Mary Laval and Tugrul Eroglu's Seminar

On December 15, the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research hosted PhD seminars for Mary Laval and Tugrul Eroglu.

Mary Laval, a third-year PhD student and research assistant at MLISI, presented her dissertation project, which she is developing under the supervision of E.R. Yarskaya-Smirnova, Doctor of Sociological Sciences and Head of the MLISI laboratory. The discussion was attended by O.B. Savinskaya, M.A. Kozlova, and D.I. Prisyazhnyuk. Mary's dissertation is dedicated to the topic "Social Integration through Inclusive Education in Nigeria." The presentation covered the research background, goals and objectives, conceptual framework, methods and empirical base, research findings, limitations, and next steps.

The reviewers offered several critical comments and suggestions for improving the work. They recommended rewriting the introduction to clearly articulate the sociological problem and to use mixed methods to integrate qualitative and quantitative data. Among other recommendations, the need to consider additional factors influencing teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education in Nigeria was also noted. All comments and feedback have been duly acknowledged and will be addressed.

Tugrul Eroglu, a second-year PhD student at the HSE University's Faculty of Social Sciences, presented his dissertation manuscript titled "Digital Protectionism in Russia: Economic Motivation and Institutional Change," developed under the supervision of S.G. Davydov. The project advances an economic-sociological and interdisciplinary approach to digital protectionism as a "new institution and doctrine" through which decision-makers, companies working with big data, and network users collectively create and reproduce a sovereignty-oriented regulatory regime. This regime is implemented using four policy instruments: entry barriers, local content requirements, data localization, and technology transfer. The theoretical framework combines institutional analysis with systemic political-economic views on the platform economy and surveillance capitalism, utilizing a multi-stage mixed-methods design incorporating conceptual mapping, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), expert interviews, and supplementary quantitative tests. Based on a preliminary analysis of secondary data, the presentation examined how Russia interprets protectionist measures as managerial control over data flows and the development of domestic platforms. It highlighted enforcement and compliance mechanisms, including fines and infrastructural shifts towards domestic cloud computing and data centers, and identified new socio-economic trade-offs related to concentration, compliance costs, and restricted consumer choice through path dependence.

During the discussion, the main comments focused on enhancing the project's analytical focus and improving the harmony between its stated objectives, conceptual framework, and proposed research plan. The discussion leader, M.V. Chernysheva, noted that the overall goal remains overly broad, particularly where it promises to "assess the consequences," which requires a well-defined methodology and tighter integration between sections. She urged reformulating the research problem as a specific and clear contradiction, rather than a general statement about a "gap." In this regard, she emphasized that the conceptual map currently appears overly expansive and recommended clarifying the core theoretical line by identifying the institutional approach as a potentially coherent nucleus, as well as articulating a clear analytical perspective for the project. Building on these points, O.B. Savinskaya stressed that these issues result in the dissertation lacking sufficient sociological depth. Additionally, Tugrul Eroglu's supervisor, S.G. Davydov, added that in interdisciplinary research, the adopted or primary scientific discipline can be overshadowed by methodological challenges, but this should not be seen as an excuse. Furthermore, Sergey Gennadyevich emphasized that the thesis and the issues it seeks to address are extremely important.