Home Berries Social process and social mechanism. Social processes and their types. The concept of social processes, their main types

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Social process and social mechanism. Social processes and their types. The concept of social processes, their main types

Ticket 12. Social processes: criteria, forms, types

social process- this is a successive change of states, stages of development of social systems, social phenomena. (the educational process is a sequential change of certain types of training sessions: lecture - independent work - seminar - individual interview).

Structure social process:

subject social action (personality, social group, social organization);

an object(a social phenomenon to which social action is directed);

terms(the social process is characterized by the influence of the subject on the object and the nature of the social environment);

self-purposeful social action;

result (changes in a social object as a result of the influence of the subject on it).

Social processes are diverse. There are many classifications social processes for various reasons:

on sphere of manifestation– economic, political, environmental, etc.;

on mechanism of occurrence- spontaneous, conscious, natural-historical;

on degree of controllability– managed, weakly managed, unmanaged;

on functions the object of social impact - functional and dysfunctional;

on focus the qualitative state of the social object - progressive, regressive, neutral;

on intensity qualitative changes in the object - evolutionary and revolutionary.

Piotr Sztompka proposes a classification of social processes according to six criteria:

Forms of social processes

Results of social processes

Public awareness of social processes

Driving forces of social processes

Levels of social processes

Temporal aspect of social processes

By form Distinguish directed and undirected social processes.

Directed- irreversible social processes, in which each subsequent stage differs from the previous one.

Omnidirectional- changes that are random, chaotic, subject to certain repetitive or similar patterns.

By results There are two types of social changes - morphogenetic and transmutational.

Morphogenetic- these are creative processes leading to fundamental innovations (the emergence of new states of society, social structures and conditions for the existence of society).

Transmutational Changes are divided into reproductive and transformational. reproductive changes- supporting, having the character of quantitative changes. transformational- processes leading to qualitative changes in the state of society.

By public awareness. Explicit- Changes, the meaning of which and their consequences are understood by the population. Hidden- changes, the meaning of which is not realized. "Boomerang Processes"- social processes, the meaning of which is understood by the population, but their consequences for the majority of the population are not clear.

By driving forces allocate:

Endogenous(driven by internal causes) reveal the possibilities, properties and trends contained within a changing society.

exogenous(driven by external causes) is reactive, responding to a challenge, stimulus or pressure from outside.

By level: the global level, the level of large social groups, the level of institutions and organizations, the level of interpersonal relations.

Depending on the time the course of social processes, distinguish between short-term, long-term and permanent processes (global).

By area of distribution(economic, political, socio-cultural, spiritual, etc.).

The result of a social process can be

1. actual (what has already been achieved),

2. expected (what is expected to be achieved at the end of the process)

3. and probable (what is expected at the end of the process).

Typology of processes: 1. In terms of the scale of the social system - intrapersonal and between two individuals; changing relations between two groups (communities); changing the structure and organization of society; occurring at the level of the global social system (human society).

2. By the specifics of the processes - progressive, regressive, evolutionary, revolutionary.

3. By changing the organization of the social community - Differentiation, Integration, Disorganization, Reorganization.

4. By changing the place of individuals or groups in the social space - Individual and group mobility; Intergenerational, horizontal and vertical, voluntary and involuntary.

5. According to the form of interaction between individuals - cooperation, competition, conflict.

6. According to the degree of control - spontaneous, purposeful.

social management- a section of management, the subject of which are processes that reflect the motivations of human behavior, social relations and their patterns, analysis of the social consequences of economic and other decisions taken at various levels of personnel management and other areas related to the activities of the organization.

The theoretical core of social management are , demographics, . To solve the problems of social management, knowledge of social statistics, possession of modern mathematical and statistical methods and mathematical methods of modeling and forecasting the national economy are required.

Social management is closely related to the management of the social development of the organization.

Organization social development management- a specific type of management that has its own object, its own methods, forms of development and implementation; a set of methods, techniques, procedures that allow solving social problems based on knowledge of the patterns of social processes.

