On Wednesday night, after I’d racked out as I was still trying to shake the stomach bug I picked up, you all decided to have a discussion of the sociology of Russia in the comments. Whether you realized it or not. You don’t see me coming to your workplace to discuss your areas of expertise around the water cooler without a heads up…
More seriously it was an interesting discussion but what was missing was the actual terminology and description of the empirical theory to provide framing and context to the discussion. Which is where I come in. What you all have been discussing for two nights now in the comment is how Russia is differentially socially organized. Differential social organization is an empirical theory developed by Sutherland, who was part of the Chicago School of Criminlogy and the scholar who gives us modern social learning theory. It is a variant of social disorganization theory that was developed among the sociologists at the University of Chicago who were studying the causes of deviance and delinquency in Chicago and whether there was an empirical explanation for the geographic patterns to them. This is known as the Chicago Neighborhood Study.
Differential social organization posits that societies with high levels of deviance, delinquency, and crime are not actually socially disorganized. Rather, they are differentially socially organized. The culture – the sociology, the politics, the economics, the kinship dynamics, the types and patterns of religious behavior, sexual mores and behavior – all these are shaped by and a response to the conditions within those societies. They develop and are then transmitted generationally through social learning to allow the people within those societies – whether a neighborhood, a religious sect, or the citizenry of a state – to survive those specific socio-cultural, socio-political, socio-economic, etc conditions they live in.
Without spending the next several hours making lists of historical examples, suffice it to say that Russia is both a differentially organized society and a state and society composed of a number of differentially organized societies. All of which, from the urban core areas of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the much more rural areas on the borders of the Russian Federation such as Dagestan or Tyvan, are all differentially socially organized to allow the Russian citizens in those places – whether ethnic Russians or ethnic minorities – to survive. Moreover, while the name of the state that is Russia may change periodically, the official label that political scientists and historians will place on its form of government, and the names and titles of the people running the state and society also change with the name of the state, a constant for several hundred years has been that the state has been some variant of authoritarian, the society has been hierarchical, and the people running the place – from nobility to senior party officials to siloviki and oligarchs – have consistently transferred Russia’s wealth upward and then pocketed it. Whatever Russian society is, whatever its cultures and sub-cultures are, they are differentially socially organized to allow Russians to survive this so far enduring, generational reality. Reorganizing a differentially organized society is hard. It is also a slow process as social learning is not a quick process especially when it would require an extended phase of unlearning the definitions favorable, unfavorable, and neutralizing that allow Russians to survive right now.
That’s enough sociology for a Friday night!
Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
War for Ukraine Day 310: Differential Social OrganizationPost + Comments (74)