Publications

This pocket data book contains the most recent statistical data representing the level and dynamics of the digital economy development in the Russian Federation. International comparisons are provided for a number of indicators.

The data book includes information of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Federal Customs Service of Russia, Russian Central Bank (Bank of Russia), European Statistical Office (Eurostat), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Scopus database, and results of own methodological and analytical studies of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify previously unexamined predictors of abusive supervision (AS) that stem from socio-economic dependency of employees upon their direct supervisors. Design/methodology/approach – Using social exchange theory (SET) as framework, the author conducted empirical analysis that was based on survey data collected among 1,100 Russian white-collar private sector employees. Findings – The results reveal the importance of organisation-level managerial practices which create employees’ socio-economic dependency in predicting abusive supervision (AS). Significant positive predictions of AS in Russian business organisations are “accidental” and “zero-option” employment; getting a job through informal social contacts (“blat”); and dependence of wage upon personal relations with a supervisor. In turn, performance-based payment is the strongest factor that hinders AS. Taken together, these factors support one of the key assumptions of SET that control over valued resources creates imbalanced power relations, thus providing the fertile ground to the abuse of power. Practical implications – Findings show that a transparent, performance-based system of payments, contributes to preventing AS by immediate supervisors. The author also provides arguments for reducing the economic and administrative power of line managers. Originality/value – This study adds to the understanding of the role of managerial practices, which create socio-economic dependency of employees from managers, in predicting AS in organisations.

In moral panic studies, pro-ana communities are usually considered folk devils. Namely, pro-ana culture is investigated as an object of ‘moral crusades’ led by scientists, physicians, activists, politicians, mass media, parents and many other social actors concerned about the epidemics of restrictive eating disorders. In this paper, I put aside this strand of moral panic research and discuss the role of pro-ana communities as facilitators of moral panic to bridge the macro-micro divide in scientific investigations of the pro-ana phenomenon. I propose to examine pro-ana people as entrepreneurs of the moral panic over obesity. This means that pro-ana communities can be analysed as creating and spreading contemporary legends on obesity in their communication processes. Furthermore, I discuss and exemplify the roles of pro-ana people as amplifiers, supporters and enforcers of this panic. In addition, while reconnecting micro and macro levels in the explanation of the pro-ana phenomenon, I contribute to the development of moral panic theory, as the application of the concept of ‘moral panic’ to pro-ana communities facilitates niche formation in biomedical social research.

The study is devoted to a comparison of three approaches to handling missing data of categorical variables: complete case analysis, multiple imputation (based on random forest), and the missing-indicator method. Focusing on OLS regression, we describe how the choice of the approach depends on the missingness mechanism, its proportion, and model specification. The results of a simulated statistical experiment show that each approach may lead to either almost unbiased or dramatically biased estimates. The choice of the appropriate approach should be primarily based on the missingness mechanism: one should choose CCA under MCAR, MI under MAR, and, again, CCA under MNAR. Although MIM produces almost unbiased estimates under MCAR and MNAR as well, it leads to inefficient regression coefficients—ones with too big standard errors and, consequently, incorrect p-values.

In the wake of the post-Soviet transition, there was significant academic interest in organized civil society and the liberal opposition in Russia. In more recent years, attention has turned to more everyday and episodic forms of local activism by citizens with little history of involvement in politics. But how can we conceptualize the way in which these activists engage with the state? In this paper, we draw on relational approaches to the state from anthropology and geography and case study research with citizens who oppose construction projects in south-west Moscow, identifying three different dimensions of engagement: first, residents probe the state to examine the avenues that are susceptible to their demands; second, they act as brokers, establishing links between civil society and the state; and third, residents at times resist redevelopment by directly contesting particular construction works. These forms of engagement show how citizens struggle against and seek to tap into different elements of state power as they preserve their neighborhoods from unwanted forms of development.

