2014. Vol. 15. No. 1

Philippe Steiner, Professor of Sociology at Paris-Sorbonne University, was interviewed by Chris Swader, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Higher School of Economics. This interview was conducted during the international conference “Embeddedness and Beyond: Do Sociological Theories Meet Economic Realities?” (Moscow, 25–28October 2012), at which Prof. Steiner co-chaired the mini-conference “Market Society and Moral Order”.

In the interview, Prof. Steiner described his background and the professional trajectory that led him to economic sociology. He explained how his research interests in organ donation and transplantation developed. Prof. Steiner devoted several comments to plans for future research. He was primarily interested in two topics: (a) organizational gift-giving and (b) how gift-giving and markets co-exist in the same spaces.

Additionally, Prof. Steiner depicted the process of institutionalization of economic sociology as an academic discipline in France and noted several peculiarities of French economic sociology compared with the US and Brazilian versions.

Finally, Prof. Steiner discussed the Polanyian perspective and Zelizer’s research and clarified his own view of the super-monetization of the modern world. According to Steiner, Zelizer’s fascinating depiction of a world dominated by commodification and money may have evaded political issues that were central to Polanyi and decisive for understanding contemporary markets.

This article analyzes the correlation between alcohol consumption patterns in Russian cities and the characteristics of consumers, including their social status. The empirical dataset used in this study was generated from the Russian Target Group Index for 2000–2010 and produced by Synovate Comcon. The methods used in the study include correlation analyses, cluster analyses and correspondence analyses. The results of the study confirm that differences in alcohol consumption patterns are important characteristics of social groups — stratified by gender, age, education and income — in Russia. Beer, vodka and other spirits are typically consumed by men, whereas wine, champagne and liquors are typical consumed by women. The different social classes also have different chosen beverages: the highest social classes prefer wine, champagne, cognac, whisky and exotic beverages such as rum and tequila. The volume of consumed alcohol is not an indicator of social class. Beer and vodka — beverages consumed by all social groups — are mostly consumed by the poorer and less educated. This study also identified the following consumer clusters: “light drink lovers” (beer-oriented consumption), the “masculine consumer” (consumption of beer and vodka), the “feminine consumer” (wine- and champagne-oriented consumption), and the “eclectic type” (multi-oriented consumption). These clusters have different social and demographic characteristics. In modern Russia, patterns of alcohol consumption and the social class of the consumer tend to be highly correlated. Variegated consumption patterns associated with the postmodern lifestyle were detected in fewer than 5% consumers of alcohol; these consumers tended to be educated, well-off, young and employed in executive positions.

Robert J. Shiller is the Professor of Economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Standard& Poor’s Case–Shiller Home Price Indices. His book is devoted to financial capitalism, implying a system in which finance has taken the lead as the engine driving capitalism. The author is mostly interested in searching an answer to the question how we can make financial institutions work better for all of us. To achieve this purpose, Shiller develops a theory of financial capitalism in which finance is defined as the science of goal architecture. It is proposed that finance can contribute to success achievement and construction of the good society. The presented book by Shiller describes realities of the modern financial capitalism and proposes the critical reflections on it. The author also tries to relief the tension between human values and the issue of welfare concentration.

The journal “Economic Sociology” publishes an excerpt of this book— “Introduction: Finance, Stewardship, and Our Goals”, in which the author problematizes the public hostility toward financial capitalism and seemingly profound contradiction between finance and the good society. The author demonstrates what kind of distinctive treats financial capitalism gets after the information age has come. Finally, Shiller proposes a working theory of financial capitalism.

Corruption as social phenomenon is studied by a variety of disciplines　― anthropology, criminology, development theory, economics, political science, psychology, sociology. Each of them has developed its own scientific traditions associated with different methods of collecting and analyzing empirical data, such as participant observation in anthropology or sociological interviews.In this paper we describe experimental methods, which in recent years have emerged as an important tool for interdisciplinary social analysis. In the first part of our work, we describe and confront experimental methods to other tools of social analysis, and characterize their relative strengths and weaknesses. In the second part, we turn to the experience of using experiments to study corruption and show their power and applicability whenever other methods are powerless. These conclusions are illustrated by the material of a unique laboratory study involving police officers of middle rank as experimental subjects, conducted by A. Belianin and L. Kosals in Moscow. We model corruption as a public good for potentially corrupt participants and measure their attitude towards this institution under different experimental conditions, especially those when its existence is pointless from individual and social rationality viewpoint. Our results speak in favour of combination of various research tools and methodologies for the study of complex social phenomena.

The article is focused on estimation of human life value. This calculation of human life is crucial not only for practical reasons (defining amount of compensatory payments, activity of insurance companies, etc.), but also for rising the perception of social security and stability, as far as insurance is associated with minimization of risks in future. The paper describes two main approaches of how to estimate the value of human life. According to the conception of human capital, the value of life is implicitly assessed through the educational level and labour market activity. The alternative approach, “statistical value of average life”, estimates human life through the analysis of decisions when people have to evaluate their lives themselves. Furthermore, human life could be estimated indirectly, namely through economic losses of the health damage or death of employable people, amount of state compensatory payments, value of human lives given by insurance companies and so on. At the next step, the authors compare the value of human life in Russia and other countries. Human development index in Russia is relatively the same as in Romania and Kuwait. According to value of statistical life, the value of human life in Russia is very small and ranks with developing Asian countries in importance. The same low value of human life in Russia is proved by statistics on life insurance and estimation of casualties. Social and economic consequences of underestimation of human life in Russia are severe. Low value of human life in society reflects the importance of every citizen for the government and means that the state is not ready to invest much into increasing of life expectancy and quality of life.

