIS

The present publication aims to conduct a legal analysis of the mutual influence of road accidents and the national economy, which is manifested at different levels of relevant public relations. The research subject is road accidents and the national economy. The publication’s methodology relies on an organic combination of well-known laws and techniques of dialectics (the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative, unity and struggle of opposites, and the negation of negation), general scientific methods of research (techniques of the logical method, comparative method, techniques of the sociological method, systemic and structural-functional methods), and special legal methods (legal statistics, formal-legal method, methods of comparative jurisprudence and legal modeling). Results. Road safety is inextricably linked with economic processes taking place in a particular state. In addition, as economic indicators affect the number of road accidents so the dynamics and consequences of road accidents significantly affect the national economy. The most important economic factors affecting the number of road accidents are as follows: underdeveloped road infrastructure, outdated vehicle fleet, poor financial and logistic support of law enforcement agencies, insufficient number of traffic enforcement cameras, and other innovative means of preventing road accidents. The priority in traffic accident prevention is the maximum automation of means ensuring road safety: coverage of all key traffic intersections with traffic enforcement cameras, equipment of modern cars with automatic speed limit systems and alcohol intoxication testers, which automatically block the ignition system, the development of a fleet of AI-based self-driving cars and automated traffic control systems. Other economic and administrative means of road accident prevention are equally important, i.e., financial incentives for compliance with traffic rules, development and improvement of public transport efficiency, and investments in multi-level road infrastructure to reduce traffic congestion in available highways and transport interchange.

Kedudukan Hukum Simantek Kuta dalam Penyelesaian Sengketa Tanah Adat Suku Karo di Kabupaten Karo

This study aims to examine the position of simantek kuta within the current structure of the Karo indigenous community, its legal relationship with customary land, and its authority in resolving land disputes. The research utilizes the legal sociology method, employing analytical descriptive analysis. Secondary data from primary, secondary, and tertiary legal sources are collected through library research and field studies. Simantek kuta, as a kuta leader, was replaced by the system defined in Law Number 5 of 1979 and Law Number 6 of 2014 on Village Administration, aiming to establish legal certainty and standardize village governance. Simantek kuta holds a joint leadership role with the village head in managing and utilizing customary land of the Karo people. In resolving land disputes, simantek kuta acts as a leader, employing traditional Karo customary law methods such as purpur sage and runggu. Differentiating between government leadership led by the village head and adat leadership led by simantek kuta, the Karo people have established regulations within the Kuta leadership system. It is recommended to establish a Regional Regulation in Karo Regency to protect and recognize the existence of customary land, preventing conflicts and disputes. Preserving the dispute resolution system through peaceful means and family-oriented decisions based on Karo customary law, such as purpur sage and runggu, is crucial. Mutual respect for dispute resolution decisions should be fostered within the community.

Discerning the Political Communication of Short Video Platforms under Algorithmic Recommendations

As an increasingly important core technology in digitalization, algorithms are not only the "brain" of artificial intelligence, but also a new form of full power. This paper reflects on the epistemological problem of short videos in the context of cybernetics. Through the study of short videos' communication, it points out that short videos have not become a tool for building network communication, openness and communication as expected, but have gradually become centralized, circled and walled, under the control of the algorithm of the big hand behind, forming an "information cocoon". "This paper combines political science, communication science, and the study of the Internet with the study of the Internet. This paper combines the research methods of political science, communication science and sociology to summarize and sort out the representative issues related to short videos, analyze their current problems and development dilemmas, explore the new path of algorithm on the development of political communication of short videos, and provide reference for improving the openness and participatory nature of media programs.

STUDY OF THE RELIGIOUS COMPONENT OF LINGUISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS: THE PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ASPECT

The article notes the previously used directions in the study of religious consciousness, and also evaluates the effectiveness of psycholinguistic methods for studying the religious component of everyday linguistic consciousness (namely, an associative experiment) in comparison with sociological methods. The results of a pilot experiment are presented, in which representatives of two nationalities take part as subjects: Russians and Chinese - carriers of fundamentally different cultural and religious traditions. The recognition and perception of Christian images by representatives of two cultures are compared. The influence of the age factor on the content of the religious component of the linguistic consciousness of Russians is also analyzed.Finally, conclusions are drawn about the greater involvement of elder people in the Christian religious context and about the greater pagan affiliation of the young consciousness and the bearers of Chinese culture. The applicability of the associative experiment in the study of age and ethno-cultural characteristics of the content of linguistic consciousness is positively assessed. The results of the experiment may be relevant for researchers, translators, teachers of foreign languages, as well as theologians, specialists in religion studies and missionary catechists.

