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GUEST EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
DOI: 10.14515/monitoring.2018.5.01
Правильная ссылка на статью:
Резаев А. В. Чем занимаются социологи в XXI веке: взгляд на всемирный конгресс Международной социологической ассоциации в Торонто и не только //Мониторинг общественного мнения : Экономические и социальные перемены. 2018. № 5. С. 4—14. https://doi.Org/10.14515/monitoring.2018.5.01. For citation:
Rezaev A. V. (2018) What are sociologists doing in the 21st century: looking at the ISA congress in Toronto and beyond. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes. No. 5. P. 4—14. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2018.5.01.
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A. V. Rezaev
WHAT ARE SOCIOLOGISTS DOING IN THE 21ST CENTURY: LOOKING AT THE ISA CONGRESS IN TORONTO AND BEYOND
WHAT ARE SOCIOLOGISTS DOING IN THE 21st CENTURY: LOOKING AT THE ISA CONGRESS IN TORONTO AND BEYOND
ЧЕМ ЗАНИМАЮТСЯ СОЦИОЛОГИ В XXI ВЕКЕ: ВЗГЛЯД НА ВСЕМИРНЫЙ КОНГРЕСС МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ СОЦИОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ АССОЦИАЦИИ В ТОРОНТО И НЕ ТОЛЬКО
Andrey V. REZAEV1 — Prof. Dr. habil., Professor and Chair of Comparative Sociology
E-MAIL: a.rezaev@spbu.ru ORCID: 0000-0002-4245-0769
1 USA-Russia Research Laboratory TANDEM at St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia
РЕЗАЕВ Андрей Владимирович — доктор философских наук, профессор, заведующий кафедрой сравнительной социологии, со-руководитель лаборатории «Транснационализм и миграционные процессы», Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Санкт Петербург, Россия E-MAIL: a.rezaev@spbu.ru ORCID: 0000-0002-4245-0769
Sociology is too serious a matter to be left to the sociologists. This is a paraphrase of the famous saying that is ascribed to Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France in the early 20th century 1. I want to begin the Editor's Introduction in keeping with this thought by talking briefly about the rationale and the contents of the Issue that you, esteemed reader, are about to open.
The idea of this volume was conceived after long discussions we had at the USA-Russia Research Laboratory «TANDEM» that Peter Kivisto (Augustana College) and I have had the pleasure to establish at St Petersburg State University in 2015.
TANDEM means simply «Transnationalism and Migration Processes: Comparative and Institutional Analysis». In fact we thought to establish a professional research unit not only to do transnational migration studies but rather to organize an intellectual space and institutional framework for young scholars who are interested in doing social analytics about the reality of contemporary societies.
In April 2018 when we came up to the situation of another resource cutting and we had to decide where and how to go further with our research activities there arrived a proposition from the Monitoring of Public Opinion Journal in Moscow to prepare its first issue in English. It was a real challenge both in terms of timing—the on-line version of the 300 pages volume has to appear in half a year, in October 2018, and in terms of the conceptual content. The difficulties were real, yet by no means insuperable.
Taking into account that the XIX ISA Congress was scheduled for July 2018 where in the framework of RC-20, Comparative Sociology, Peter Kivisto and myself were to chair two regular sessions: 'Comparative Capitalism/s: Socio-economic and political developments in the former communist countries of Europe and Asia after 1989' and 'Comparative Research in Migration and Citizenship Studies: Transformative Change or Status Quo Dynamics?' it was quite obvious that we'll be oriented in our efforts to this professional sociological forum.
Indeed, the ISA World Congress presents an appropriate opportunity to examine recent developments in the discipline of sociology. A substantial part of this examination quite properly should be devoted to what happened at the Congress. I thought though that it would be interesting and provocative to look also and to make a comparison with what has been discussed four years earlier at the XVIII ISA Congress in Yokohama, 2014, and to ring up a curtain a little bit for the next ISA Forum in Brazil in 2020. In order to meet these aims I decided to publish Interviews with the former ISA Presidents and to invite authors from Japan and Brazil to prepare their papers for the volume.