According to its purpose, the management of the social development of the organization focuses exclusively on people, on the creation of decent working and living conditions for the employees of the organization. The recommendations of social management are aimed at developing positive behavioral outcomes among the staff.

Subject social management are relations in society, social processes and their patterns.

Objects social management are social phenomena, relationships, behavior and activities of people in the social sphere.

The structures of social management are called upon to implement social policy and solve problems of social justice. The mechanism of functioning of social management structures is based on a clear goal setting, the development of a sound strategy for achieving it.

social processes

Social processes are associated with relations between individuals and as carriers of various types of activities, differing social positions and roles in the life of society.

social process- a successive change in the states of the social organization as a whole or its individual structural elements.

In the course of social processes, the essential characteristics of the social structure of society, the ratio of social groups, the relationship and nature of the interaction between them change.

Social activity is carried out through historically established types and forms of interaction and relations of a person with other people. It can be carried out in various spheres and at various levels of social organization.

Each type of social relations plays a certain role in the social system. Society, being a social system, has the property of self-reproduction, which is carried out through a number of differentiated functions that are the result of the division of social labor. Complementing each other and interacting, they give society a special character. social organism.

The differentiation of social functions is accompanied by the emergence of economic, social, political and other institutions. Functions related to ensuring the activities of these structures are performed by people with professional knowledge.

Classification of social processes

By highlighting their essence:

basic (labor and related value-orientation processes that influence the formation and development of value orientations of team members);
integrative-providing (management, communication and regulatory processes. This also includes group integrative-providing processes: leadership and leadership in primary teams, inclusion of an individual in a group and exit from it, etc.);
mobility processes (changing the status of individuals and social groups in an organization, society);
genetic (progressive and regressive, expressing a change in the status of the organization itself in its environment).

According to the criterion of scale, there are:

global processes (their results affect society as a whole);
local social processes that take place in separate subsystems (industry, region, enterprise, social group) and do not affect the whole society.

Social process management- one of the main types of management, the function of which is to ensure the implementation of the needs of society and its subsystems. Its content lies in the formation of criteria for indicators of the social development of society, the allocation of social problems arising in it, the development and application of methods for their solution, in achieving the planned states and parameters of social relations and processes.

Management must ensure balance in the managed system, the solution of social problems that have arisen as a result of unreasonable economic decisions, the aggravation of the political situation, natural disasters and other reasons.

The following social problems need to be addressed:

employment and unemployment;
forced migration;
living wage;
child neglect;
formation of incomes of the population;
formation;
Lifestyle;
assessment of the activities of governing bodies (of various levels), authorities and public organizations;

Social processes in Russia

Social processes lead to a change in the essential characteristics of the social structure of society, the relationship of social groups, relationships and the nature of the interaction between them.

In the early 90s. in connection with the transition to the social structure of Russian society, there have been significant changes:

A stratum of large owners emerged (concentrated mainly in the sphere of circulation: banks, stock exchanges, trading firms, industrial and financial companies).
A layer of small proprietors (farmers, small traders, owners of private workshops, private practitioners, lawyers, teachers, etc.).
The structure of wage laborers has changed (various forms of ownership: state, joint-stock, private).
The process of merging the two main groups of the elite - the neo-bourgeoisie and the new nomenklatura - is actively underway.

social processes, change and development accompany the life of every person. They are brought to life by various, both subjective and objective circumstances - experiences, ideas, interests, conjectures, external situations. But significant social changes necessarily occur in the process of joint actions of people who are not isolated, but, on the contrary, are unidirectional, interconnected, conjugated, interdependent.

A person constantly corrects his behavior, gets involved in processes, looks for ways out of difficult situations, relationships, changes his position in the economic and political spheres, that is, consciously or unconsciously participates in social processes.

What are social processes?

A Brief Dictionary of Sociology (M., 1988, p. 263) characterizes the social process as a successive change in the states or movements of a social system, or its subsystems, or any social object. The social process consists of several stages, has a certain structure, direction.

Sociologist Frolov S. S. in the textbook "Sociology" M., Logos, 1998, p. 274 notes that the social process is a set of unidirectional and repetitive social actions that can be distinguished from many other social actions.

