2011. Vol. 12. No. 3

One had to know the rules governing diverse actors’ behavior on the USA housing market to recognize the enlarging bubble and foresee an inevitable crash. Apart from the market actors, the experts being in direct contacts with these actors (for example, conducting in-depth interviews) could be aware of these rules. Generally speaking, social and economic regularities are generated by the fact that people behave according to the socially constructed rules which are explained, argued and learnt through telling stories. It means that we should analyze these stories for revealing the social and economic regularities. As far as the modern economics is not interested in studying economic actors’ discourses, it loses a capacity to understand and foresee important economic phenomena. Discourse analysis does not imply a departure from the strict scientific standards with their origins in natural sciences; it rather comes closer to them because all social interactions are mediated by language. The paper proposes an alternative to a variety of forms developed by institutional economics as well as most recent perspectives of economic theory including behavioral and experimental economics. The first part of the paper published in the current issue of the journal (May 2011) describes discursive methodology and its recent applications to the analysis of economic phenomena. The second part of the paper will be published in the next journal issue (September 2011). It is devoted to a discursive analysis of history and the present status of economics. It revises the results of «Methodenstreit» and discusses conditions which could give a way to the radical reform of mainstream economics.  институциональное знание

The paper presents a synthesis of key sociological insights regarding conditions underlining an effective state intervention into economy. It is focused on two main factors including the common coordinated bureaucracy and relative autonomy of the state from ruling class’s interests. The success of state intervention can be guaranteed neither by effective bureaucracy nor by the state autonomy. However comparative historical studies give an opportunity to reveal conditions under which these factors facilitate the state policy or put barriers to its implementation.

The article is devoted to a virtual community of parents functioning in the city of Saint-Petersburg. Based on a case-study, it considers the role of online communication in formation of parents’ social networks, principles on which their relationships are being built, ways of mutual support and channels for resource circulation, mechanisms and rules governing this circulation, contributions of parents’ community members to the organization of this private sphere. The paper demonstrates how production and accumulation of social capital are organized in the community; how reputations are evaluated by the participants; and how reciprocal exchanges of emotional support, information, goods and services are being arranged. The authors assume that participation in this online community produce new patterns for optimization of material, emotional and temporal resources of the family to maintain care and privacy. The analysis of these patterns has a good chance to contribute to the political economy of parenthood. In conclusion, authors show that social capital based on mutual aid and confidence among participants can be converted into economic capital and a resource for collective mobilization aimed to protect the rights of the virtual community members.

The article considers the emergence of genetically modified foods and practices of labeling goods as «nonGM» and defines it as a critical situation in the history of consumer market. Introduction of products produced with the use of genetic engineering technology into mass consumption is a contradictory process because the effects of GM-components on human health have not been fully recognized up to now. Therefore, the views of leading market sellers regarding the penetration of genetically modified foods and its potential consequences are especially interesting. The paper is based on 8 in-depth interviews with producers, series of expert interviews with physicians, and a standardized survey of Moscow residents. Economic theory of conventions is applied to resolve the task.

The author makes an attempt to codify the old and the new research perspectives in the sociology of art markets. He describes research approaches developed in the frameworks of the cultural production paradigm which considers the market as an institution contributing to cultural products circulation. Market structure and prices on the pieces of art are the key issues here. Recently the new approaches emerged with a special focus on a role of emotions in the markets of art and ritual nature of relations. Finally, an alternative anthropological approach to the analysis of commodification of art is proposed.