<p>Some of the strongest criticisms of the original position have come from contractualists sympathetic to egalitarianism. In “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” Thomas Scanlon objected that, without special assumptions, choice under uncertainty justifies maximizing the average rather than the minimum, and is thus compatible with the least advantaged suffering serious avoidable hardship. Yet Scanlon also argued that the difference principle is unreasonably strict in its single-minded focus on raising the least advantaged position without regard to the size of forgone benefits in other parts of the distribution.1</p><p>Scanlon went on to develop a contractualist theory of moral obligation, not of social justice.2 More recently, he has discussed the reasons for objecting to economic inequality, defending a “weaker” version of the difference principle.3 Yet, as Jacob Barrett has argued,4 Scanlon is not entirely clear about the content of his alternate principle. Nor has he explained exactly how it is derived from the requirement of invulnerability to reasonable rejection.</p><p>Others have worked out what has become known as the “complaint model” of reasonable rejection, building on Scanlon's suggestions about how we might accommodate a limited form of aggregation while preserving the main thrust of contractualism's individualism.5 However, this model has been developed primarily in the context of moral rather than political philosophy, with a focus on problems of rescue, not decisions about the basic structure of a political society. The result is that there still isn't a Scanlonian theory of justice.</p><p>Choice from behind a veil of ignorance forces one to imagine what it would be like to be in someone else's disadvantaged position, but it also permits one to gamble—for the sake of a greater expectation—that one is unlikely to end up in that position. The complaint model of reasonable rejection requires not only that I consider your situation, but that I withdraw my own complaint if it is (much) smaller than yours.7 Since everyone in my position should do the same, it won't matter if there are more of us in my position than in yours. The complaint model is subject to a number of objections, but I will argue that most of them do not arise with respect to choices about the design of the basic structure of society, assessed in terms of the lifetime prospects associated with different social positions. As the basis for a theory of distributive justice, however, the complaint model is insufficiently egalitarian. Minimizing the maximum complaint does disallow many relatively trivial gains higher up in the spectrum of advantage from outweighing one serious loss lower down. However, once we relax lexical priority, the complaint model can also prevent many smaller gains lower down from outweighing one larger loss at the top end.</p><p>The article develops an egalitarian alternative to the complaint model, based on a competing account of role reversal. I
{"title":"Contractualist alternatives to the veil of ignorance","authors":"Andrew Lister","doi":"10.1111/jopp.12292","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12292","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Some of the strongest criticisms of the original position have come from contractualists sympathetic to egalitarianism. In “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” Thomas Scanlon objected that, without special assumptions, choice under uncertainty justifies maximizing the average rather than the minimum, and is thus compatible with the least advantaged suffering serious avoidable hardship. Yet Scanlon also argued that the difference principle is unreasonably strict in its single-minded focus on raising the least advantaged position without regard to the size of forgone benefits in other parts of the distribution.1</p><p>Scanlon went on to develop a contractualist theory of moral obligation, not of social justice.2 More recently, he has discussed the reasons for objecting to economic inequality, defending a “weaker” version of the difference principle.3 Yet, as Jacob Barrett has argued,4 Scanlon is not entirely clear about the content of his alternate principle. Nor has he explained exactly how it is derived from the requirement of invulnerability to reasonable rejection.</p><p>Others have worked out what has become known as the “complaint model” of reasonable rejection, building on Scanlon's suggestions about how we might accommodate a limited form of aggregation while preserving the main thrust of contractualism's individualism.5 However, this model has been developed primarily in the context of moral rather than political philosophy, with a focus on problems of rescue, not decisions about the basic structure of a political society. The result is that there still isn't a Scanlonian theory of justice.</p><p>Choice from behind a veil of ignorance forces one to imagine what it would be like to be in someone else's disadvantaged position, but it also permits one to gamble—for the sake of a greater expectation—that one is unlikely to end up in that position. The complaint model of reasonable rejection requires not only that I consider your situation, but that I withdraw my own complaint if it is (much) smaller than yours.7 Since everyone in my position should do the same, it won't matter if there are more of us in my position than in yours. The complaint model is subject to a number of objections, but I will argue that most of them do not arise with respect to choices about the design of the basic structure of society, assessed in terms of the lifetime prospects associated with different social positions. As the basis for a theory of distributive justice, however, the complaint model is insufficiently egalitarian. Minimizing the maximum complaint does disallow many relatively trivial gains higher up in the spectrum of advantage from outweighing one serious loss lower down. However, once we relax lexical priority, the complaint model can also prevent many smaller gains lower down from outweighing one larger loss at the top end.