Social processes are associated with changes in society in all spheres of social life.

social processes- these are the most important changes in social structures, including the consequences and manifestations of these changes in norms, values, cultural elements and symbols.

social change is the transition of social systems, communities, institutions and organizations from one state to another.

social change - it is any modification that has taken place in social relations. In a narrower sense, social change refers to a change in the social structure of society.

The author of the textbook "Sociology" Volkov Yu.G. (Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix Publishing House, 2005) notes that it is necessary to distinguish between social dynamics, that is, processes of social modification, during which the existing structure is preserved and strengthened, and social changes proper, that is, such modifications leading to profound structural changes.

In sociology there are constant structures or patterns of social change, three of them are proposed:

1. Downward movement from high to low;

2. Movement in a vicious circle - in cycles.

3. Movement from the lowest to the highest - progress.

In the modern period, more than others, a development scheme is presented in two positions: cyclic and unidirectional. Unidirectional development is most often understood as the growth or accumulation of something - the level of organization, production volume, population density. The simplest type of unidirectional change process is linear, where the amount of change occurring is constant at any given time. Cyclic changes are characterized by the successive passage of stages. They occur in the agricultural, economic and other spheres of society.

Social change is also:

Endogenous, due to the internal nature or structure of a changing society, they originate in it;

Exogenous, which are caused by external causes (Protestantism caused the accelerated development of capitalism).

There is a type of social change called modernization.

Modernization denotes the historical process of transition from a traditional agrarian society to a modern industrial society.

As practice shows, modernization is a continuous and endless process. It is divided into primary, reflexive (generating countless dangers and risks), catching up (inclusion in the modernization of countries that are late with its implementation), recurrent (according to the Russian sociologist N.F. Naumova), when the idea of catching up social development is associated with nostalgic regret about the past imperial power of Russia.

Types of social changes can be represented in the form of a diagram.

Scheme 1. Types of social change

Social changes occur due to the interaction of factors, both social and natural.

1. The physical environment is the physical beings living in a certain environment and interacting with it through social organization and technologies that contribute to their adaptation.

2. Population. Changes in the size, structure and distribution of the population affect the culture and social structure of society (aging, competition in the labor market).

3. Conflicts are a form of interaction between people in the struggle for resources and values.

4. The values and norms accepted in society act as permission or prohibitions for any innovations or act as stimulants.

5. Innovation. The discovery adds new knowledge to the existing ones (Einstein's theory of relativity, Mendel's genetic theory). The invention is a new combination of old elements. Innovations, both discoveries and inventions, are not single acts, but a cumulative (accumulative) sequence of growing knowledge transmitted by generations, plus a number of new elements.

Some innovations create a much stronger effect, destroying old or creating new social relations, cultural patterns. So technical innovations like radio, television, automobile gave rise to whole cultures.

In sociology, there are three main forms of social effects of innovation.

1. Dispersion, or multiple effects, of a single invention or discovery.

2. Subsequent or derivative effects of one invention or discovery.

3. Convergence, or connection, of several influences of various inventions.

Diffusion is the process by which cultural characteristics spread from one social system to another.

The mechanisms of unidirectional processes are: accumulation, choice, differentiation. Models of unidirectional development suggest that a change in a certain direction entails further changes in the same direction.

Mechanisms of curvilinear and cyclic change can be considered saturation and depletion. Models of development along a curve or in a closed cycle assume that changes in one direction create conditions for further changes in others, including opposite directions.

Conflicts, competitions, cooperation, competition can also be considered as mechanisms of social change.

Sources of social change can be: social causes, random causes, political causes, technological causes, changes in demand in the labor market.

social processes certainly affect social systems, communities, groups. They transform them, create new ones, modify them, bring to life new relationships and social interactions. These changes are the only unit of comparison in the analysis of social systems, communities, relationships, and interactions. Many social processes are paired: revolutionary - evolutionary, progressive - regressive, conscious - spontaneous, functional - dysfunctional, integrating - disintegrating. As well as political, economic, managerial, communicative, etc.