The review considers a new theory of strategic action fields provided in the book “ATheory of Fields”. The author analyzes its basic elements— new as well as borrowed from other theories, and its significance for the development of organizational theory, the theory of social movements, institutional theory and economic sociology. The last part of the text criticizes some debatable theses of this theory. Theory of strategic action fields discusses the issue of the local social orders formation. The authors represent all social orders as fields, which consist of the following actors: incumbents; challengers and internal governance units. All fields are embedded in a broader field environment. It gives the most significant incentives to changes of the organizational models dominant in the fields in question. Incentives to changes are converted into changes in the case of mobilization for the collective action. It is crucial to have special social skill for the start of mobilization process. Authors define social skill as an ability to understand other actors and manage them by creating shared meanings and identities for themselves and others. Thus the authors shift their attention from the control based on the resources or power to the ability to voluntary cooperation. Social skill and the ability to voluntary cooperation are the consequence of “existential functions of the social”, the important innovation of this theory.

Though the crisis of industrial capitalism and Fordism-Taylorism did not necessarily signify ”the end of labour” [Rifkin1995], it still marked its profound transformation. Above all, it affected the space–time characteristics of production, i.e. the space of labour went beyond the walls of factories (globalization, delocalisation, outsourcing, etc). The boundary between working time and leisure time became blurred. In modernity, labour was considered a guarantee of redemption. This raises the relevant question what scenario of “Economy of Salvation” can offer the society to the proletariat, now replaced by the precariat, in a context of fewer jobs or when the job itself has changed. The ambivalence of leisure time now means that it is beneficial both for the worker and for leisure industries. During leisure time, the worker not only rests and recuperates, but also perfects existing skills and gains new ones, develops his/her social networks, indulges in his/her hobbies and passions. In other words, one should be completely emancipated from work, yet while being emancipated the person can continue to form his/her own subjectivity, becoming potentially more valuable for the labour market. Thus we can see that leisure time itself can turn out to be productive. Global changes in the nature of labour and leisure have caused deep social metamorphosis in Russia by way of political regime change. In this “new world”, former civil, economic and professional identities yield to stratification by habitus — everyday, consumer and cultural practices. However, will humanity be able to continue its development on the basis of leisure, not labour? Could network solidarity potentially be nourished by some kind of “livelihood allowance” or by alternative economic and ecological micro-projects, and thus be considered just as a marginal pastime or the basis of tomorrow’s polis and oikos? Western politicians promise re-industrialization regularly, while their Russian colleagues argue for the turn from raw-material to high-tech economics. What future does the barometer of cultural practices show? This was the problematic of the research group ”Labour, knowledge and leisure in postindustrial societies” in the framework of the project “‘Cognitive capitalism’ through the Prism of Cultural Practices and Discourses (comparative approach)”, sponsored by the Scientific Fund of the HSE (project number 13-05-0013).

Philippe Steiner, Professor of Sociology at Paris-Sorbonne University, was interviewed by Chris Swader, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Higher School of Economics. This interview was conducted during the international conference “Embeddedness and Beyond: Do Sociological Theories Meet Economic Realities?” (Moscow, 25–28October 2012), at which Prof. Steiner co-chaired the mini-conference “Market Society and Moral Order”.

In the interview, Prof. Steiner described his background and the professional trajectory that led him to economic sociology. He explained how his research interests in organ donation and transplantation developed. Prof. Steiner devoted several comments to plans for future research. He was primarily interested in two topics: (a) organizational gift-giving and (b) how gift-giving and markets co-exist in the same spaces.

Additionally, Prof. Steiner depicted the process of institutionalization of economic sociology as an academic discipline in France and noted several peculiarities of French economic sociology compared with the US and Brazilian versions.

Finally, Prof. Steiner discussed the Polanyian perspective and Zelizer’s research and clarified his own view of the super-monetization of the modern world. According to Steiner, Zelizer’s fascinating depiction of a world dominated by commodification and money may have evaded political issues that were central to Polanyi and decisive for understanding contemporary markets.

This article analyzes the correlation between alcohol consumption patterns in Russian cities and the characteristics of consumers, including their social status. The empirical dataset used in this study was generated from the Russian Target Group Index for 2000–2010 and produced by Synovate Comcon. The methods used in the study include correlation analyses, cluster analyses and correspondence analyses. The results of the study confirm that differences in alcohol consumption patterns are important characteristics of social groups— stratified by gender, age, education and income— in Russia. Beer, vodka and other spirits are typically consumed by men, whereas wine, champagne and liquors are typical consumed by women. The different social classes also have different chosen beverages: the highest social classes prefer wine, champagne, cognac, whisky and exotic beverages such as rum and tequila. The volume of consumed alcohol is not an indicator of social class. Beer and vodka— beverages consumed by all social groups— are mostly consumed by the poorer and less educated. This study also identified the following consumer clusters: “light drink lovers” (beer-oriented consumption), the “masculine consumer” (consumption of beer and vodka), the “feminine consumer” (wine- and champagne-oriented consumption), and the “eclectic type” (multi-oriented consumption). These clusters have different social and demographic characteristics. In modern Russia, patterns of alcohol consumption and the social class of the consumer tend to be highly correlated. Variegated consumption patterns associated with the postmodern lifestyle were detected in fewer than 5% consumers of alcohol; these consumers tended to be educated, well-off, young and employed in executive positions.