Studies on foreign policy consider government as the key actor in policy formulation and implementation. Research, apparently, has devoted far less attention to impact of knowledge brokers, such as think tanks, on policy-making. How and why do think tanks influence US foreign policy? An analysis of five think tanks that differ in terms of their proximity to elites, origin, and ideology reveals two types of nonstate actors’ impact on foreign policy. Think tanks either advocate for own alternative policy proposals, solutions, and actions (“alternatives’ facilitators”), or clarify, justify, and legitimize those of the governments (“policy legitimizers”). These two roles dictate special mechanisms and think tank impact directions. In the first type, think tanks are less oriented toward mass media, but more oriented toward coalitions with nonstate actors and influence the opinions of elites. The second type is the opposite: higher orientation toward mass media and more pronounced connections with elites, and influence on the public. Different origins and strategy of think tanks may be the reasons for some observed differences.

Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13–19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual covariance between a pair of items tapping past life satisfaction fitted well in 19 countries and regions and showed a partial metric invariance. In a subset of nine countries and regions, partial scalar invariance was supported. Partial metric invariance across all 24 countries and regions was achieved when custom model modifications in five countries and regions were included. Three SWLS items showed evidence of noninvariance across cultures. The measurement model was found to operate similarly across gender and age. Our findings suggest that caution is needed when using the SWLS for measuring life satisfaction among adolescents from different cultures.

In this article, we consider the problem of a discrepancy between, on the one hand, lay prescriptive judgments on the necessity of altruistic actions and, on the other, attributing moral worth to these actions. Based on Kantian theory of morality, we hypothesized that lay attributions of the moral worth of altruistic actions would be inversely related to normative ought-judgments according to which these actions should be performed, as having positive evolutionary-based utilitarian externalities for the actors. To test this general hypothesis, we conducted two experiments using the same set of vignettes that were constructed based on systematically varying such factors as relatedness, reciprocity, the size of donation, and probability of meeting in the future. The results provide overall confirmation of our assumption, as evaluative judgments about the moral worth were inversely dependent on information provided about possible contributions from such consequentialist, payoff-based mechanisms as kinship and expected reciprocity, while prescriptive judgments were positively influenced by such information cues.

Over the last hundred years mankind has learned how to treat or prevent many infectious diseases, but as a natural result of medical progress and increased life expectancy, cancer has come to the fore as one of the main causes of death. Cancer, due to its specific nature and treatment, can cause fear, which in its extreme form manifests itself as carcinophobia. Undoubtedly, cancer has pronounced physiological reasons for fear, but the way this fear is embodied and levelled has much to do with cultural and socio-economic features of the environment. This study, based on an analysis of 37 in-depth interviews, attempts to answer the question of what frightens people who have not personally experienced cancer, about cancer, and how such fear is overcome in everyday life. The analysis of the informants' narratives allows us to suggest that the fear of cancer is inextricably linked to the perceptions of the state of the healthcare system and the level of socio-economic development of the country. The low level of trust in the institution of medicine in this case can be replaced by faith in an individual specialist, acquaintance with whom will be a potential "salvation" from cancer. The high degree of uncertainty associated with both the peculiarities of the disease itself and the socio-cultural context in which it can potentially be lived in, is overcome in several ways. One of them is the formulation of lay theories about the causes, prevention and treatment of cancer, which allow the reduction of the complex disease to specific, controllable factors. Psychosomatic lay theories are especially pronounced: "thoughts about cancer", "dissatisfaction with life", "stress" - one of the key causes of cancer, according to the respondents. An important role in overcoming the fear of cancer is played by increased agency of individuals in the field of self-care. Thus, anti-cancer practices that people bring into their everyday lives can reduce the irrational fear of the disease. The opposite strategy becomes a fatalistic stance toward the disease, as well as a narrow planning horizon - cancer is not perceived as a phenomenon that lies within the field of current problems, and loses out to more pressing social and economic challenges.

This pocket data book contains the most recent statistical data representing the level and dynamics of the digital economy development in the Russian Federation. International comparisons are provided for a number of indicators.

The data book includes information of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Federal Customs Service of Russia, Russian Central Bank (Bank of Russia), European Statistical Office (Eurostat), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Scopus database, and results of own methodological and analytical studies of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge.

In Myanmar, the Citizenship Law of 1982 made the Rohingya “stateless.” The Rohingya consider Bangladesh a haven and take to the sea on rickety boats to cross borders. If they do, however, they become “illegal migrants.” Considering such laws unjust, local and international NGOs have been leading struggles to uphold the Rohingyas’ rights in Bangladesh. This article registers the struggles of these organizations against the production of illegality and statelessness. It discusses how they contest and negotiate the thick mix of politics, the local labor control regime, laws, and national regulations, and how in turn the refugees assert their agency through resilience and resistance, individually and collectively.