Contributors

Previous articleNext article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreKristian Bernt Karlson is associate professor of sociology at the University of Copenhagen. His research centers on educational and social stratification. Karlson was awarded the 2022 Raymond Boudon Award for Early Career Achievement in Sociology by the European Academy of Sociology. His recent work appears in Sociological Science, Social Science Research, and Sociological Methods and Research.Heeju Sohn, PhD, is a demographer and a scholar of social inequality in the Department of Sociology at Emory University.Paige L. Sweet is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Her book, The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and Its Aftermath, was published by University of California Press in 2021.Martin Hällsten is professor of sociology at Stockholm University. His research broadly concerns the generation and consequences of inequality and has mainly been focused on intergenerational inequality processes, educational choice, ethnic inequality, and how social relations convey trust and tolerance.Martin Kolk is associate professor in demography at the Sociology Department at Stockholm University and the Institute for Future studies in Stockholm. He works on a diverse set of topics in demography and adjacent fields, including the demography of same-sex marriage, historical demography, and contemporary childbearing patterns. He has published extensively on kinship and how it is related to social mobility.Jaime Kucinskas is associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Hamilton College. In her research, she examines the constitutive institutional conditions under which people engage in moral sensemaking. She is the author of The Mindful Elite and coeditor of Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice and Power (Oxford University Press).Yvonne Zylan is a sociologist and attorney who has taught at the University of Arizona, Hamilton College, the University of New Mexico, Thomson Rivers University Faculty of Law, and the University of British Columbia Allard School of Law. She is the author of States of Passion: Law, Identity, and the Social Construction of Desire, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2011. She currently works as a senior law clerk at the New Mexico Supreme Court.Felix Elwert, PhD, is professor of sociology and affiliated professor of biostatistics and population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the editor-in-chief of Sociological Methods and Research. He conducts research on methods of causal inference, social inequality, health, and education.Tamás Keller, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences and the Institute of Economics in the Center for Economic and Regional Studies, Budapest, Hungary. He conducts research on education and social inequality.Andreas Kotsadam is a senior researcher at the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research as well as professor of economics at the University of Oslo, Norway. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 128, Number 6May 2023 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/725999 © 2023 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Факторы формирования и методы измерения социального недовольства в российских исследованиях

Based on a review of Russian studies, the article presents the conceptual aspects of the analysis of social discontent, which is a necessary condition for mass political action. The author pays special attention to the causes of the emergence and spread of discontent in society. An important subject of research is the influence of social networks on the formation of mass discontent and the involvement of citizens in protest activity. Measurements of social dissatisfaction note the use of proven sociological methods and new cybermetric capabilities, which together can constitute strong hybrid research methods.

Implementation of party projects as a way to strengthen the image of a public organization

The purpose of the article was to identify the attitude of the population toward the Moscow Regional regional branch of the United Russia Party to improve the image of this public organization. Special sociological methods were used, including qualitative analysis of documents, secondary analysis of research results, survey methods. Based on the results of the survey, it was revealed that the implementation of party projects is a significant tool for forming the image of political organizations. An attractive image of an organization is the most important condition for its political success, which helps to bring the electorate to its side.

How is Sociological Knowledge Possible? Influences of Kantian Epistemology in Max Weber’s ‘Verstehende Soziologie’ and the Problem of Objectivity

Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution’ has caused a radical change in the common-sense theory of knowledge. The subject became the centre and the necessary premise for the validity of the objective world. This change in the understanding of knowledge has best manifested itself in Weber’s ‘Verstehende Soziologie’. Therefore, in order to understand the Weberian sociological method and to be able to detect the possible problems that may arise from his sociology, a better grasp of what Kantian epistemology is and in what ways it has influenced Weberian sociology is needed. Accordingly, this paper will firstly analyse Kantian epistemology with a special emphasis on transcendental idealism, and will expand and explain in detail Weber’s ‘Verstehende Soziologie’. Next, the paper will show how Weberian sociology relates to Kantian epistemology through the construction of ideal types. Before concluding, the focus moves to the objectivity claim of both Kantian epistemology and Weberian sociology and shows how objectivity arises from subjectivity through the establishment of causality. Finally, the paper will propose an objection to the objectivity claim of Weberian sociology and will argue that Kantian epistemology, when adopted as a method of sociology, becomes reflexive and threatens to deprive sociology of its objectivity claim.