</p><p>The article develops an egalitarian alternative to the complaint model, based on a competing account of role reversal. I","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"31 2","pages":"177-197"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jopp.12292","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50130160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>In the public discourse of Western democracies,1 the axis of “urban” versus “rural” has reappeared.2 Often discussed in the context of right-wing populism and its successes among rural voters, commentators have discussed the “Big Sort,”3 the contrast between “Anywheres” and “Somewheres,”4 and the lifeworlds of “hillbillies.”5 Scholars in the social sciences have attempted to understand what it feels like to live in rural places, using ethnographic methods,6 or how to understand the resentment against urbanites expressed in farmers' protests.7 In studies of electoral politics, the differences between urban and rural voting behavior have long been an issue.8 One political scientist, Jonathan A. Rodden, claims, with regard to the US, that “The Democrats, quite simply, have evolved into a diverse collection of urban interest groups, and the Republicans into an assemblage of exurban and rural interests.”9</p><p>In philosophical discussions about justice, in contrast, one finds hardly any mention of the urban–rural divide.10 Geography plays a role in discussions about global justice, but not in discussions about justice within societies. Several reasons might explain this gap (apart from a possible sociological explanation: namely, that philosophers tend to be urbanites). One is the assumption that all questions about these geographical differences can be subsumed under other dimensions of justice. For example, if rural populations are poorer, on average, this is a matter of distributive justice; if they do not have good schools, this is a matter of equality of opportunity, and so on. This argument is hard to reject if one operates at a high level of abstraction and discusses the formulation and justification of different principles of justice. However, political philosophy might also want to address issues that are closer to concrete real-life issues, whether one describes this as “non-ideal” theory11 or “problem-driven” political philosophy.12 For such approaches, it seems relevant to ask what considerations of justice might apply to the urban–rural divide that social scientists have diagnosed.</p><p>A focus on the concerns of rural communities is also sometimes coupled with nationalist tendencies, even within scholarship.14 It is understandable not to want to be associated with such voices.</p><p>Nonetheless, if political philosophy is interested in the matters that mar our societies, it seems at least worth asking <i>whether there might be any issues of justice at all</i> with regard to the urban–rural divide. The aim of this article is to ask what theories of justice might have to say about this topic. I take a relational-egalitarian perspective, which focuses on the relations that should hold between the citizens of a just society,15 but also discuss the applicability of some luck-egalitarian arguments.16 Overall, the article provides a survey of the various dimensions of the question: what (if anything) would a just society, whose citizens re
{"title":"Urban–rural justice","authors":"Lisa Herzog","doi":"10.1111/jopp.12297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12297","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the public discourse of Western democracies,1 the axis of “urban” versus “rural” has reappeared.2 Often discussed in the context of right-wing populism and its successes among rural voters, commentators have discussed the “Big Sort,”3 the contrast between “Anywheres” and “Somewheres,”4 and the lifeworlds of “hillbillies.”5 Scholars in the social sciences have attempted to understand what it feels like to live in rural places, using ethnographic methods,6 or how to understand the resentment against urbanites expressed in farmers' protests.7 In studies of electoral politics, the differences between urban and rural voting behavior have long been an issue.8 One political scientist, Jonathan A. Rodden, claims, with regard to the US, that “The Democrats, quite simply, have evolved into a diverse collection of urban interest groups, and the Republicans into an assemblage of exurban and rural interests.”9</p><p>In philosophical discussions about justice, in contrast, one finds hardly any mention of the urban–rural divide.10 Geography plays a role in discussions about global justice, but not in discussions about justice within societies. Several reasons might explain this gap (apart from a possible sociological explanation: namely, that philosophers tend to be urbanites). One is the assumption that all questions about these geographical differences can be subsumed under other dimensions of justice. For example, if rural populations are poorer, on average, this is a matter of distributive justice; if they do not have good schools, this is a matter of equality of opportunity, and so on. This argument is hard to reject if one operates at a high level of abstraction and discusses the formulation and justification of different principles of justice. However, political philosophy might also want to address issues that are closer to concrete real-life issues, whether one describes this as “non-ideal” theory11 or “problem-driven” political philosophy.12 For such approaches, it seems relevant to ask what considerations of justice might apply to the urban–rural divide that social scientists have diagnosed.