2025. Vol. 26. No. 4

A conversation with the head of the Sociology Department of Novosibirsk State University (NSU)Tatyana Cherkashina opens a series of interviews within the framework of the project “Russian Economic-Sociological Perspective” initiated by Anita Poplavskaya (Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology). The goal of the project is to present the diversity of scientific topics in Russian economic sociology, to “map” and “portrait” them. Where Russian economic sociology is located? Which interests do the economic-sociologists (or scientists whose interests belong to both economy and sociology) pursue? Are researchers oriented at exploring local contexts, presenting unique discourses and approaches for the country, or they are integrated (and how) into the global discussion of their subject area. How did the scientific interests of the interviewed scientists have been developing, what articles and books do they consider as key and most significant in their biographies, which literature inspires them, what data do they use, how do they analyze it and what research results do they consider the most significant? We seek answers to these and other questions in the conversations with colleagues.
It is no coincidence that the case of the Novosibirsk School of Economic Sociology (NESS) is the first. It was in Novosibirsk in the 1970-1980s where economic sociology was born in Russia as a research field, and in 1989 one of the first departments of sociology was opened in the Soviet socialist republics. Paradoxically, the Faculty of Sociology was never created here and sociologists continue to work and teach students at the Faculty of Economics.
The interview initially consisted of a three-hour conversation with the head of the Department of Sociology Tatyana Cherkashina. The conversation took place in an informal setting over a cup of tea in the NSU department room. This publication is a brief summary of the most important stories: (1) the history of the Novosibirsk School of Economic Sociology, including stories about the continuity of interest in research on welfare and inequality in Russia, about the organization of education at NSU, the advantages and prospects of using open statistical data in research; (2) the ten-year experience of T. Yu. Cherkashina and T. Yu. Bogomolova’s joint research on wealth stratification with regard to property possession in Russia, trilogy of their articles, author’s recommendations of the literature and methodology of measuring wealth inequalities; and (3) the current state of affairs at the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Economics, which, in addition to traditional sociology disciplines, integrates courses taught by business practitioners, graduates of the faculty, emphasizing the importance of reflecting and understanding the work of modern markets and analyzing real business cases. The interview highlights the close connection between economics and sociology, statistical analysis and a more comprehensive understanding of social phenomena, academic disciplines and practical courses. The conversation may be of interest to both young researchers searching for their own path in science, interesants and experts in the field of sociology of inequality and stratification.

<align=justify>In the post-Soviet period, Russian households have become owners of financial and non-financial assets on a massive scale, i.e. they have accumulated (albeit unevenly) wealth that can be passed on by inheritance or as a gift to subsequent generations. The study focuses on intra-family intergenerational transfers of accumulated economic resources, a new object of study for Russian social science. The objectives of the study are: a) to assess the scale and dynamics of involvement of Russian households in intra-family transfers of economic resources and b) to structure and describe the ways in which the extended family participates in forming the property portfolio of individuals and/or households. To solve the first problem, the data from the All-Russian Household Survey on Consumer Finances for 2013–2024 are used, and to solve the second problem, the materials of semi-structured interviews with city residents, mainly from the Novosibirsk agglomeration, conducted in 2023–2024 are used. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the study was formed by publications of foreign scientists on the involvement of households in intergenerational wealth transfers, the process of re-familialization, reflecting the growing role of the extended family in the formation of economic security of younger generations in modern conditions.
Analysis of the All-Russian Household Survey on Consumer Finances data revealed that over the past decade, despite the positive dynamics of the involvement of Russian households in intergenerational transfers of economic resources, the latter, as in other countries, are not a widespread source of formation of the household property portfolio: in each year at the time of the survey, no more than a quarter of households (26.7% in 2024) owned at least one residential property or land plot received by inheritance or as a gift. The transfer of non-financial assets by inheritance is a more frequent type of transfer than a gift, and the main transferred asset is housing. In addition to the direct transfer of property, practices of facilitating the formation of household property in the extended family include providing housing to relatives for rent-free residence in order to accumulate savings and acquire nonfinancial assets (approximately 8% of households occupy housing without rent that does not belong to them, but to relatives or acquaintances), and using financial resources of relatives received as a gift or inheritance to purchase (or build) housing and other assets.
Based on the interviews, a chain of interrelated phenomena was traced  “an event that acts as a trigger for an economic transfer – a method for implementing the transfer  a result of (non-)acceptance of the transfer”, empirical representatives of each element of this chain were determined. A variant of the contour of the mechanism of influence of intra-family intergenerational transfers of economic resources on the formation of non-financial wealth of the household is presented.

This book, Emotional Drivers of Innovation, by Dr. F. Sörgel derives from her doctoral thesis, which she successfully defended at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the summer of 2023. It focuses on how ideas originate and evolve through emotions and experience, particularly within biomedical technologies. It posits that ideas and their later materialisation are an expression of what one feels and cares about (as a result of individual experience), be it oneself, the environment, or the future and that this is a relationship that takes place in mutual dependence, whether in the context of biomedical technologies or beyond.
This book is situated within the realm of Science and Technology Studies and contributes to both. In the realm of Science Studies, this book examines the interplay of different disciplines and their inherent norms and beliefs in the act of fabrication. Following some eminent scholars, the author illustrates that researchers are not impartial agents but rather influenced by the established structures in which they operate. Simultaneously, this book contributes to Technology Studies by examining the genesis of ideas as prototypes within the context of their conception and the surrounding world and structures, such as incubators, into which these ideas are born.
Journal of Economic Sociology publishes the first chapter. “The Sensitivity of The New,” in which the author explains the main ideas of the research and describes in detail the structure of the monograph.