Organization of minors’ protection from destructive information environment: Russian federal cities case study

The relevance of protecting minors from destructive information is quite high, since in the modern world technology has taken a leading position in human life, including children’s, replacing not only live communication, but also transferring a person’s entire life to the Internet space. The information environment affects the upbringing of children, as they spend a lot of time in global networks. Based on the meaning of international norms and national legislation, the protection of children from destructive information should be organized, including at the regional level. Features of Russian cities of federal significance can serve as a basis for a separate study of their experience in organizing the protection of minors from a destructive information environment. This study analyzes such work in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sevastopol. The article uses the comparative legal method, the method of analysis, the formal legal method, the sociological method, the method of generalization. Cities of federal significance have been studied from the standpoint of the criminalization of minors. The regional legislation governing the protection of minors from the destructive information environment has been studied. The law enforcement practice on improving the media literacy of minors, educational work, extracurricular work with children and adolescents is analyzed. In conclusion, findings about the features of ensuring the protection of minors from destructive information in Russian cities of federal significance are drawn.

Social and economic determinants of post-war re-emigration

Introduction. After the full-scale invasion of the russian federation a large number of citizens left Ukraine. Most of them have chosen Euro­pean countries as their place of residence, whose government have shown interest in the assimi­lation of Ukrainian refugees, and some of the migrants plan to return home. Problem. The departure of a significant num­ber of Ukrainian citizens abroad had a negative impact both on the state of the domestic market due to a significant drop in demand, and on the labour market, in particular in the service sector, which suffered significantly during the war. In the future, for some families, the question of reunification may arise not in Ukraine, but abroad. The aim of the study is to determine the factors that will influence the return of Ukrai­nian refugees after the end of the war. Methods. The research was conducted using methods of systematic and comparative analysis, sociological method in combination with cultu­ral and behavioural methods. Results. Despite the strong "sense of home" many parents have, their decision to return home to Ukraine is influenced by the desire to ensure a stable life for their children in countries that guarantee social protection, security and trans­parency of business, opportunities for social growth. Conclusions. At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, mostly representatives of small and medium-sized businesses and/or their relatives or friends left Ukraine. The possible threat to their lives and health during hostilities keeps them from returning. The availability of housing is a determining motivational factor for return for a relatively small number of respon­dents, the most important factor is the opportu­nity to work or manage legitimate business structures.

Factors of successful adaptation of rural youth to the modern academic setting: A regional aspect

The paper presents various problems considered in sociology with reference to the youth as a social and demographic group. Priority areas in the study of the plans and expectations of rural youth as a representative of the university community were identified. The aim of the study was to determine the factors of successful adaptation of rural youth to the modern academic setting. The authors used several sociological methods and techniques such as statistical data analysis, analysis of documents, secondary analysis of sociological research materials, and online survey of the population. The results of the study revealed that adaptation to the academic and urban environment is the most difficult stage for rural youth. The most common problems faced by natives of rural areas in the process of studying at the university are material, financial, and informational problems. The ability to adapt and overcome difficulties, make correct and effective decisions independently, and realize oneself in the urban space is the most important success factor for a young person who is a native of a rural area. Analysis of regulatory legal acts at the regional level allowed to conclude that the legislative framework to support students has been developed, but not sufficiently applied. The paper presents a list of practical recommendations for municipal governments and university administrators to reduce the adaptation burden during the study period and “return” young professionals to rural areas.

Islamic nomocracy: from the perspectives of Indonesia, Spain and Russia

The Indonesian Islamic nomocracy paradigm has a long history and a cultural relationship with the national struggle that coincides with political and religious orientations. The Islamic nomocracy is inseparable from the relationship between Islam and the state rather than being linked to Islamic doctrine and power. This research employed the normative sociological method. It used a philosophical approach from Barbour’s paradigm of the relationship between religion and science and Habermas’ thought on religion in public spaces. This research strives to analyze the Islamic nomocratic paradigm pattern prior to Indonesian independence as a crucial stage that influences the following eras, namely the post-independence era, the Old Order Era, the New Order Era, and the Post-Reformation era up to now. This research aims to find the basics and the development of the Islamic nomocracy in the Indonesian legal system. The roots of the Islamic nomocracy legal thought in Indonesia can be traced to the pre-independence era. In the development of Islamic kingdoms, there was a dialog and integration process between the Islamic nomocracy and the kingdom government. After the War of Java, the conflict and independence pattern was formed. Before Indonesian independence, the Islamic nomocracy thought developed into Pan Islamism which tended to be conical to legal formalization through the caliphate system. After Indonesia’s independence, some of the Islamic nomocracy legal thought recognized the state as one of the legal systems in Indonesia besides customary law and positive law. Then, Indonesia became a partly-Islamic Legal State with a constant up-and-down relationship with the state. The authors also completed this paper with perspectives of Spain and Russia as both have been ruled under Muslim governance.