I am very happy to have professional bonds with the University of South Florida Institute on Russia. It consists of people who in time of such political turmoil without ruffle and on an even keel very professionally are doing their job of research and teaching. I asked, Golfo Alexopoulos, Director of the Institute to join the Project and to help me prepare this volume for publication. She kindly agreed. So, the University of South Florida's Institute on Russia provided assistance with the copyediting of this issue. Working together on projects like this one helps to establish real partnership between the Universities located overseas. One of the campuses of USF is in St. Petersburg, Florida — a city co-founded by Russian immigrant Peter Demens—and the sister city
1 La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier a des militaries — War Is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.
of St. Petersburg, Russia. I hope that we can build a «Two St. Petersburgs» program that will promote academic and cultural exchanges between the USA and Russia.
To return to the paraphrased maxim of Georges Clemenceau I've started this Introduction with. Basically his idea was to let the politicians but not military men to take care of the wars. In our case, with sociologists, I believe the opposite is true. Those sociologists who are taking care of the future of sociology as an institutionalized discipline somehow are getting very close to politicians and ideologically oriented organizations. And if such a tendency exists, it's definitely not a productive one.
In fact, I believe the impression that the future of sociologists have to be only in the hands of sociologists common though it be, is false to the core, because normally sociologists are wo/men of the system — it might be unorthodox and exuberant system, but the system nonetheless. That is they will do their work having in mind primarily the goals of the system but not necessarily the goals of a science.
Societies continue to be divided; back in the 20th century there was a division between West (capitalism) and East (communism), now it is division between North and South, the framework within which classes, gender, race, and the digital-divide need to be analyzed. Sociologists are obtaining more and more specific data about economic, social, political processes, structures, and institutions. Yet there are grounds to argue that we do not know a society we are living in. And this is not only about the political parties and leaders who win elections today.
Immanuel Wallerstein, at the session organized for the former ISA Presidents at the Yokohama Congress, told an anecdote. He remembered the discussion between Soviet and Western sociologists at one of the earlier ISA Congress. The delegate from the USSR was very satisfied with a Soviet society but critical about sociology, Robert Merton was satisfied with the status of sociology yet very critical about society. Raymond Aron criticized both society and sociology. A quick glance at the papers presented at the ISA Congresses in Yokohama and Toronto allows us to affirm that today sociologists are with Raymond Aron on this one.
People conduct their lives on the basis of many realities. And generally, realities are a mixture of both extremes — of certainty and uncertainty, of myth and fact. The context of sociological development is no exception.
Sociology has lost its unquestioned claim to disciplinary legitimacy. Most of its critics continue to demand radical reform. Controversy between partisans of disciplinary disestablishment and partisans of institutional arrangement consolidation is marching on.
As attention focuses on departmentalization of sociology, we can be easily distracted from a much deeper concern: the manner in which results of sociological inquiry are to be viewed by sociologists themselves. Will they continue to treat it as a science oriented toward research and understanding social phenomena or a commodity that could be more efficiently produced and consumed by a greater number of people?
The study of sociology's prospects has never lacked for polemicists, but it is still little in the way of respectable analytical research about potentials of the sociological profession, especially in the time when new artificial algorithmic reality evident.
As society takes advantage of 'artificial intelligence' appearing in everyday life particularly in the era of on-line sociality there is a risk that sociologists will study what is easy to study rather than what is important for sociology to comprehend. People
in general and scholars in particular occasionally like to search only where the light currently shines and when they are familiar with a location. We have launched a longitudinal project at the ISA Congress in Toronto as an effort to develop an antidote to such searching. It is oriented to step back for a moment and to reflect about the nature of artificial intelligence and on-line phenomena, and the environment in which they occur that are worth studying by sociologists. You'll see some preliminary outcomes published in this issue.