</p><p>A focus on the concerns of rural communities is also sometimes coupled with nationalist tendencies, even within scholarship.14 It is understandable not to want to be associated with such voices.</p><p>Nonetheless, if political philosophy is interested in the matters that mar our societies, it seems at least worth asking <i>whether there might be any issues of justice at all</i> with regard to the urban–rural divide. The aim of this article is to ask what theories of justice might have to say about this topic. I take a relational-egalitarian perspective, which focuses on the relations that should hold between the citizens of a just society,15 but also discuss the applicability of some luck-egalitarian arguments.16 Overall, the article provides a survey of the various dimensions of the question: what (if anything) would a just society, whose citizens re","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"31 2","pages":"233-253"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jopp.12297","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50135393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Big decisions: “Opting,” psychological richness, and public policy","authors":"Cass R. Sunstein","doi":"10.1111/jopp.12296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12296","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"31 3","pages":"257-270"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50128216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-186-196
D. Davydov
The article is dedicated to comprehending the ideas set forth in the monograph by Leonid Fishman The Age of Virtues: After Soviet Morality, which raises the question of the reasons for the rapid destruction of “high” communist morality in the USSR, as well as the sliding of the Russian society in the 1990s into a state of “war of all against all”. Setting himself the task of tracing how “evil” is born from “good”, Fishman draws attention to the fact that the communist morality of the Soviet Union contained an internal contradiction due to the combination of what can be called virtue ethics and the ethics of principles. Virtues consist of values that are relevant to certain communities. At the same time, virtue ethics has a dual nature. Under certain social circumstances, it contributes to nurturing a harmonious individual who strives for high social goals. This happens if the ethics of principles rises above it, setting higher goals and general ideas about how to treat other members of society. But if the ethics of principles ceases to function, nothing prevents the virtues from serving pure evil, for even members of mafia clans are not strangers to heroism, devotion, and honor. Fishman demonstrates how the virtue ethics gradually replaced the ethics of principles, bringing closer the collapse of the great communist project. According to Dmitry Davydov’s conclusion, the value of Fishman’s research is greater than just historical. No communist project can exclude either its humanistic core, with the focus on the liberation of the individual, or its emphasis on the socialization of the individual in these or other communities. But any “harmonious” personality and any community that serves “the good” risk transforming into their opposites: into a selfish individual and an association of “friends”, for whom everyone “who is not with us” is an enemy.
{"title":"Virtues against Communism Fishman. L.G. The Age of Virtues: After Soviet Morality. Moscow: New Literary Observer, 2022","authors":"D. Davydov","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-186-196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-186-196","url":null,"abstract":"The article is dedicated to comprehending the ideas set forth in the monograph by Leonid Fishman The Age of Virtues: After Soviet Morality, which raises the question of the reasons for the rapid destruction of “high” communist morality in the USSR, as well as the sliding of the Russian society in the 1990s into a state of “war of all against all”. Setting himself the task of tracing how “evil” is born from “good”, Fishman draws attention to the fact that the communist morality of the Soviet Union contained an internal contradiction due to the combination of what can be called virtue ethics and the ethics of principles. Virtues consist of values that are relevant to certain communities. At the same time, virtue ethics has a dual nature. Under certain social circumstances, it contributes to nurturing a harmonious individual who strives for high social goals. This happens if the ethics of principles rises above it, setting higher goals and general ideas about how to treat other members of society. But if the ethics of principles ceases to function, nothing prevents the virtues from serving pure evil, for even members of mafia clans are not strangers to heroism, devotion, and honor. Fishman demonstrates how the virtue ethics gradually replaced the ethics of principles, bringing closer the collapse of the great communist project. According to Dmitry Davydov’s conclusion, the value of Fishman’s research is greater than just historical. No communist project can exclude either its humanistic core, with the focus on the liberation of the individual, or its emphasis on the socialization of the individual in these or other communities. But any “harmonious” personality and any community that serves “the good” risk transforming into their opposites: into a selfish individual and an association of “friends”, for whom everyone “who is not with us” is an enemy.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89005567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-104-122
