2000. Vol. 1. No. 1

Policy makers and scholars have been searching for the magic key to unlock the economic potential of underdeveloped regions. I will argue that there is no single "key", but rather that research in economic sociology shows that development depends on utilizing the historically developed patterns of social organization. Societies do best when they pursue economic activities for which their social structure gives them a comparative advantage.

The paper analyzes the reasons of the informal economies’ growth in the developed and developing countries. Classic determinants of informal economy like economicbackwardness of the country,migration flows, specificity of the professional and socio-demographic characteristics of the population, economic expansion of the cheap goods from the third countries, increase of sub-contracting relations, fight with trade unions and etc., are discussed here. These reasons are given as hypothesizes, which are verified empirically in the paper. The main conclusion of the paper is that every hypothesis is true for particular country, industry and time period. However none of the hypothesis is universal. Informal economies vary greatly among the countries, that is why there is no grounds to speak about unique system of reasons of the informal economy without national country specifics. 

Among the new poverty groups there is one, which remains in the shade, comprises from those having a job but not having enough means of subsistence.  How we got this situation? What difficulties do the working poor face with and how do they try to tackle them? Why don’t they leave their permanent low-paid jobs and how large is the safety factor?  The survey conducted in 1999 in four Russian cities (Moscow, Nijni Novgorod, Ekaterinburg and Krasnodar) helps to answer all these questions. 258 of working poor were asked to fill out the questionnaire during the survey, 32 deep interviews were also taken from these people (the same number in every city). 

The paper analyzes the peculiarities of individual self-organization of unemployed. The concept of сoping behaviour, used in the paper, allows to consider concrete mechanisms of overcoming life difficulties and crises. The author works out three main forms of individual self-organization of unemployed:goal-seeking use of social network resources; effective concretization of self image, personal plans and evaluation of the current situation; shaping the context of the current situation. These forms could be the object of social support, provided through professional orientation. The author’s definition of professional orientation is given. The author makes a conclusion of that the development of the system of consultancy support for the professional career is needed.  

The paper is devoted to the studding of mass protest of Russian population: to the search for the economic changes that have the strongest links to the protest activity and disclosing of the concrete types of correlation between them.  It is shown that the mass protest has two independent components: strikes at the enterprises from the one hand and public actions of protest including meetings, manifestations, picketing and starvations. During the three years (1996-98 ) there was an exponential correlation between the number of strikes participants and the temps of arrears growth. The number of public strikes participants does not correlate with any of the economic variable. There were also revealed four factors that were independent characteristics of social behavior: conform behavior, passive dissatisfaction, public protest and strike protest. 

The interest to the problem of poverty and deprivation in Russia has grown considerably during the last years. Here is the translation of the most interesting part from the Morris’ book in which all the main approaches to underclass conception are analyzed.  The text is given edited by Maria Dobryakova, master student of MSSES.