This study investigates work schedules in online labour markets, operating in 24/7 mode across spatial borders and time zones. Focusing on largely hidden and invisible work of freelancers such as searching for jobs and communicating with clients, the study documents how platforms put pressures and constraints on freelancers’ time through the mechanism of task allocation. We use data on 241,582 timestamped messages posted by 29,759 unique users in 4082 contests on a leading Russian-language freelance platform to reveal how freelancers’ efforts to get a job make them work nonstandard hours, including evenings, nights and weekends. Freelancers have to be responsive and adapt their schedules to clients’ needs. Freelancers who live in time zones which differ from their clients are particularly disadvantaged, working a greater proportion of nonstandard hours. The findings emerging from the study contribute to current debates on the gig economy and a new time-work discipline.

Many terms used both in sociology and lay discourse have nonscientific origins. Therefore, it is important to clarify the meanings of these concepts to understand the heuristic capacities that they have for scientific research. The notion of satanism emerged in evangelical manuscripts, and it has since appeared repeatedly in political and juridical discussions. Moreover, there are conflicting opinions about the suitability of this notion for sociological study. In this paper, I use critical concept analysis and a critical perspective on religion to examine sociological discourse on satanism. I argue that to enhance sociology—and religious studies in general—among contemporary views of satanism, the naturalist model is the most promising, but it is not the only one that should be used to explain this notion.

News events with global appeal such as the COVID-19 pandemic, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, plane crashes, and earthquakes are flagship examples of journalistic role performance in action. But so are more ordinary developments like G20 summits, presidential speeches, parliamentary sessions, council meetings, daily crime news, judicial processes, protests, and industry reports. All kinds of news stories and story angles can, at some point or under certain circumstances, serve as exemplars of how the interventionist, loyal-facilitator, watchdog, civic, service, and infotainment roles not only manifest in practice, but also co-exist and interact across and within cultures, topics, types of newspapers, and even single news stories. In this book, we analyzed how professional journalism roles materialize in print news in different organizational, institutional, and social settings, examining journalistic practice under the umbrella offered by the multidimensional concept of role performance. We have made a case for the ever-changing, fluid, and dynamic nature of journalistic roles, which are activated and deactivated by certain triggers, events, and circumstances, showing the extent to which news stories in a given country exhibit indicators of one or more of them.

Ipsatization, or a correction of variables by their common component, is routinely applied to measures of basic values. Although ipsatization has been criticized, the consequences of non-ipsatization are rarely discussed. We show that the ipsatization of values is intertwined with their definition. A common factor involved in ipsatization was suggested to represent a nuisance variable, a response style, social desirability, or other constructs. A simulation study illustrated that within-individual centering revealed more accurate value scores when the common factor was in the data, with exception of the situation when values were consistently and positively correlated with each other. We conclude that in different conditions both applying and failing to apply ipsatization can cause bias. Therefore, no general advice in regard to ipsatization can be provided.

On the practical aspects

of the interaction between education and the labor market.

It includes the development of requirements for the university

graduates according to the demands of the labor market and the

implementation of these requirements by higher education programs.

There was summarized the experience of research, organizational

and educational work in the field of higher sociological

education including the development of a draft professional

standard for a sociologist, the updating оf the Federal State Educational

Standard of higher education and the elaboration of indicators

of achievement of competencies in exemplary educational

programs of the bachelor and master of sociology, taking

into account the requirements of the labor market.

This article identifies and evaluates the main trends and issues in the conceptual analysis of power, their dynamics, and current status. There are several interrelated basic trends in the conceptual analysis of power in the last decades: conceptual solutions have become more flexible; multidimensional view; synthesis of different approaches; expansion of the concept; blurring the borders between power and non-power. These trends require taking into account a significantly larger amount of empirical data and paying special attention to those forms of social interaction that are hidden from external observation. Expansion of the range of power forms increases the difficulties of their systematization, while interpretation and comparison of the outcomes of empirical studies have become more complicated.