If, along with the comparative method, we apply the historical method, look at the continuity of the various stages of human development, including the physical, intellectual, moral and political, then we note:

Society, as an integral system, develops from simple to complex, from lower to higher.

Progress can only be achieved through a specific series of social stages, and therefore through changes, through development, through processes.

Evolutionary and revolutionary are noted as the leading social processes.

social evolution in the representation of the historical stages of human society includes: the development of society from simple to differentiated, from traditional to rational, from unenlightened to enlightened, from a society with manual technology to a society with machine technology, from a poorly integrated society to a strictly integrated one.

Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, notes that the transition from a simple society to a complex one depends on the depth of the division of labor in society. The German sociologist Tennis notes that the main types of social ties existed in the village community: people lived according to community principles and values, observing traditions and customs, specialization was limited and undeveloped, the people relied on religion, the main value was family and community. In an industrial society, the following relationships are: the desire for personal gain, formal laws are the basis of life, professional roles are expressed in society, people relied on secular values, and society is based on corporate and associative forms of association of people. The French scientist Aron noted that in a post-industrial society, the acquisition of knowledge is the main prestige factor, scientists and consultants play a dominant role, mass production of goods for the market is developed, production and management are mechanized and automated, the scientific and technological revolution has covered all spheres of life.

evolutionary processes are understood as gradual, slow, smooth, quantitative transformations of objects. Evolutionary development includes several points:

The differentiation of society;

Specialization, different parts and structures of society;

Integration - the establishment of harmony, structural and functional compliance of all parts of society;

Adaptation of society to new conditions, maintaining balance and the ability to self-preservation.

revolutionary process- this is a relatively fast, radical, qualitative change in objects and systems. They repeat themselves in time and space, or here and there at the same time. Karl Marx considered social revolutions, i.e. fundamental qualitative upheavals of the entire social life by the locomotive of history. It has been historically proven that the more elements of the structure the process covers, the larger the changes occur, the longer the time required for their implementation.

Main types of social processes are:

1) cooperation- translated from Latin “to work together” on the basis of coordinated actions, common goals, mutual understanding, consistency and accepted rules of cooperation

2) competition- this is a struggle between individuals, groups and societies for the mastery of values, the reserves of which are limited and unequally distributed among individuals or groups (money, power, status, appreciation, love). Competition is an attempt to achieve rewards by sidelining or outperforming rivals pursuing identical goals. Competition is based on the fact that people can never satisfy their desires.

3) fixture- this is the adoption by an individual or a group of cultural norms, values and standards for the actions of a new environment (emigrants, schoolchildren, students, a rural resident in the city - forms a type of behavior in changed conditions)

4) subordination- this is a prerequisite for the adaptation process, because resistance makes it difficult for an individual to enter a new structure and prevents him from adapting

5) compromise- this is a form of adaptation when an individual or group agrees to changing conditions by partially or completely accepting new goals and ways to achieve them

6) assimilation is a process of mutual cultural penetration through which individuals and groups come to a common culture. Assimilation often weakens and extinguishes conflicts

7) amalgamation- this is the biological mixing of two or more ethnic groups or peoples, after which they become one group or people. The processes of assimilation and amalgamation lead to the blurring of borders between peoples, the destruction of formal division, the emergence of a common similarity among group members.

In society, the processes of transformation over time, the actions of driving forces, the results of changes and their scale are of great interest. If there is no interaction between internal and external forces in a society, then it dies, stagnates, and rots. Some processes are replaced by others when each of them exhaust their potentials.

social processes, change and development accompany the life of every person. They are brought to life by various both subjective and objective circumstances - experiences, ideas, interests, conjectures, external situations. Significant social changes necessarily occur in the process of joint actions of people who are not isolated, but, on the contrary, are unidirectional, interconnected, conjugated, interdependent.

What are social processes?

A Brief Dictionary of Sociology (M., 1988. - P. 263) characterizes the social process as a successive change in the states or movements of a social system, or its subsystems, or any social object. The social process consists of several stages, has a certain structure, direction.

