The article highlights and analyzes in detail the key discussions that took place in the history of sociology in relation to the category of society and its conceptualization: about the essence of society, about the driving forces (factors) that determine the development of society; on the identification of historical types of societies; about the methodology of analysis of society.

Within the framework of the first discussion – about the essence of society, approaches to the essence of society by sociological nominalists and sociological realists are considered.

The second discussion, dedicated to the driving forces of societal development, is presented from the points of view of geographic, demographic, technological, cultural, biological and economic determinists.

Special attention is paid to the concept of socio-historical determinism, and within its framework – to the categories of social production and social activity.

In the third discussion, devoted to the problem of identifying historical types of societies, the stages of development of societies according to H. Spencer, the movement of society from barbarism to civilization by J.St. Mill, and also provides a typology of societies according to E. Giddens.

The trajectories of development of industrial societies also apply to this discussion. The article examines the concept of “new industrial society” by J. Galbraith, ideas about modern and postmodern societies, ideas about “reflexive modernization”. Particular attention is paid to the information and digital societies. Approaches to the category of digitalization are outlined, a definition of a digital society is given, types of digital inequality are outlined, which lead to a special social exclusion that reduces the life chances of people.

The fourth discussion, about the methodology of analyzing society, is presented by the points of view of structural functionalists – T. Parsons and E. Shills, as well as a systematic approach that takes into account the totality of all types of relations between members of society, in modern sociology is designated by the concept of “societal relations”. The article emphasizes that it is societal relations that form social reality, which has a significant impact on the content and forms of social behavior of people and the world around them in a particular society.

The authors also consider the reasons for the critical understanding of the category of society in modern sociology, and also provide arguments showing its significance.

The article discusses the features of sociology’s formation in Brazil. The authors say that in the system of modern sociological knowledge, studies of Latin American sociologists, and in particular, Brazilian ones, are not so widely represented. Nevertheless, they are a part of sociological knowledge which can help to understand the urgent social problems in Latin America. Authors note that the main themes of the early Brazilian sociology are the problems of national relations and the search for identity in postcolonial country, social changes and social inequality. According to the authors, a distinctive feature of the sociology in Latin America, including Brazil, is its special role in the formation and development of society. The article analyzes the work of Brazilian social thinkers such as Gilberto de Melu Freire, Sergio Bouarque de Holland, Fernando de Azevedo, Floristan Fernandez. The authors consider the main stages of sociology’s development in Latin America and note that the first steps of this process were reflected not only in the works of “social thinkers”, but also in some reform projects that were carried out in the countries of this region. According to the authors, the work of Brazilian sociologists such as Gilberto de Melu Freire, Fernando de Azevedo can rightfully be considered not only as the basis for the development of sociology in Latin America, but also as an important element of Brazilian society. The study of the heritage of outstanding Brazilian sociologists is extremely important for understanding social problems of the country in the modern era, which makes the study of their work relevant today.

The sphere of sport is deeply transformed now, so there is a need for new theoretical approaches to it analyses. It is noted that modern Russian sociologists are mostly focused not on the consideration of sociology of sport problems but on the kind of sport description. This situation in the field of sociology of sport requires closer attention to the theoretical paradigms. The article is devoted to the analysis of protosociological and sociological theories to the sociology of sport study. The main sociological theories of sport study as complex and controversial phenomenon of modern society are systematized. The points of view of T. Veblen, M. Weber, J. Ortega y Gasset, J. Huizinga are considered as protosociological theories of the sociology of sport. It is shown, that T. Veblen develops ideas about class conditioning of sport. He argues that the passion for sport is not very serious for the “industrial class” and their interest in sport is episodic. M. Weber, studying the social nature of sport, focuses on the political function of this phenomenon, considers it as a specific mechanism of social control. The theories of J. Ortega y Gasset and J. Huizinga are considered as the studies that have had the greatest influence on the development of sociocultural approach in sport sociology. J. Ortega y Gasset considers the changes in sociocultural priority, which was the work in nineteenth century and a game in twentieth century, as the reason of sport progressive development in the twentieth century. J. Huizinga identifies the game with order. Moreover, the game is an important social mechanism for maintaining discipline in the collective and society. According to J. Huizinga, sport is away from the cultural processes in modern society. The reason of this is the isolation of modern sport from high spiritual culture, ritual festivals and religious cults.