L. Fishman
The article is devoted to the problematique of using the concept of precariat in the Russian scientific literature. Having fixed the lack of consensus about the criteria of the precariat, its social composition and even its very existence as a class, the author suggests one should proceed from the fact that precariat is part of an ideological rather than a scientific discourse, similar to the discourse of the middle class, with which it has a clear continuity. These discourses are functional for the reproduction of the existing social relations. Therefore, the article attempts to study discourse that is used to describe precariat in Russia, and to comprehend for the reproduction of what relations it is functional. The research conducted by the author shows that the Russian interpretation of the precariat differs markedly from the Western one. This applies to both the composition of the precariat and its place in the social structure. The Russian authors draw a picture of a specific Russian precariat, which includes almost half of the society. This precariat bears little resemblance to the Western one, but almost completely coincides with the Russian middle class, as the Russian ruling circles view it. Since the state is able to conduct a dialogue with this kind of precariat, which is a passively suffering and no longer dangerous class that does not undermine the foundations of the system, the discourse about precariat and precarization is turning into the same potentially legitimate kind of normalizing discourse as the one about the middle class.
{"title":"Precariat in Russia: from “Dangerous Class” to Normalizing Discourse","authors":"L. Fishman","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-104-122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-104-122","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to the problematique of using the concept of precariat in the Russian scientific literature. Having fixed the lack of consensus about the criteria of the precariat, its social composition and even its very existence as a class, the author suggests one should proceed from the fact that precariat is part of an ideological rather than a scientific discourse, similar to the discourse of the middle class, with which it has a clear continuity. These discourses are functional for the reproduction of the existing social relations. Therefore, the article attempts to study discourse that is used to describe precariat in Russia, and to comprehend for the reproduction of what relations it is functional. The research conducted by the author shows that the Russian interpretation of the precariat differs markedly from the Western one. This applies to both the composition of the precariat and its place in the social structure. The Russian authors draw a picture of a specific Russian precariat, which includes almost half of the society. This precariat bears little resemblance to the Western one, but almost completely coincides with the Russian middle class, as the Russian ruling circles view it. Since the state is able to conduct a dialogue with this kind of precariat, which is a passively suffering and no longer dangerous class that does not undermine the foundations of the system, the discourse about precariat and precarization is turning into the same potentially legitimate kind of normalizing discourse as the one about the middle class.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"2 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72375652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-63-82
K. Toloknev
Social media have been firmly entrenched in the modern everyday life. Still, their influence on the formation of public opinion is not well understood. An important feature of social media is that they are not neutral. Not only do people interact with each other on social media platforms, but social media themselves actively interact with people, selecting personalized content for them based on the information about their interests and behavior. In 2011, Eli Pariser hypothesized that content personalization should lead to the formation of a kind of “information cocoons”, or “filter bubbles” — homogeneous groups of users who hold similar views. However, the fragmentation of the Internet community into “filter bubbles” is not the only threat posed by the use of personalization algorithms. Even more dangerously, social media possess the ability to manipulate content selection algorithms in order to influence users’ views. The article attempts to test the reality of these threats through computational modeling. To solve this task, the author employs a simple agent-based model that simulates the impact of personalization algorithms on communication in social media. The article demonstrates that, contrary to Pariser’s hypothesis, algorithms that select content as close as possible to user preferences result in the emergence of “filter bubbles” rather rarely. The author also finds that manipulation of personalization algorithms makes it possible to influence the formation of public opinion on a stable basis only under two conditions: (1) when all users are manipulated and at the same time they are open to external influence; (2) when manipulation aims at the so called “centrists” who do not possess a clear-cut opinion on some issue.