Sociologist S.S. Frolov in the textbook "Sociology" (M.: Logos, 1998. - P. 274) notes that the social process is a set of unidirectional and repetitive social actions that can be distinguished from many other social actions.

Social processes are associated with changes in society in all spheres of social life.

social processes are the most important changes in social structures, including the consequences and manifestations of these changes in norms, values, cultural elements and symbols.

- society, as an integral system, develops from simple to complex, from lower to higher;

- progress can be achieved only through a specific series of social stages, and therefore through changes, through development, through processes.

Evolutionary and revolutionary are noted as the leading social processes.

Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, believes that the transition from a simple to a complex society depends on the depth of the division of labor in society. The German sociologist Tennis notes that the main types of social ties existed in the village community: people lived according to community principles and values, observing traditions and customs, specialization was limited and undeveloped, the people relied on religion, the main value was family and community.

In an industrial society, the following relationships are: the desire for personal gain, formal laws are the basis of life, professional roles are expressed in society, people rely on secular values, and society is based on corporate and associative forms of uniting people.

The French scientist Aron noted that in a post-industrial society, the acquisition of knowledge is the main prestige factor, scientists and consultants play a dominant role, mass production of goods for the market is developed, production and management are mechanized and automated, the scientific and technological revolution has covered all spheres of life.

evolutionary processes are understood as gradual, slow, smooth, quantitatively transforming objects. Evolutionary development includes several points:

- differentiation of society;

- specialization of various parts and structures of society;

- integration - the establishment of harmony, structural and functional compliance of all parts of society;

- adaptation of society to new conditions, maintaining balance and the ability to self-preservation.

revolutionary process is a relatively fast, radical, qualitative change in objects and systems. They repeat themselves in time and space, or here and there at the same time. Karl Marx considered social revolutions, that is, fundamental qualitative upheavals of all social life, to be the locomotive of history. It has been historically proven that the more elements of the structure the process covers, the larger the changes occur, the longer the time required for their implementation.

Five features distinguish the revolutionary process from other forms of social change:

completeness: revolutions capture all spheres and levels of public life;

radicalism: revolutionary processes are fundamental, permeate the foundations of the social structure;

speed: revolutionary changes are happening very quickly;

exclusivity: revolutions remain indelibly in the memory of people;

emotionality: revolutions cause an upsurge of mass feelings, unusual reactions and expectations, as in fundamental transformations, broad masses of people are involved in them.

Main types of social processes are:

1) cooperation- translated from Latin "to work together" on the basis of coordinated actions, common goals, mutual understanding, consistency and accepted rules of cooperation;

3) fixture- this is the adoption by an individual or group of cultural norms, values and standards of action in a new environment (emigrants, schoolchildren, students, a rural resident in the city - forms the type of behavior in the changed conditions);

4) subordination- this is a prerequisite for the adaptation process, since resistance makes it difficult for an individual to enter a new structure and prevents him from adapting;

5) compromise- this is a form of adaptation when an individual or group agrees to changing conditions by partially or fully accepting new goals and ways to achieve them;

6) assimilation is a process of mutual cultural penetration through which individuals and groups come to a common culture. Assimilation often weakens and extinguishes conflicts;

Social processes play a huge role in the life of society, bringing to it both positive and negative results for most people. At the heart of their occurrence are the contradictions that arise between various social groups that have special corporate interests that are in conflict with the interests of other groups. This situation is absolutely natural and allows society to find the most effective way of development, capable of consolidating the interests of the majority of its members. As a result, the problems that arise in society cause changes from which some categories of people benefit, while others suffer damage. The people themselves, being direct participants in social processes, however, are not always able to influence them. The reason for this lies in the fact that, causing the corresponding changes in society, people lose control over them due to their unwillingness or inability to understand the internal mechanisms of these changes.