It is shown that the social role of sport is analyzed in the scientific literature from the positions of different theories: structural functionalism (C. Stevenson), structuralism (P. Bourdieu), conflict theory (G. Lushen, J. Loy), theory of figuration (N. Elias), symbolic interactionism (G. Stone, J. Macionis). The essence of each of these theories is briefly described.  It is emphazed that each theory has its own methodological possibilities for describing different problems of functioning and development of modern sport. The views of the most prominent sociologists of each theory are shortly characterized. K. Jaspers existential theory in understanding social essence of sport is analyzed. It is noted that recently postmodern theories have been especially popular among sport sociologists.

The study in the context of the biopolitics of power and society suggests a cross-cultural comparison of the petitional activity of the population of Russia, Germany, France, devoted to the protection of animals. The material was composed of archives of the international digital platform Change.org (22452 Russian-language petitions geographically connected with Russia, 1036 German-language petitions geographically connected with Germany, 15887 French-language petitions geographically connected with France). Online petitions of Change.org do not have legislative force, however, according to the established practice, the authorities, following the results of public discussions, can solve the problems stated in the petitions.

The use of AntConc software allowed us to identify petitions for the protection of animals in the general archive. It turned out that the number of petitions filed about animals in Germany was 12%, in Russia – 9, in France – 8%. Among the ‘winning’ petitions there are 25% of them about animals in the Federal Republic of Germany, 16 – in Russia and 10% – in France. The phenomenon of petition support for animal protection by the authorities in the study was called ‘imitative posthumanism’. It was suggested that ‘imitative humanism’ in societies with a high standard of living of the population indicates the interest of the authorities in public support, in societies with a low standard of living it testifies to the deficient social development.

According to the results of the study, there are twice as many petitions for the protection of domestic animals, regardless of the linguocultural discourse, compared to those submitted to defend wild animals. Wild animals are protected from murder and violence (during hunting, experiments, exploitation in zoos and circuses) and in some cases are considered in the context of environmental discourse. Pets are protected from harsh treatment, require regulation of relations between people who own animals (responsible possession), as well as protection of people from animals.

It is suggested that potential civic engagement in the protection of animals may be associated with environmental activism.

The article deals with the features and content of the global city concept in modern sociological theories. It presents classical sociology ideas about certain socio-historical types of cities as an important stage in the concept of the global city’s formation. The article analyzes the question of the ratio between “world” and “global” in determining the specificity of modern cities to achieve semantic accuracy of the studied concepts. P. Hall’s and M. Friedman’s approaches as the first attempts of systematic study of the relationship between urbanization and globalization are considered. The author focuses on the study of the global cities concept by S. Sassen as a central analytical scheme which is used as the basis by other modern sociologists (P. Hanna, N. Brenner, A. Scott, P. Taylor, etc.) forming their theoretical and methodological constructions. The specificity of the S. Sassen’s “city” definition is presented, the properties characterizing cities as systems are considered: “complexity”, “incompleteness” and “making”. The author analyzes theoretical and methodological foundations of the S. Sassen’s global city concept and presents main research categories: “urban capability”, “place” and “production process”. A comparison of interpretations M. Castells’s and S. Sassen’s global city concept is presented. The hypothesis is formulated about the properties that allow classifying cities as global, including decline in the share of industrial production and focus on the specialized services of manufacturers, concentration of foreign firms and participation in the international real estate market, concentration of the large amount of expertise from various fields and production of innovations. The main problems and prospects of development of the global city concept in the framework of further sociological research are identified.

The article is dedicated to analysis of the healthcare system effectiveness in Russia and its comparison with other countries of the world. According to global ratings, Russian healthcare system lags behind developed countries. The author sees reduction of poverty as one of major tasks in state healthcare policy. This policy should also include the leveling of inequalities in access to medical services and medicines. Without such access positive changes in the field of public health and public health cannot be achieved, since the connection between poverty and poor health today is obvious.

According to global ratings, Russian healthcare system lags behind developed countries. This fact is demonstrated by statistical indicators and sociological polls, according to which the population assesses the achievements of domestic health care as quite low. According to Russian citizens it doesn’t match the global standards.

The author also pays attention to the existing models of health care in the modern world and comes to the conclusion that the boundaries between them are blurred and as such the effectiveness of health care practically does not depend on type of the models dominating in different countries.

