| Аннотация | Modern world is dynamic, variable and full of risks, which requires the development of flexible
and dynamic mechanisms to modernize regional social systems. For modern Russian regions, different in
pace of development and people’s quality of life, it is important to develop such theoretical and
methodological approaches to based to identify resources and problem areas of modernization. The
research novelty lies in the analysis of modernization in a region using the theoretical and methodological
capabilities of the system approach, the concepts of heterarchy and modernization. We emphasize the
overlap of subject fields of terms “heterarchy”, “region”, and “modernization” in matters of principles
(value basis) of modernization process management in the region using the heterarchy resources. Based
on the results of the monitoring sociological study conducted during 2010–2016 in the Astrakhan Oblast
sing the interview method at the place of residence according to the Standard Methodology of the all-
Russian program “Socio-Cultural Evolution of Russia and its Regions”, we revealed the strengthening of
the vertical of power, that is, hierarchical relations in the institutional and regulatory sphere. The growing
institutional heterarchy, whose purpose is to complicate and imitate social institutions, is manifested in predominant non-market motivation among the residents of Astrakhan, as well as in fluctuations
in values of market and non-market motivation, depending not only on the socio-economic, but also
political situation. The imitation of socio-economic institutions demonstrates the dysfunction of lifesupporting
sphere of the region’s socio-cultural space and is a problem area of modernization of the
region. Intellectual heterarchy (“the war for standards”) is fixed in reducing support for basic values
simultaneously with the strengthening of primary social networks in the structure of the background
knowledge of the region’s population. Moreover, the changed system of values is manifested in the
reduced standard of social claims regarding the perception of the standard in assessing own health and
the environment. Intellectual heterarchy in the region is complemented by geographical one as migration
substitution of the population in a region with higher social demands by the carriers of nomadic mentality
with low social claims. The existing heterarchies may indicate that the Astrakhan Oblast as a system is
close to the reorganization phase which means the transition of the region’s system to a more sustainable
state due to its simplification. With appropriate organizational design, low social claims of the region’s
population may become the modernization resource of the region. |
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