The volume has two main themes. The first theme concerns the opportunity to have a look at the current state of affairs in the domain of sociology as it was presented at the ISA Congress in Toronto and elsewhere. The second is the need for more interaction and communication between sociologists in the West and scholars who study societies in the rest of the world. These two groups have been and continue to be estranged from each other, and I believe, to the detriment of both.
The whole enterprise may seem peculiarly ambitious and intangible and may appear to result in something that can only divert attention from the real problems that sociologists have to take care of today. Some readers might argue that it would have been better to stress the specification of the rules of the game for sociology of tomorrow.
However, the purpose of this special issue is not to establish samples and not to provide specific guidance about how to do sociology, but rather to examine in broad strokes the issues that will shape the ongoing debate among professional sociologists around the world about the essence, scope, prospective emphases, and priorities in research programs of the sociological sciences today and in the years ahead.
Two questions were kept constantly in the fore: What should sociology have to do with a society today: to study it, to intervene into societal issues and problems, or to do both? Where is sociology likely to go as a result of where it is now?
The authors of the articles contained in this volume have approached their themes thoughtfully, candidly, and with a rare sharing of their considered wisdom. I recommend the reading of all the essays and materials published herein. They differ in style and in the number of citations; they vary in mood and some of them clearly reflect distinct angles of vision. But they are all highly informative in terms of questions, data, and the mood of the sociological sciences in the world in the first quarter of the 21st century.
The Structure and the Contents of the Volume
I am really proud to say that after the thorough selection process we are publishing here materials by the authors who represent 11 countries: Brazil, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, and the USA.
The contributions in the volume are organized into eight sections. It doesn't need to argue much to prove that grouping papers is an arbitrary exercise. A paper may fit into two groups equally well, yet sometimes it may fit neither one well enough. The current allocation of the articles and other materials in the volume is just a convenient way of presentation to highlight research that shares certain ideas and properties.
The first section of the volume is the Interviews section. Here you will meet with outstanding contemporary sociologists who attended and presented their papers at the ISA Congress in Toronto. The Interviews with the past ISA Presidents Margaret Archer,
Alberto Martinelli, and Michael Burawoy are accompanied by a talk with Karim Murji and Sara Neal, current editors of Current Sociology, a leading ISA Journal.
It is curiosity that runs throughout Margaret Archer's interview on «doing sociology with interest,» but the same is no less visible in the accounts provided by Alberto Martinelli and Michael Burawoy that stress respectively sociology's usefulness and necessity for the contemporary capitalist world, as well as call out for its continuing public engagement. Indeed, one is tempted to think about the three contributions as comprising a seamless whole — perhaps even in a Hegelian manner with its taste for triadic structures. Such a three-step sequence lends itself visible in these talks and could perhaps be a model for a sociologist's career development: one starts with an interest, a spark of curiosity, only to discover that sociology can also be useful for somebody else, and, in a further step of progression, can contribute to the advancement of the good of the many. Interview with Karim Murji and Sara Neal shed some light on how editors of ISA journals—by definition journals international in scope and globe in content—help sociologists to encounter their readers and sociology to find their paths into the 21st century.
As the talks with these prominent figures in sociology amply illustrate, successful development of International Sociological Association cannot be decreed. It depends on an imaginative and pragmatic long-range effort of devoted sociologists in individual countries. There is little that can be done by professional international organizations to substitute for domestic effort in nurturing skilled sociologists and building up professional institutions, though proper incentives are likely to be a necessary condition.
The second section of this volume comprises five papers. It opens with Celi Scalon's account on the sociological development since the Yokohama Congress. She reviews sociology's position beyond center-periphery dichotomy and provides a discussion of what it means for sociology to be global in the 21st century. The essay calls for a comparative perspective and for reflexivity in contemporary sociology. The author depicts historical paths of social science from 'the West' to 'the Rest' of the world and shows current troubles and challenges to it. She brings up her own experience as a scholar from Brazil considering issues of sociology in and of Latin America. She also discusses the influence of BRICS countries on the development of social science and the promotion collaboration between scholars.