An attempt is made to assess the policy of the Russian state in the field of healthcare. The optimization of healthcare in Russia was recognized as unsuccessful even by the initiators of the reforms; the situation with inequality of access to quality medical care only gets worse. At the same time, there are certain successes in the formation of a healthy lifestyle among the population.

The conclusion is made that it is impossible to make significant positive changes in the field of healthcare and public health without overcoming the enormous poverty of the Russian population, because the link between poverty and poor health is undeniable, and one of the goals of health policy is to balance inequalities in access to quality health services.

The empirical base is data from the Bloomberg Economic News Agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) regarding health issues in Russia and in the world.

This article will be of interest to specialists in sociology of medicine and health, economic sociology, as well as to a wide circle of readers interested in the problems of modern healthcare, health, and the healthy lifestyle.

The article is devoted to the analysis of lobbying relations structures, including actors of lobbying and their objects of influence, lobbying goals, as well as strategies and methods used to achieve these goals. The main purpose of the article is to demonstrate common synergies in lobbying relations and to show why groups are using particular strategies and methods of influence. The trends described by the author are relatively universal for modern political systems. The structure of lobbying relations depends on the growing number of organized groups that use more diverse methods and strategies for influencing authorities, which leads to the emergence of new channels of communication, as well as to the development of informal ties, which often bypass traditional institutions of political representation. The results allow to better understand what role do interest groups play in contemporary political systems and what mechanisms do they use to influence decision making.

The article has devoted the analysis of dynamics of the institute of political leadership in the second half of XX – beginning of XXI centuries. The author examines the main conflict line in the triangle: leader–elite–people. At the same time, he comes to a conclusion about the purposeful policy of the elites of the leading countries of the world to weaken the “personal” component in political systems. The first stage of the struggle of the “ruling class” against the leaders was associated with the erosion of powers and functionality of the latter, as well as the creation of a dense functionary “shell” around them to prevent the populist course of the leaders. The second stage was characterized by the restructuration of the power space under the format of “joint-stock company”, where the leaders had only a “blocking”, but not a “controlling” block of shares. Finally, the third stage, which began recently, is marked by the “de-sacralisation” of the institute of leadership and moreover the transformation of political leaders into the fake and grotesque person. It indicates, at least, a temporary victory of the elites over their main competitor. Noteworthy, this process affects both the leading Western States (France, Great Britain) and some post-Soviet countries (Ukraine, Armenia).

The article discusses the fundamental changes taking place in the economies of developed countries and affecting the transformation of labor markets since the middle of the last century, when many scientists have noted the onset of a new post-industrial era.

The article solves two interrelated tasks. The first is to identify determinism of the non-standard forms of employment emergence by the general laws of post-industrial economies development. As such interrelated patterns are highlighted and considered flow of labor from industry to services and high technology, reducing number of economic organizations personnel, organizations using flat adaptive structures to achieve functional and numerical flexibility, formation of organizational networks, increased labor mobility, decentralization of work in time and space through use of information and communication technologies, formation of e-economy. All this leads to release of labor force, changes content of labor activity, role of labor in human life and motivation of labor, contributing to development of employment’s non-standard forms, including opening new perspectives for self-employment of people.

The second task, solved in the article, is to analyze the characteristics of non-standard employment in modern Russia. As part of this task, the non-standard forms of employment are systematized in accordance with the Russian labor legislation, the place of non-standard employment in the employment system of Russians and its structure, its positive and negative aspects at the macro level, at the level of economic organizations and from the point of view of workers are defined. It was found that, despite overregulation of the Russian economy as a whole, many forms of non-standard employment fall out of sight of the Russian legislator. The structure of non-standard employment in Russia does not correspond to the development trends of the post-industrial economy, and a significant part of Russian non-standard employment is “in the shadow”. This requires development of a new employment policy that includes more effective mechanisms for interaction between the state, workers and employers.

The correlation of professional and personal qualities has always been the object of attention of specialists in sociology, psychology and HR management. The main thesis of the article is that in the post-industrial society as a whole, the importance of personal qualities of a human being increases.