There's no such thing as 'the economy', stupid: using Utopia to imagine society 'after money'.

This paper uses qualitative sociological modelling to assess the transformative potential of Modern Monetary Theory as set out in recent work by Stephanie Kelton and Mariana Mazzucato. The starting point is Ruth Levitas’s (2013) Utopia as Method. This defines and develops Utopia as an exploratory, speculative sociological method characterised by a holistic and ecologically embedded approach. This is then used to explore the potential of MMT for envisioning social transformation. The paper argues that the neglect of unpaid work and a commitment to economic growth undermines the radical potential of MMT, as does the abstraction of ‘the economy’ from a wider understanding of social structures and processes. It suggests also that the project to use MMT to reform capitalism is fundamentally flawed since there is a conflict between the compound growth on which capitalism depends and the environmental imperatives that both Kelton and Mazzucato acknowledge.

Informational Vulnerability of Russian University Students to Adverse Impact of Social Media

Concern for the health of young citizens is a major task of our state, it was included in the target program ‘Research and Development on Priority Lines of Developing Scientific and Technological Complex in Russia for 2014-2021’. This concern can be realized relying on effective technologies of influencing media, popularization of healthy life style, etc. However, not a single social and psychological theory can cover the whole diversity of social world, but each of them can more or less adequately explain separate, local aspects, phenomena, facts and regularities. The goal of the article is to verify the hypothesis about possible foresight of events and their drastic consequences, including youth extremism, which can take place in case of young students’ exposure to adverse impact on the part of media and about expediency to protect students at every university from this factor. Nature of this phenomenon and consequences of its proliferation have been analyzed in various academic works. Multi-disciplinary methods can be useful for studying the problem. Sociological methods collect and process information mainly in the form of survey and document analysis (event registration, information gained from respondents). The use of neuro-physiological methods stipulates device registration of neuro-physiological processes in the cerebral cortex and adjoining sub cortex zone, which cause psychic functions of the human being uncontrolled by him/her. Philosophy uses logical methods to find reasons of phenomena and their consequences. The combined use of these inter-disciplinary theories and research methods can help reveal sociological and philosophic aspects of social media, understand nature of their impact on student behavior. By social media calls for extremism and terrorism are spread among students and in conditions of present information war waged by western special services against the Russian Federation it is extremely risky and requires a quick response. Findings of the research can help find effective sociological counteraction against youth extremism and terrorism.

Satisfaction with the quality of outpatient care of medical students as an element of the assessment of the current system of medical care

Introduction. This article discusses the problems of the quality of outpatient care for medical students. Most of the students prefer not to seek medical help from specialists even in difficult situations, and in most cases they self-medicate. This is caused by an insufficient degree of quality service by the outpatient polyclinic service of the attached contingent. The existing state system of medical care is imperfect: there is no unified approach to the organization of student polyclinics; medical organizations do not take into account the age and social specifics of students; low continuity in the rehabilitation and treatment of patients; there is insufficient preventive work among students.Aim: To determine the level of satisfaction with the quality of medical services provided to medical students.Material and Methods. The sociological method included a survey of medical students (1026 respondents) according to a specially designed questionnaire that contained questions about the scope, nature, quality of work and satisfaction with the conditions of the polyclinic institution. The logistic method consisted in the analysis of personnel, resource provision, as well as the activities of the medical institution.Results. Most of the medical students encounter organizational obstacles (appointment, waiting lists at the registry, waiting lists at the day hospital, waiting lists at the reception, etc.). 38.0% of respondents noted that when health problems appear, it is easier for them to go to the medical office of the college than to the district doctor. Moreover, 64.3% of respondents do not have information about the district doctor. Satisfaction depends on a number of factors such as: waiting time for a doctor’s appointment at the office (p < 0.001), availability when making an appointment with a doctor at a polyclinic (p < 0.001), preference when contacting a doctor when health problems appear (p < 0.001), the presence of organizational difficulties to get an appointment or treatment in a polyclinic (p < 0.001), the location of the registry and specialist offices, the terminal for making an appointment (p < 0.001), as well as the conditions of stay in a medical facility (p < 0.001).Conclusion. The necessity of introducing feedback into the practice of working with a contingent of medical students, using available screening technologies to actively identify the most significant factors and risk groups of the most common pathology, taking measures to reduce the impact of controlled factors, as well as annual preventive examinations and medical examinations has been identified.