In «The Iron Bars get Closer: Anormative Social Regulation» Margaret Archer presents a theoretical discussion of the fundamental transformation in social regulations in contemporary capitalism. The author takes her concept of 'anormative regulation' to reflect on multiple changes in governmental, business, educational, and other rules proliferating in contemporary societies. The paper elaborates on classical sociological questions and challenges the Durkheimian (functionalist) tradition; it has clear structure and its argumentation is supported by empirical cases. The paper provides deep insights into current social processes combining theoretical sociology and moral philosophy discussing consequences of anormative regulations for social solidarity. It also provides conceptual frames for comparative studies of different countries, regions, communities and organizations in relation to the development of anormative regulation and its effects.
The paper «Preventing and exiting violence: a domain for sociology?» by Michel Wieviorka gives an insightful review of the current state in social science research
on violence and its prevention. The issue at stake — violence prevention — is both theoretically challenging and practically demanded. The author discusses important conceptual distinctions between theories of violence and juxtaposes them to approaches to study violence prevention. He argues that preventing and exiting violence should become a special topic of study for sociologists and anthropologists, as well as activists, and provides recommendations for the organization of such a field. The author gives empirical illustrations of various violent conflicts to support theoretical argument. I believe this article would be of a high interest to scholars in Russia where violence is under-researched and an under-discussed topic in the literature.
Walter Allen's paper deals with the unresolved problems of racial inequality in the USA. The author argues that higher education in the USA is a site of struggle where black progress can best be characterized as «two steps forward, one step back.» Allen discusses status and trends in black higher education in terms of lived experience and W. E. B. Dubois' theories. He examines the persistence of racial discrimination and inequality in different areas of contemporary American life.
In the last paper of the section Andrey V. Rezaev and Natalia Tregubova attempt to outline a positive agenda for the development of sociology in the immediate future, delving into the issue of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for the social sciences. Being as it is a vibrant research field, they argue that AI should be seen as both a challenge and an opportunity for research growth in sociology. The latter aspect turns out to be especially salient in the authors' analysis, since the disciplinary borders are permeable and in flux within the social studies of AI. While Rezaev and Tregubova concede that this blurriness of different disciplines engaging with the issue of AI might be just a temporary state of affairs, to be followed by consolidation of this «anti-disciplinary» field, they do see signs of hope for sociologists in the possibilities to refine their methodologies and move beyond elements of the old agenda.
Two papers are included in the third section. It's a Trump Phenomenon section. The authors here address the issue of 'Trump and Trumpism'. Whether their words make us feel better is not clear. That we are better informed about the social effects of the Trump phenomenon cannot be denied. This latter condition is surely one of the main missions of publications in scholarly journals.
Peter Kivisto develops and expands upon a theme introduced in his 2017 book, The Trump Phenomenon: How the Politics of Populism Won in 2016. Specifically, he offers a thick descriptive account of Trump as businessman that were presented in short form in the book. In his paper «Investigative Journalism's Collective Narrative of Trump in Business» he explores the business careers of three generations of the Trump family based on the material amassed by business journalists who have been reporting on Trump for decades. He examines these accounts from the perspective of civil sphere theory. The article combines various journalistic assessments into a single, comprehensive narrative that depicts the tortured business trajectories of Donald Trump and his ancestors as well as offering a wider background about business development in the USA since the end of XIX century. Special attention is drawn to the disconnect between Trump's self-presentation and his conduct in business, including his numerous economic failures, norm violations, and illegal activities. The paper
provides links to the sources of information about Donald Trump that are probably not known very well to a sociology reader around the world.
