What Is the Leninist Legacy? Assessing Twenty Years of Scholarship

Slavic Review ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jody LaPorte ◽  
Danielle N. Lussier

In this review essay, Jody LaPorte and Danielle N. Lussier examine the “legacies” paradigm dominating postcommunist scholarship in the social sciences. The legacies paradigm has produced a growing list of factors that qualify as historical antecedents to contemporary outcomes without establishing a set of shared standards to guide comparative analysis. Scholars have paid less attention to developing a conceptual definition of legacy, thereby limiting our ability to evaluate the importance of historical factors versus more proximate causes. This critique presents a thoughtful analysis of the communist legacy, develops a typology that can be used to categorize legacy variables for meaningful comparison, and brings the concept into discussion with the broader literature on historical institutions and path dependency. By suggesting tools to aid comparative study, LaPorte and Lussier’s goal is to stimulate both conceptual and empirical analysis in evaluating the effect of communism on contemporary outcomes.

Communicology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
N.V. Kirillina

The paper represents the analysis of the concept of communicative. The choice of topic is determined by the search for criteria and tools for assessing the results of strategic communication, taking into account the development of its interactive forms. The author leads the existing approaches to the definition of the concept of engagement and identifies the areas for further interdisciplinary research of the specified subject, and raises the issue of the appropriateness of using the engagement indicators in the assessment the social potential of communication. The work is based on the phenomenological tradition in the interpretation of communicative processes and the metamodel of communication of R. Craig. The author uses the methods of comparative analysis, analogy, generalization, and combined methodology of interdisciplinary analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110244
Author(s):  
Katrin Auspurg ◽  
Josef Brüderl

In 2018, Silberzahn, Uhlmann, Nosek, and colleagues published an article in which 29 teams analyzed the same research question with the same data: Are soccer referees more likely to give red cards to players with dark skin tone than light skin tone? The results obtained by the teams differed extensively. Many concluded from this widely noted exercise that the social sciences are not rigorous enough to provide definitive answers. In this article, we investigate why results diverged so much. We argue that the main reason was an unclear research question: Teams differed in their interpretation of the research question and therefore used diverse research designs and model specifications. We show by reanalyzing the data that with a clear research question, a precise definition of the parameter of interest, and theory-guided causal reasoning, results vary only within a narrow range. The broad conclusion of our reanalysis is that social science research needs to be more precise in its “estimands” to become credible.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Beatriz Marín-Aguilera

Archaeologists, like many other scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities, are particularly concerned with the study of past and present subalterns. Yet the very concept of ‘the subaltern’ is elusive and rarely theorized in archaeological literature, or it is only mentioned in passing. This article engages with the work of Gramsci and Patricia Hill Collins to map a more comprehensive definition of subalternity, and to develop a methodology to chart the different ways in which subalternity is manifested and reproduced.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.


Author(s):  
Nikita K. Siundiukov ◽  

The article presents a comparative analysis of the theory of Ferdinand Tönnies “Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft” and the philosophy of catholicity in the works of A.S. Khomyakov and I.V. Kireevsky. The theory of Tönnies is considered in the light of the concept of “sociological conservatism” manifested by A.F. Filippov. It is shown that the conceptual opposition “Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft” can be seen continuation of the discussion about the “nature of the social”. In this light, the main reference points of Tönnies sociology are the political theories of Aris­totle and Hobbes, with an emphasis on the definition of the “natural state” of man. Based on the analysis of Tönnies theory, it is shown that its comparison with Slavophilism is possible in three parameters: appeal to the factor of sub­stantiality, the dichotomy of “historical” and “non – historical” and the use of the concept of “organic”. It is proved that in the context of a “conservative” reading of the philosophy of sobornost, its argumentation turns out to be mainly political and sociological


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiano Vezzoni

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of secondary analysis to social sciences and to futures studies, both for research and teaching purposes. Design/methodology/approach – An illustration of the main characteristics of secondary analysis, presenting it as a theory-driven activity where the definition of the research design plays a fundamental role. Findings – This paper extends the secondary analysis approach to the study of the future. The utility of secondary analysis for futures studies is illustrated by means of the presentation of two examples developed in the field of the sociology of religion. Originality/value – The results are useful for those who want to develop sound and robust approaches to the study of social change, taking into consideration the simulation of possible future scenarios.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-441
Author(s):  
Herbert S. Klein

Economic inequality has become one of the most important themes in the social sciences. The debate has revolved around two basic models. Was Kuznets correct in his prediction that inequality declines with economic growth, or was Piketty, along with others in the Berkeley/Paris/Oxford group, correct to counter that capitalism without severe constraints inevitably leads to increasing inequality? The resolution will depend on long-term historical analysis. In Global Inequality, Milanovic proposed new models to analyze the social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence changes in inequality over time and space. In Capitalism, Alone, he changes direction to examine what patterns of capitalism and inequality will look like in the twenty-first century and beyond, as well as how inequality might be reduced without violence.


2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-189 ◽  

Islamophobia was originally developed as a concept in the late 1990s by political activists to draw attention to rhetoric and actions directed at Islam and Muslims in Western liberal democracies. In recent years, Islamophobia has evolved from a primarily political concept toward one increasingly deployed for analytical purposes. Researchers have begun using the term to identify the history, presence, dimensions, intensity, causes, and consequences of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiments. In short, Islamophobia is an emerging comparative concept in the social sciences. Yet, there is no widely-accepted definition of the term. As a result, it is extremely difficult to compare levels of Islamophobia across time, location, or social group, or to levels of analogous categories like racism, anti-Semitism, or xenophobia.


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