DOI: 10.7256/2409-7144.2016.7.19427

Abstract: This article analyzes the notion of Informatization. It is presented as a specific universal complex social process. Moreover, Informatization is a process of progressive development, as it justifies the transition of the entire society and its subsystems towards the qualitatively new status. Unidirectionality along with the mutual integration of the joint social actions of people are attributable to this process, which leads to the drastic economic, social, cultural, and technological changes within the society. The author examines the notion of information society and provides the main components of Russia’s transition towards the information society. The article analyzes the term Informatization and proves that it is certainly a complex social process. The main conclusion consists in understanding that Informatization represents a universal complex social process, as well as a dynamically developing social institution of the information society, which saturates all areas of social life, its social institutions and organizations. The role of the process of Informatization lies in contentment of demands of the society and its subjects.

DOI: 10.7256/2409-7144.2016.7.19528

Abstract: This article reveals the influence of the social factors upon the character of the terrorist activity. In particular, the attention is given to the question why the level of social capital in the society plays an important role in explanation of the regularities in terrorist activity. The author defines size of social capital as a combination of social connections, networks, information flows, and institutions, which contribute into political activeness and play an essential role in consolidation of trust, cooperation, as well as in establishment of the universal norms in specific society. During the course of this research it was determined the social capital can put a multi-vectoral pressure, which simultaneously restrains and encourages terrorism, causing various consequences. As a result, the forces that stimulate the formation of terrorist organizations can restrain their activity or the savagery of the used by the terrorist strategies, methods, as well as the number among civil victims.

DOI: 10.7256/2409-7144.2016.7.18114

Abstract: This article demonstrates the differences between the two, quite similar at first sight, processes: socialization and adaptation. The similarity of these processes is discovered in their sociality, possibility of emergence and development only within the society and only among people. As in the socialization process, in the course of social adaptation there is an active adjustment, assimilation by the human of the social norms and requirements of this social environment. Moreover, a necessary criterion and result of the successful socialization, as well as the effective social adaptation, is self-development, self-realization, and self-actualization of identity in society. The differences take their roots in the nature, criteria, and functions of these processes. It is demonstrated that the essential distinction consists in the role played by social adaptation in the process of socialization of an individual, namely in its gradual subjectivation, alienation from the society. It is substantiated that social adaptation is a method of socialization of an individual, as specifically in the process of social adaptation a person attains the experience necessary for their establishment as a rightful and competent member of society.

DOI: 10.7256/2409-7144.2016.7.18678

Abstract: The article describes the potential and prospects for implementation of the popular concepts of creative city, creative class, and creative economy in the modern cities. The author argues that these concepts are applicable only in certain loci and social groups of the urban community, and do not create the cumulative effect of development for the entire city. Promises, addressed to the city and the citizens by the creative concepts cannot be fulfilled for the majority, which is not employed in the post-industrial economy. These promises form high expectations, distorting the agenda of the city in favor of different kinds of privileged minorities. As a result, creative industries and technologies merely become limited urban utopias of the XXI century. The article reveals a number of alternative long-term conditions for the successful urban development which are not connected with creative communities, whose interests should be viewed as complementarity to solutions focused on the interests of the wider urban groups. These are factors of urban progress, associated with the broadening of municipal autonomy; support of the competition between different strategies of urban development; restriction of commodification of urban resources; support of the vulnerable social groups, designated as precariat; promotion for egalitarian models of suburbanization.

DOI: 10.7256/2409-7144.2016.7.19136

Abstract: Turnout has been widely used to operationalize a large number of variables, from the level of support for political institutes to the degree of electorate consolidation. In recent years, yet another application emerged: statistical distribution of turnout as an indicator of electoral fraud. This application, however, rests on a weakly substantiated assumption that in absence of electoral fraud the turnout distribution should be Gaussian (normal). The goal of this paper is to find out whether there is a certain distribution that describes most cases of elections, and whether deviations from normality are indeed anomalous. Eastern Europe appears to be a promising testing ground for these assumptions, providing an array of countries which started developing electoral democracy at almost the same time, after decades of sharing similar political regimes; the properties of electoral competition are similar as well. This study corroborates the hypothesis that elections are usually exhibiting the same turnout patterns, but shows that the most regularly found distribution isn't normal: the values of skewness and kurtosis do not match those expected of a Gaussian distribution. Finally, it reveals that the deviations from said distribution are indeed exceptions from the general rule, and are accompanied by unusually frequent and/or rapid changes in turnout shape between the elections.