{"title":"The Invisible Political Officer: How Personalization Algorithms Shape Public Opinion","authors":"K. Toloknev","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-63-82","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-63-82","url":null,"abstract":"Social media have been firmly entrenched in the modern everyday life. Still, their influence on the formation of public opinion is not well understood. An important feature of social media is that they are not neutral. Not only do people interact with each other on social media platforms, but social media themselves actively interact with people, selecting personalized content for them based on the information about their interests and behavior. In 2011, Eli Pariser hypothesized that content personalization should lead to the formation of a kind of “information cocoons”, or “filter bubbles” — homogeneous groups of users who hold similar views. However, the fragmentation of the Internet community into “filter bubbles” is not the only threat posed by the use of personalization algorithms. Even more dangerously, social media possess the ability to manipulate content selection algorithms in order to influence users’ views. The article attempts to test the reality of these threats through computational modeling. To solve this task, the author employs a simple agent-based model that simulates the impact of personalization algorithms on communication in social media. The article demonstrates that, contrary to Pariser’s hypothesis, algorithms that select content as close as possible to user preferences result in the emergence of “filter bubbles” rather rarely. The author also finds that manipulation of personalization algorithms makes it possible to influence the formation of public opinion on a stable basis only under two conditions: (1) when all users are manipulated and at the same time they are open to external influence; (2) when manipulation aims at the so called “centrists” who do not possess a clear-cut opinion on some issue.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"155 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79838229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-123-145
M. Y. Vinogradov, A. Suslova
The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of social apathy in the modern Russian realities. Despite the prevalence of the term “social apathy” in the assessment of the current state of the Russian society, there is still no consensus as to whether apathy boils down to rejection of the socio-political sphere or implies broader interpretations — the dominance in the society of an orientation towards minimizing activities, or even loss of faith in the value of the present day (except family and immediate relatives and friends). The key problems in using the concept of social apathy are the lack of a proven scientific methodology for applying the concepts of individual psychology to the collective, mass states, as well as the historically unambiguously negative attitude towards apathy as a vice, deviation, laziness, which makes it difficult to fully comprehend this phenomenon. The article outlines key approaches to explaining social apathy in the modern Russia, revealed in the course of the research project “The Phenomenon of Social Mobilization as the Antipode of Social Apathy”, carried out by the Petersburg Politics Foundation jointly with the “Insomar”, the Institute for Social Marketing, in the second half of 2021. Possible reasons for social apathy include purposeful actions of the authorities, spontaneous reaction of citizens to the activities of politicians, anxiety about the future against the backdrop of the weak attractiveness of the present, the collapse of paternalism in the face of a shortage of tools and skills for living without the help of the state, and the unresolved internal conflicts. The authors reconstruct the main interpretations of the triggers of the current cycle of apathy, such as the economic changes of the 1990s, the failure of the “Medvedev thaw” and the pension reform of 2018, the consequences of which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the results of an expert survey and focus groups, the authors delineate hypothetical scenarios for overcoming social apathy and possible directions for the development of the public sentiments, and formulate a number of recommendations for managing political risks, taking into account possible social dynamics.
{"title":"The Phenomenon of Social Apathy and Its Relevance in Modern Russia","authors":"M. Y. Vinogradov, A. Suslova","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-123-145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-123-145","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of social apathy in the modern Russian realities. Despite the prevalence of the term “social apathy” in the assessment of the current state of the Russian society, there is still no consensus as to whether apathy boils down to rejection of the socio-political sphere or implies broader interpretations — the dominance in the society of an orientation towards minimizing activities, or even loss of faith in the value of the present day (except family and immediate relatives and friends). The key problems in using the concept of social apathy are the lack of a proven scientific methodology for applying the concepts of individual psychology to the collective, mass states, as well as the historically unambiguously negative attitude towards apathy as a vice, deviation, laziness, which makes it difficult to fully comprehend this phenomenon. The article outlines key approaches to explaining social apathy in the modern Russia, revealed in the course of the research project “The Phenomenon of Social Mobilization as the Antipode of Social Apathy”, carried out by the Petersburg Politics Foundation jointly with the “Insomar”, the Institute for Social Marketing, in the second half of 2021. Possible reasons for social apathy include purposeful actions of the authorities, spontaneous reaction of citizens to the activities of politicians, anxiety about the future against the backdrop of the weak attractiveness of the present, the collapse of paternalism in the face of a shortage of tools and skills for living without the help of the state, and the unresolved internal conflicts. The authors reconstruct the main interpretations of the triggers of the current cycle of apathy, such as the economic changes of the 1990s, the failure of the “Medvedev thaw” and the pension reform of 2018, the consequences of which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the results of an expert survey and focus groups, the authors delineate hypothetical scenarios for overcoming social apathy and possible directions for the development of the public sentiments, and formulate a number of recommendations for managing political risks, taking into account possible social dynamics.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75147565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-23-39