For example, changes in society leading to an increase in the share of the poor in the stratification structure of society may be due to the imperfection of the economic mechanism, which does not ensure the optimal distribution of material resources among people. Understanding the complex nature of pauperization (the process of impoverishment of certain sections of the population), scientists and politicians are trying to understand the cause of this process, the factors that shape it, and the consequences to which it can lead. The solution of this problem, even theoretically, will make it possible to determine possible directions for curbing this process, creating the necessary conditions for its actual elimination.

Observing the changes taking place in society, giving them an assessment, it is not always possible to accurately predict the consequences that these changes can lead to. Increasing the ability of society to evaluate and control the course of its changes becomes an integral element of social culture and is the most important condition for its sustainability.

The social process should be distinguished from the social phenomenon - a concept more common in the sociological literature. P. Sorokin defined the content of this concept in the following way: “A social phenomenon is a social connection that has a mental nature and is realized in the minds of individuals, while at the same time acting beyond its limits in content and duration. This is what many call the "social soul", this is what others call civilization and culture, this is what still others define by the term "world of values", as opposed to the world of things that form the object of the natural sciences. Any interaction, no matter who it takes place between, since it has a mental character (in the above sense of the word) will be a social phenomenon.

The social process has a more pronounced temporal component, which gives an objectified character to the object under study, allowing us to consider all the properties of the latter depending on time. Mental accompaniment of social processes fades into the background. The temporal conditionality of the process is especially interesting in the study of socio-economic and political processes, where the time factor is of great importance and serves as one of the criteria for the formalization, objectification of the process.

People are constantly in the focus of randomly layering processes: economic, political, social, environmental, cultural, innovative, etc. And if some processes can serve as the subject of their careful study, then others create a background for people to solve their everyday problems. This difference determines the procedure for updating current processes, dividing it into two forms: practical and cognitive.

Practical actualization of processes implies a low degree of reflection with a focus on value and situational ways of fixing these processes. In the course of the practical actualization of the social process, a person tends to experience its consequences for himself through a number of strategies: complete disregard, adaptation, open opposition and purposeful withdrawal. Choosing this or that strategy of his attitude to processes, a person consciously underestimates the significance of some and, on the contrary, enhances the significance of others, based on his own ideas about these processes, achieved on the basis of simple life experience. Setting personal goals, a person seeks to subordinate them to the logic of external changes.

Practical actualization acts as a kind of reduction of the complexity of the real world, reducing the processes actualized by it to a limited list of changes, in relation to which it is necessary to build an optimal line of behavior. With such tactics, a person ignores the nature of the processes taking place outside, the causes that caused them, and even the consequences to which they can lead. The priority task is to subordinate these processes to one's own line of behavior, to determine one's own variant of possible actions in relation to some of them.

Under the conditions of cognitive actualization, the factor of reflection on the processes taking place in reality comes to the fore. The essence of cognitive actualization is to determine the entire infrastructure of the process, its properties, consequences, etc. What seems insignificant and insignificant for an ordinary person, for a scientist, who is the main subject of cognitive actualization, acquires a special meaning, which makes it possible to understand the nature of the process, and in the long term - learn to manage it. The main functions of cognitive actualization are description, explanation, understanding and forecast, which act as the leading tools of a scientific approach to reality. The purpose of the cognitive actualization of the social process is the formulation of its identification features, the identification of causes and factors of influence. Such knowledge will make it possible to systematize information about current events in society, determine the degree of their influence on these events, and contribute to the creation of appropriate institutions designed to regulate and control objective processes.

In various periods of the formation of mankind, the ideas of society about the changes taking place in it differed significantly. Scientists have long sought to explain social phenomena from the standpoint of the leading science of their time. In the 17th-18th centuries, the mechanics of I. Newton served as such a discipline, in the 19th century - the evolutionary theory of Darwin, at the beginning of the 20th - the theory of relativity of A. Einstein. Using the laws, general principles and terminology deduced within the framework of these theories, science sought to give accuracy and lawfulness to those changes in which the scientists themselves were participants as members of society. However, most researchers could not fail to understand the more complex and ambiguous nature of social processes.