THE LAW «ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIOETHICS AND EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE, HEALTH CARE AND HUMAN WELFARE»: PREREQUISITES OF ADOPTION, STRUCTURE, FUNCTIONS

The modern development of biological science, medicine and law, accompanied by an interdisciplinary mutual «intrusion» of these sciences into the sphere of technological manipulations with the human genome, has led to the need for adequate legal regulation for these processes. The article proposes to adopt the federal law of the Russian Federation «On the General Principles of Bioethics and Evidence-Based Medicine in the Field of Science, Health Care and Human Welfare». The emergence of this law is dictated by the fact that, according to statistics, from 3 to 5 million people in the Russian Federation can be potential participants in genomic legal relations. Under these conditions, the need for the proposed law is fully felt by society, and the «silence of the legislator» can lead to negative consequences in the field of manipulations with the human genome. The article provides a possible structure of the bill, analyzes its main functions. Purpose: to substantiate the need for the adoption of the law of the Russian Federation «On the General Principles of Bioethics and Evidence-Based Medicine in the Field of Science, Health Care and Human Welfare», to present a possible structure of the draft regulatory act, breaking down the text of the bill into chapters and articles. Methods: method of formal legal analysis, methods of theoretical legal description and interpretation; method of interpretation of legal norms, sociological method. Results: the study makes it possible to propose the draft law of the Russian Federation «On the General Principles of Bioethics and Evidence-Based Medicine in the Field of Science, Health Care and Human Welfare», to identify its complex nature, to reveal its main content and functions, to which the author attributes the regulatory, protective and educative functions, in the aggregate, able to effectively regulate the legal relationship regarding the human genome.

Modern anti-drug policy and human rights

The topic of human rights in the aspect of relations between the state and addicted patients (and in general relations in the sphere of circulation of drugs) remains scantily explored for modern Ukraine, which actualizes further scientific research. The purpose of the article is to determine the authors’ vision of compliance with international human rights standards of the legal anti-drug prohibitions established by the state. To achieve this goal, using the historical-legal, comparative, dialectical, systemic, hermeneutic, sociological methods and legal method of cognition, national and foreign legislation was critically analyzed, international experience in implementing various models of anti-drug policy was studied, and proposals for the draft of a new Criminal Code of Ukraine were formulated. The authors pay special attention to the problems of protecting the rights of drug addicts, legal liability in the field of drug trafficking, legalization of drugs for non-medical needs and compulsory treatment of drug addicts.

COVID-19 and Religion

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a social drama in which churches, government, and individual actors have played prominent roles. While neo-conservative evangelicals have resisted governmental and scientific overreach in the name of “faith over fear”, liberal religious groups have joined in government and medical efforts for the good of the commons, offered comfort and assurance to those suffering, and called for support of the poor at home and abroad. Religions have turned right and left, from apocalyptic “resets” of global order to new calls for social justice. In this context, the root metaphor of the epidemic has been called up as a historical construct that helps to conceptualize, analyze, and act upon the COVID-19 crisis. Searching the past helps us see that not everything about COVID-19 as a social drama is a new or unheard-of challenge. For example, there are new evocations of the black death of 14th-century Europe that became a crisis in the church, as well as the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which upended the confidence of the European Enlightenment. Another way to appraise the dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak is to call on the varied approaches characteristic of the sociology of religion, that is, to consider how ideology and belief are socially constructed in order to account for new intellectual responses to societal challenges. Does religion always produce the “collective effervescence” Durkheim posited? Does religious change always arrive downstream of cultural change, or can it also become an independent variable? This article attends primarily to the sharp responses of conservative religious expression in the face of attention-getting upheaval, which has readily translated into right-wing political action and electioneering. But the social uplift and altruism of liberal religion is not neglected either. Thus, this article provides an account of how science and governmental action have both been challenged and embraced in response to COVID-19. As such, it is not an empirical study stemming from new Pew-like social polling. Rather, it is a wide overview rooted in sociological methods and theory for tracking religion historically and presently in America in a manner that aims to inform a discussion of how COVID-19 has impacted religion and religious expression, and vice versa.