A. Ryabov
The article is devoted to the review of the main economic, social, political and cultural problems and contradictions that arise in the process of the transition to a digital society. According to the author, this transition is civilizational in nature, affecting not only economy and social relations, but also the way of life, the system of values and the worldview of most inhabitants of the planet. The article shows that, as in any other transitional era, in the modern terms, new problems are intertwined with the old ones, strengthening conflicts in the society and engendering uncertainty about the future. The economy of the “capitalism of digital platforms” is much more monopolized than the capitalist economy of the 20th century. Digital monopolies are becoming real competitors of governments, and it is highly plausible that the struggle for power between them will ultimately result in the merge of the power of the state with the economic and intellectual potential of digital giants and the formation of a new version of the state-monopoly capitalism. Coupled with the increasing income gap, digital inequality expands the abyss between the rich and the poor and contributes to the formation of the pyramidal structure of society, where the place in the social hierarchy is determined by the possibility of creating, using and commercializing modern information and communication technologies. The fundamental changes in the labor market due to robotization and the expanding use of artificial intelligence carry the threat of the appearance of a huge layer of “non-demanded people”. This means that, unlike most societal models that existed in the 20th century, the digital society will not be inclusive, which, in turn, will affect its stability. The looming transformation of the consumption society into the entertainment society will also have serious implications. The processes associated with this transformation are fraught with the cultural retrogression of mankind and jeopardize the foundations of the human civilization in the form that took several millennia to develop.
{"title":"About Contradictions and Historical Forks of the Transition to a Digital Society","authors":"A. Ryabov","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-23-39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-23-39","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to the review of the main economic, social, political and cultural problems and contradictions that arise in the process of the transition to a digital society. According to the author, this transition is civilizational in nature, affecting not only economy and social relations, but also the way of life, the system of values and the worldview of most inhabitants of the planet. The article shows that, as in any other transitional era, in the modern terms, new problems are intertwined with the old ones, strengthening conflicts in the society and engendering uncertainty about the future. The economy of the “capitalism of digital platforms” is much more monopolized than the capitalist economy of the 20th century. Digital monopolies are becoming real competitors of governments, and it is highly plausible that the struggle for power between them will ultimately result in the merge of the power of the state with the economic and intellectual potential of digital giants and the formation of a new version of the state-monopoly capitalism. Coupled with the increasing income gap, digital inequality expands the abyss between the rich and the poor and contributes to the formation of the pyramidal structure of society, where the place in the social hierarchy is determined by the possibility of creating, using and commercializing modern information and communication technologies. The fundamental changes in the labor market due to robotization and the expanding use of artificial intelligence carry the threat of the appearance of a huge layer of “non-demanded people”. This means that, unlike most societal models that existed in the 20th century, the digital society will not be inclusive, which, in turn, will affect its stability. The looming transformation of the consumption society into the entertainment society will also have serious implications. The processes associated with this transformation are fraught with the cultural retrogression of mankind and jeopardize the foundations of the human civilization in the form that took several millennia to develop.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":" 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72385426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-40-62
A. A. Serova
Today most researchers agree that democratic regimes are superior in producing technological innovations to authoritarian regimes, despite the fact that the question of the influence of the type of political regime on economic growth and its most important component, such as innovative activity, remains debatable. At the same time, there are several alternative, although not mutually exclusive, hypotheses about what causes this superiority. One hypothesis suggests institutions that ensure political competition, and above all, competitive elections, are of key importance. According to another hypothesis, the main prerequisite for innovative development lies in the provision for rights and freedoms of citizens. The article attempts to test these hypotheses empirically in order to determine which one of them possesses a greater explanatory power. To perform this task, the author employed a method of multi-level regression, which allows taking into account factors at the level of countries, as well as that of individual firms. The research conducted by the author shows that the presence of competitive elections is not a sufficient condition for innovative development. In contrast, the provision of civil freedoms is a statistically significant predictor. Thus, the liberal aspect of democracy is more important than its electoral aspect for producing technological innovations.