Lauren Langman in «Donald Trump: Morbid Symptom of the Interregnum Trump as Trope» employs critical theory, particularly its linkages to Freudian theory, to offer an account of the authoritarian character of Trump and the authoritarianism of his most devoted followers—the so-called «base». He addresses the burning issue of Donald Trump's controversial policies and no less controversial public discourses that surround it, focusing on what the three primary categories of supporters found in his candidacy. Langman examines wealthy supporters in the GOP, right-wing Christians, and racist white nationalists. Whereas the first group is largely driven by acquisitive motives and sees in Trump a vehicle for making the one-percent richer, the latter two are fighting the cultural wars—motivated by fear and ressentiment.
The section on Migration in this volume consist of five papers. Migration is one of the hottest topics in sociology today. Sociology has to continue its efforts to find new theoretical and methodological frameworks to study migration, introducing new data and materials, and developing new visions and insights about how to use research results for the good of society.
Thomas Faist in the article «Immigration into European Welfare States: How Conflicts and Inequalities are (Re)Produced» analyses current migration policies in European countries. He inquires into contradictions between actions and interests of nation states, on the one hand, and the trans-state structure of the EU, on the other hand, concerning labor and forced migration. The author reflects on conflicts and inequalities that arise/might arise because of these policies. The paper provides a deep, theoretically grounded analysis of 'hot' issues concerning the integration of migrants and refugees in contemporary Europe. Special attention is drawn to cultural inequalities and boundaries that are crystallized in the processes of transnational migration. The article's conclusions might be used to formulate hypotheses for comparative migration studies, both in Europe and in other regions.
Tetsuo Mizukami introduces a discussion of the development of migration and ethnic studies in Japan. In his «The Rise and Progression of Migration and Ethnicity Studies in Japan's Sociology» you'll find a thorough review of the research on migration done by Japanese sociologists, authoritative accounts on the formation of ethnic communities in Japan, an examination of change in immigration directions. The author discusses how migration and ethnic studies in Japan have changed after mid-1980s in response to the growth of migration to the country. He argues that although Japan was a 'nation of emigrants' in the late 19th — early 20th century, now it needs to be recognized as a 'nation of immigrants'.
The problem of human trafficking in the last several years has generated a tremendous amount of public attention throughout the world. It has received growing coverage in the media, and we are witnessing a lot of anti-trafficking activism, while new policies and enforcement mechanisms have been created in the Western countries to attack the problem. However, policymaking and enforcement people still lack an evidence-based approach to the problem because so little high-quality research has been done on the topic, especially on the situation in the former communist countries.
Sergey Ryazantsev and Svetlana Sivoplyasova in «Russian women at the international marriage market: ways of migration and adaptation in host societies» consider the intermarriage market as a problem. The authors chart the infrastructure of this peculiar market along with its unfortunate byproducts like the shadow marriage market and human trafficking. The authors seek to overcome disciplinary boundaries by combining the perspectives of the behavioral economy, traditional demography, and cultural studies. Based on the analysis of media and of migration statistics, the paper characterized the behavioral patterns of Russian women in the international marriage market, as well as marital migration of Russian women to four regions: United States of America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The authors find that, even in the presence of an elaborate infrastructure, substantial risks remain as expectations don't match realities; however, Russian women who migrated for the purposes of marriage rarely return home.
Elizabeth Aranda and Elizabeth Vaquera's paper «Immigrant Family Separation, Fear, and the U. S. Deportation Regime» is based on 50 in-depth interviews with undocumented young adults in the state of Florida. It discusses the US Deportation Regime. The authors found that the practice of family separation in US immigration policy is not a new phenomenon. They scrupulously show how the fear of separation is overwhelming young adults and their parents.
The last paper of the section, «Transnationalism Online: Exploring Migration Processes with Large Data Sets» by Valentin Starikov, Anastasia Ivanova and Maxim Nee, suggests a novel agenda for migration research, bridging Rezaev and Tregubova's paper on artificial intelligence in the second section of this volume. The authors outline a research program on «transnationalism online», making a compelling case for the salience of its digital dimensions and tracing transnational practices, as well as its call for novel methods to study them.
