Justice concept in the context of the estate social structure of contemporary Russian society

Justice concept in the context of the estate social structure of contemporary Russian society


Nemirovsky V.G.

Dr. Sci. (Soc.), Prof., Senior Researcher, Tyumen State University, Editor-in-chief, journal “Siberian Socium”, Tyumen, Russia valnemirov@mail.ru

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Nemirovsky V.G. Justice concept in the context of the estate social structure of contemporary Russian society. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2017. No 9. P. 40-47




Abstract

The paper is based on representative sociological studies conducted in one of the largest regions of Siberia – the Krasnoyarsk Territory in 2016. The author focuses on the perceptions of the distributive component of social justice. What is more, the social structure is viewed from the standpoint of the estate model. It is established that social justice is perceived by the majority as an opportunity for fair competition for access to public resources. Therefore, particularly the class barriers to the distribution of public resources are an important obstacle to the realization of social justice. The paper compares, at the one hand, the structure of public perceptions of the degree of distributive justice of the position of different estate groups, on the other hand – the self-assessment of the degree of justness of social position within these groups. The research revealed a mismatch of these structures, when, for instance, the representatives of the estate group of public officials report their position in the society as the least just. To explain this phenomenon the author draws on the theory of relative deprivation by W. Runciman. It is concluded that an effective analysis of the structure of a modern Russian society is achievable through elaboration of a more adequate model in the context of the synthesis of stratification, class, estate, functional and other methodological approaches in contemporary sociology.


Keywords
social justice; distributive justice; competitiveness; region; estate social structure; social beliefs

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Content No 9, 2017