{"title":"Civil Freedoms or Political Competition: What Is the Advantage of Democracy for the Development of Technological Innovations?","authors":"A. A. Serova","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-40-62","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-40-62","url":null,"abstract":"Today most researchers agree that democratic regimes are superior in producing technological innovations to authoritarian regimes, despite the fact that the question of the influence of the type of political regime on economic growth and its most important component, such as innovative activity, remains debatable. At the same time, there are several alternative, although not mutually exclusive, hypotheses about what causes this superiority. One hypothesis suggests institutions that ensure political competition, and above all, competitive elections, are of key importance. According to another hypothesis, the main prerequisite for innovative development lies in the provision for rights and freedoms of citizens. The article attempts to test these hypotheses empirically in order to determine which one of them possesses a greater explanatory power. To perform this task, the author employed a method of multi-level regression, which allows taking into account factors at the level of countries, as well as that of individual firms. The research conducted by the author shows that the presence of competitive elections is not a sufficient condition for innovative development. In contrast, the provision of civil freedoms is a statistically significant predictor. Thus, the liberal aspect of democracy is more important than its electoral aspect for producing technological innovations.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"68 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72870841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-146-167
Yu.O. Gaivoronsky, Yu. A. Balandin
The article presents an attempt to study the structural dynamics of federal-regional political networks in the process of recruiting heads of the regions. The authors focus their attention on the current stage of the evolution of the federal center’s approach towards the formation of the governor’s corps, which began with the change of the team in the presidential administration in the second half of 2016. The theoretical framework of the study is the concepts of patron-client relations and patronal politics. For the empirical testing, the authors employ the apparatus of the Social Network Analysis (SNA), which makes it possible to assess both the political elite itself and the specific influence of individual figures. The conducted research documents a distinct tendency towards the growing structural complexity of the federal-regional patronal network, when an increasing number of federal actors are directly or indirectly involved in the process of recruiting regional leaders, which entails the formation of new intra-elite connections. However, despite the intensive personnel rotation, the tectonic shifts in the structure of patronage are not visible. The backbone of the network remains unchanged and contains on the stable basis a part of the federal political and economic elite, who looks to the leader of the state and enjoys his support. At the same time, the process of the growing complexity of the patronal network is accompanied by an increase in the importance of the President of the Russian Federation, primarily from the point of view of intra-network coordination, which, according to the authors, indicates a rising demand for such coordination in the modern Russia.
{"title":"Recruitment of the Governor’s Corps in Contemporary Russia: Evolution of Patronal Networks (2017—2021)","authors":"Yu.O. Gaivoronsky, Yu. A. Balandin","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-146-167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2022-107-4-146-167","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents an attempt to study the structural dynamics of federal-regional political networks in the process of recruiting heads of the regions. The authors focus their attention on the current stage of the evolution of the federal center’s approach towards the formation of the governor’s corps, which began with the change of the team in the presidential administration in the second half of 2016. The theoretical framework of the study is the concepts of patron-client relations and patronal politics. For the empirical testing, the authors employ the apparatus of the Social Network Analysis (SNA), which makes it possible to assess both the political elite itself and the specific influence of individual figures. The conducted research documents a distinct tendency towards the growing structural complexity of the federal-regional patronal network, when an increasing number of federal actors are directly or indirectly involved in the process of recruiting regional leaders, which entails the formation of new intra-elite connections. However, despite the intensive personnel rotation, the tectonic shifts in the structure of patronage are not visible. The backbone of the network remains unchanged and contains on the stable basis a part of the federal political and economic elite, who looks to the leader of the state and enjoys his support. At the same time, the process of the growing complexity of the patronal network is accompanied by an increase in the importance of the President of the Russian Federation, primarily from the point of view of intra-network coordination, which, according to the authors, indicates a rising demand for such coordination in the modern Russia.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74233517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：