The next section of the volume embraces papers that reflect on interconnected changes in institutionalized policies and cultural practices in different spheres of social life.
While social scientists have studied the effects of social entrepreneurship on social cohesion and inclusivity, and its role in mitigating social exclusion and poverty in the developed world, little has been done in the countries that joined market economies after the collapse of the communist system. Tea Golob and Matej Makarovic in «Work Integration Social Entrepreneurship in East-Central Europe through Structural and Semiotic Transformations» explore this issue drawing upon secondary data from four post-communist society of East-Central Europe — Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Poland. They examine the contemporary situation of social entrepreneurship with a focus on the integration of the disadvantaged social groups in the labor market (WISEs: work integration social enterprises). The authors approach the problem from the perspective of cultural political economy. They specify and discuss both the communist and post-communist transformations as mostly unfavorable for WISEs.
Anna Dluzewska and Jolanta Rodzos' paper «Sustainable Tourism Supranational Policies and the Wellbeing—Gaps and Challenges from the Hosts' and the Guests' Perspective» focuses on the patterns of participation of local communities in cultural ecosystem management. Borrowing from «large N», statistical research design, the authors engage into the analysis of 33 case studies based on data from different
regions. In their attempt to enlarge the established classification of participation — spontaneous, induced and coercive— Dluzewska and Rodzos find that social capital plays a crucial role in linking communities to cultural ecosystem management, and thus it should be taken into account by policy-makers.
The paper «Sport practices in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh: The Making of Sport Sociology in India» by Sanjay Tewari and Sanjana Tewari discusses issues of social development in India through the lens of the sociology of sports. Based on data from a survey and expert interviews, the authors assess the actual condition and prospects for sport activities in two states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. They conclude that sport has great potential for promoting community networks and social inclusion, and further sociological research is needed in this area.
David Weakliem's paper «Thirty Years of Change in the Publication Process» in the sixth section brings us to the world of these top professionals who edit sociological research and prepare it for publication. His essay provides insightful reflections about changes in publishing sociological research. Based on his experience as editor of Comparative Sociology (Brill), as an author and as a reader of scholarly articles, Weakliem characterizes noticeable transformations in the publication process (longer period of review, more reviewers, changes in articles' structure and genre, etc.) and provides technological and social causes of these transformations. The author also discusses positive and negative consequences for scholarly discussion and the quality of scholarly production, putting on the table several suggestions for possible improvements. The paper contains focused and insightful remarks about the development of sociology. The essay will be an invaluable companion to those who seek to publish their papers in high-ranked sociological journals.
The next paper introduces a new book. It is Tom Dwyer's remarks as the General Editor of the Handbook on the Sociology of Youth in BRICS Countries, Singapore, World Scientific, 2018. The author discusses broader context of BRICS countries through the lens of sociology and comments on diverse issues that are presented in the Handbook: youth and social action, intergenerational dependency, youth and information technologies, etc. He also comments on some limitations of the reviewed handbook and outlines perspectives for further research in sociology of youth.
The seventh section is about Karl Marx. To prepare a general review of how sociologists commemorated the 200th anniversary of the founding father of their subject I invited a contribution from Dmitrii Zhikharevich and Natalia Tregubova, the authors who presented a paper on Marx at the Congress in Toronto. Their paper is an extended review of selected conferences and other academic events devoted to Marx's 200th anniversary held in 2018. They review some of the papers presented and reflect on the current position of Marxist and Marxiological scholarship on contemporary campuses in the era of «academic capitalism».
In the last section of the volume we are pleased to hand over the transcripts, prepared for publication, of the presentations that were delivered at the special session organized by Alberto Martinelli in the framework of the ISA Congress in Toronto. It was a session commemorating the life and scholarly contributions of Neil Smelser 2.
2 Unfortunately, due to some technical and other Issues, we cannot publish here all the addresses that were presented at this session.