This article examines the profession of bankruptcy trustees in Russia and its stratification based on the type of debtor. For a long time, trustees were primarily dealing with business bankruptcies. However, the introduction of personal bankruptcy in 2015 substantially changed the landscape. This way of debt release has gained popularity among ordinary citizens. However, these debtors in most cases lack assets from which trustees could derive their fees. In this study, we demonstrate how these specific features shape the professional community. Indeed, the social characteristics of trustees focusing on personal bankruptcy differ significantly. This niche has a higher proportion of women, residents of provincial regions, and early career trustees with limited experience. The remuneration in this field is considerably lower than in corporate cases. Consequently, the work patterns also differ: cases are frequently handled in a streamlined manner with fewer procedural actions. The research is located at the intersection of the sociology of profession, sociology of law and economic sociology. The empirical base consisted of disaggregated biographical data on all active bankruptcy trustees (more than 10 thousand specialists), data on bankruptcy procedures (more than 168 thousand cases), semi-structured interviews with current practitioners, as well as publications in professional media. The analysis uses descriptive statistics and beta regression applied to the transformed share of corporate cases in the practice of a particular bankruptcy trustee. The results offer a new perspective on the internal organization of the profession and contribute to the literature on horizontal labor segregation in legal professions.

The article explores why some citizens engage in protest actions while others reject the possibility altogether, arguing that protest influences public policy and economic development. It notes that existing scientific literature identifies various factors affecting individual protest potential but highlights that the influence of citizens’ religiosity remains underexplored. Theoretical grounding is provided by the Marxist concept of religion as part of the deprivation-compensation hypothesis, which suggests religiosity may reduce protest propensity. Formulating a hypothesis that Orthodox religiosity decreases individuals' willingness to protest, the author empirically tests this using data from the World Values Survey, involving a sample of approximately 3,500–3,600 respondents and employing ordinal logistic regression. The study finds no empirical support for the hypothesized negative relationship; hence, the Marxist concept is not confirmed in this context. Additional findings reveal that reading news on social networks, political interest, and post-materialist values increase protest potential, whereas watching TV news decreases it. The author underscores that studying protest potential provides valuable insights into social and political dynamics, citizen concerns, and aids in developing effective public relations management strategies.

The article examines translocal networks of internal migrants in Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk that connect the city and the countryside. Drawing on five focus groups and twenty semi-structured interviews with individuals who moved to these regional centers from small rural settlements, we explore how such networks are formed, maintained, and what social effects they produce. We identify two key dynamics: on the one hand, increased economic and emotional resilience of migrants; on the other, enhanced sustainability of rural communities. This mutual dependence leads to a process of socio-economic convergence between urban and rural areas. The horizontal networks described by our respondents facilitate the continuous movement of resources and information between city and village. In the early stages, products, money, social capital, and emotional support flow from the countryside to the city. The principle of reciprocity, characteristic of this type of relationship, results in a reversal of flow over time: as the migrant becomes embedded in urban infrastructural and social networks, resources begin to move in the opposite direction. Often, the resources coming from the village shift in meaning—from economic to symbolic: gift exchange becomes a means of sustaining group cohesion, with some members remaining in the place of origin and others now residing in the regional center. As a result, the social, economic, and cultural distance separating these two types of settlements gradually diminishes, and some of its negative consequences are mitigated. In conclusion, we propose a consequential hypothesis: translocal networks of rural migrants contribute to reducing the negative effects of outmigration for Siberian villages by partially bridging the infrastructural and economic gap between regional centers and the periphery.

Bruce Carruthers’ book “The Economy of Promises: Trust, Power, and Credit in America” is devoted to a historical and sociological analysis of the evolution of credit relations in the United States. The key question that the author answers is how did creditors decide whom to trust in different periods of U. S. history? The author draws on earlier work by sociologists, historians, and economists, and also systematizes historical facts, showing that credit relations have changed significantly since the beginning of the 19th century. Thus, he analyzes the transition from informal credit, which was regulated by a bilateral promise, to an extensive network where credit relations are regulated by legislation, the state, as well as corporations and individuals. Carruthers shows that the invention of ratings became a way to streamline credit relations. This process has made it possible to make credit not just a service for companies, but also to provide an opportunity to lend to individuals, since with the advent of ratings it became possible to instantly assess how much a person can be trusted.
The review reveals the main ideas of Bruce Carruthers’ book, focusing, firstly, on the problem of information asymmetry, which is solved by credit ratings, and secondly, on the consequences of their use. Thus, credit ratings reproduce patterns of social inequality, depriving poorer segments of the population of access to credit. Secondly, the review touches upon the ethical problem that arises as a result of the commodification of credit history information. In conclusion, it is shown how the academic community has perceived the book, and how such an approach can be applied to the history of credit relations in Russia.

From September 3 to 5, 2025, Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin hosted the mid-term conference of the European Sociological Association, Research Network 09 ‘Economic Sociology’. The theme of the conference was ‘Exploring Solutions to the Challenges of Our Time: A Positive Turn in Economic Sociology?’ The program included plenary lectures and parallel sessions. The sessions covered a wide range of topics: from household indebtedness and financial behavior to digital labor platforms, blockchain, and sustainable investment governance. Key discussions also addressed industrial policy, the green transition, digital payment systems, and new forms of cooperation. The conference demonstrated that economic sociology today possesses a rich conceptual and methodological arsenal, making it highly relevant not only within academia but also in broader public debates on the future of economy and society.