The article discusses numerous situations in which the balance of professional and personal qualities manifests itself in different ways. Outside of work, people in their interactions most often focus on the impression that a person makes due to his/her personal qualities. The apogee in the choice of individuals according their personal qualities is friends. We are friends only on the basis that we like one or another person. In many ways, the same situation is observed in relation to relatives and neighbors. But there are situations that make us to some extent put aside the ability of a person or organization to please us. The most obvious example is doctors. At the same time, today, doctors should focus on building partnership with patients, within which personal qualities begin to play an important role.

In the professional activities, human interactions can develop according to organizational, market or hybrid (organizational-market) scenarios. In a classic bureaucratic organization, personal qualities have always occupied a subordinate place in relation to professionalism. In the market, the personal qualities of sellers have always been significant in attracting customers. This situation was reflected in the ideology of marketing and customer focus. In a modern economy, market relations penetrate organizations and force to reevaluate the importance of an employee’s personal qualities.

A profession (activity) of a blogger or a person leading Internet channel cis a symbol of the increasing role of personal qualities. In most cases, they gather million audiences not because of their unique professional abilities, but because of their ability to please people.

The article examines the widespread in China concept of xiaoqang, a model of an ideal society. Xiaoqang can be translated into Russian as “a society of low income”, “a society of average prosperity”. The term “xiaoqang” was first used in the famous songbook “Shi Jing” or “Book of Songs”. Selection of works for this collection, which contains 305 songs and poems, created in the XI–VI centuries. BC, and its editing is attributed to Confucius.

After in the late 1970s. China began to pursue a policy of reforms and openness to the outside world, Deng Xiaoping used the concept of “xiaoqang”, which has long been included in the lexicon of ordinary Chinese, to characterize the Chinese model of modernization. Xiaoqang became the goal that China was supposed to achieve by the end of the 20th century.

The relevance of this work lies in the fact that the phenomenon of “xiaokang” has not been studied from the point of view of the social aspect, and even more so from the point of view of the foundations of the state strategy for the development of society. The purpose of the article is to study the prerequisites for the development of the “average prosperity society”, xiaoqang.

The article continues the consideration of the widespread in China notion of xiaoqang, the model of an ideal society. Xiaoqang can be translated into Russian as “a society of low income”, “a society of average prosperity”. In the late 1970s. China began to pursue a policy of reform and openness to the outside world, after which Deng Xiaoping used the concept of “xiaoqang” as a characteristic of the Chinese model of modernization. Xiaoqang became the goal that China was supposed to achieve by the end of the 20th century.

For years, party leaders, politicians, and Chinese scholars have discussed class in Marxist-Leninist terms: “workers”, “peasants”, and “intellectuals”. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not recognize any social, economic or political role for the middle class, and the ultimate goal of social development was to create a “classless society”. However, during the reform era, views of classes began to evolve, and at the 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2002, Jiang Zemin proclaimed the goal of “controlling the growth of the upper strata of society, expanding the middle strata and shrinking the bottom”. Thereafter, the CCP began to develop a state-sponsored discourse about the “harmonious middle class”. The new goal was to create a middle-class society in which the bulk of the population would be “economically satisfied,” a “middle-class society”, xiaoqang, and this society would be harmonious.

China has created a dual hukou system to modernize and manage rural-urban migration. The system limited the mobility of most Chinese people and limited the migration of rural peasants. In 1978, the demand for labor grew rapidly and the rules governing migration, including the hukou system, were loosened to encourage resettlement. The creation of a semi-capitalist market system in 1991 further stimulated labor inflows and forced liberalization of some aspects of registration policies, and by 2014, in response to continued growth, the Chinese government introduced a unified hukou system to ensure equality between rural and urban residents. ... In this brief overview, we look at reforms and argue that the hukou system can play an important role in China's development.

Internal migration often differs from international migration in terms of citizens’ ideas about free mobility within the territory. However, domestic migrants may still face significant obstacles to integration due to institutional structures in countries. The Hukou system, originally conceived as a means of preventing the potential transition of rural residents to urban masses during the Maoist era, created a clear divide between rural and urban areas and limited access to social security in the region where citizens are legally registered. This article examines the rigid Hukou system, which is outdated in the current Chinese social context, as it can no longer stop migration from rural areas to cities and only contributes to increasing inequality between rural migrants and their host urban populations, while highlighting differences in social status and discrimination against migrants from rural to urban areas. In addition, this article highlights the main obstacles to easing Hukou-based constraints and provides some policy recommendations that can be helpful in building a more inclusive society.