In spite of the presentational styles and particular wording some authors chose that may not be typical of a scientific journal, the purpose of this Section is to provide a forum for scholars who had the experience of working together with Neil Smelser. By publishing their commentaries, we hope that readers will be able to evaluate or reevaluate the merits and great input to sociology that Neil Smelser has made as well as to know more about this outstanding sociologist as a person. To members of my generation, he was not only among the most influential figures in sociology but also the person who due to his generosity of spirit helped a lot to sociologists at various stages of their careers.
Neil's cohorts of sociologists have carried his passion for science forward and have preserved a culture of being a real gentleman and scholar in the social sciences. It is with a sense of great respect that we remember and talk about this giant of sociology in whose shadow we stand.
A final word of acknowledgement is in order.
Although I was not able to include in this volume every manuscript I received, I wish to thank all those who submitted articles for our consideration as well those who reviewed them or otherwise assisted with the review process. Reviewers are the essence of academic journals. They are anonymous for most of the process however, their job is just invaluable. To each author I am particularly in debt for this assignment was an addition to a very busy schedule of research, writing, and teaching.
I am in substantial debt to TANDEM, the USA-Russia Research Laboratory at St Petersburg State University, where this volume was conceived and developed. I want to express my gratitude to Peter Kivisto — he is the person without whom the TANDEM simply could not have been appeared. I am always struck by Peter's decency, intelligence, and unbelievable amount of knowledge in all fields of sociology but what strikes me more is his openness and willingness to share his knowledge with everybody. We are really lucky to have him at TANDEM.
I want to thank personally all the Laboratory personnel: Pavel Lisitsyn, Natalia Tregubova, Valentin Starikov, Alexander Stepanov, Dmitrii (Mitya) Zhikharevich, Maxim Nee, Anastasia Ivanova. They have stayed close to this volume from its inception to its completion, helping me greatly at every stage. I am grateful for their willingness to involve themselves so generously in thinking with me and working hard on this project collectively. Valentin Starikov deserves particular acknowledgment: video that opens this Issue is entirely his job.
My special thanks and deep appreciation go to Golfo Alexopoulos, Director, Institute on Russia and Chair, Department of History University of South Florida. Sincere words of thanks also due to Nana Tuntiya of USF; she worked exceptionally hard and professionally making some of the papers in this issue to sound really good in English.
I am deeply grateful to the Board and the editors of the Monitoring of Public Opinion Journal who invited me to be the Guest Editor of the Journal's first Issue in English. They have cooperated splendidly in every stage of the planning and production of this volume. In addition, I wish to thank the MPO General managing editor, Anna Kuleshova, for her encouragement, highly consistent and reliable support, for her enthusiasm in performing the various kinds of necessary editorial assistance on the way to prepare
this volume to production. Victoria Silaeva, scientific editor, worked really hard to make this issue happen. I am so impressed by her professional, meticulous and accurately done job. I render her my affectionate homage as well as my sincere thanks. Also I would like to extend my appreciation to Yuliya Baskakova of WCIOM for her assistance in organizing and conducting interviews in Toronto. My appreciation and thank you go to Madeleine Smith, a bright student from Monash University, Australia. Her comments about the materials in this volume at the latest stage of the project were important and very helpful. I wish her all the best in all her academic endeavors.
I also want to acknowledge the Rikkyo University's College of Sociology, Tokyo, Japan, where as a visiting professor, Fall Semester 2018, I was able to use the Library and other resources to finalize this Project.
These and many other people have contributed in various ways to the volume. All of them deserve credit and a share in any accomplishments, though I am the only one who deserves to be blamed for any shortcomings that might be noticed by the readers.
Final acknowledgement: this volume was organized and prepared for publication with the financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation under the special Federal Target Program «Research and development in priority areas of improvement of the scientific and technological complex of Russia for 2014—2020».
It is my earnest hope that this volume of papers and materials will contribute in perceptible fashion to the informed discussion and determination which must precede and accompany the making of a better world of sociology in the World.
St Petersburg — Tokyo, October, 2018