By the beginning of the 20th century, only history could be considered an established scientific discipline. As for economics, sociology, political science and psychology, they were able to acquire the status of scientific disciplines only by the second quarter of the 20th century. By this time, all the named social disciplines sought to explain complex social changes exclusively within their own framework. The reason for this was the insufficient development of the methodological apparatus. Such a path certainly enriched our knowledge of social processes in the context of the relevant disciplines, however, it did not make it possible to understand the logic of these changes, to combine the problems posed by these sciences together.

The processes of globalization, which peaked in the 1970s, led to a qualitative transformation of existing views on the nature of social change. As the Novosibirsk economist P. Oldak wrote:

“In the 70s. processes are unfolding that have led to an even greater destruction of the old ideas about the boundaries of economic analysis. The world is facing phenomena of a new order - bundles of problems. They have a common economic basis, but they can no longer be explained from the standpoint of one science. First of all, we are talking about global problems: environmental, raw material, food, demographic. It's a bunch, a chain of problems. You begin to study one problem, and a second, third, fourth follows it... Studying the factors of economic development, we can no longer isolate it from the system of peripheral ties. So we come to the idea of a metasystem - the highest integrity of the connections of all social structures.

In the conditions of the increasing complexity of the nature of social changes, the tightening of the network of interconnections between social processes taking place in different parts of the planet, the growth of communication and cooperation opportunities for scientific knowledge, people are increasingly talking about the economic and political nature of these processes. The importance of the economic and political aspect of social processes began to increase as the priorities of the economic and political stability of society emerged, which determined the best conditions for solving current social problems. The formation of economics and political science as scientific disciplines, their formulation of a number of basic laws and research principles for them, made it possible to acquire a real methodological basis for studying the relevant processes, to find an opportunity to control and manage them.

The social process is socially significant changes in society, caused by the desire of various groups to influence the conditions prevailing in society in order to satisfy a certain interest. In the process of clash of interests of various social groups, the facts of the dominance of some groups relative to others are revealed, structuring relationships in society under the influence of various factors - social, economic, political, environmental, legal, etc.

The vector of the social process is determined by the heterogeneity in the position of social subjects seeking to achieve a balance in their relationship with each other. As a result of the clash of people's interests, the action of some hidden forces is manifested, the emergence of which is caused precisely by this clash. The expected result of such a collision determines the direction of the vector, the assessment of the possible consequences of the process under study.

According to the well-known Polish sociologist P. Sztompka, the procedural approach to social problems has recently become dominant. In accordance with this approach, society is presented not so much as an object (group, organization), but as a kind of “field of opportunity” for social subjects. The key unit of analysis is the "event", which is revealed in the actions of social actors, the consequences of which are multivariate.

The famous Russian scientist P. Sorokin gave a classical definition of a social process: “A process is understood to mean any kind of movement, modification, transformation, alternation or “evolution”, in short, any change in a given object under study over a certain time, whether it is a change in its place in space or modification of its quantitative and qualitative characteristics"

The process presupposes the existence of a structure and dynamics that provide it with a stable and directed character, ordering the course of social changes penetrating it. The structure of the process includes the totality of all its participants, contributing factors, conditions, etc. The dynamics of the process is based on indicators of the strength and scale of the ongoing changes, their duration and working rhythm.

The process is characterized by the scale, direction, intensity, composition and nature of stimulation.

The scale of the process involves measuring the degree of involvement of subjects in it. Coverage of individuals involved in the process or individual social groups means a micro level in the study of such processes. Whereas the acquisition of the status of the subject of processes by states, peoples, ethnic groups or cultures means a transition to the macro level with the reorientation of the observer to a fundamentally different coordinate system.

The orientation of the process is characterized by its vector, which expresses the orientation of the process towards a certain outcome.

The intensity of the process is set by the conscious significance of its results for the participants involved in it. In fact, this value can be set through the coverage of this process in the media, publicity, awareness of the global consequences for the social subject (for example, due to population decline as a result of man-made disasters or military clashes).

Compound process consists of its constituent participants, their social stratification, political orientations and place in the system of social division of labor.

The nature of stimulation is manifested in the policy of the subject that controls and directs this process. In accordance with this feature, the process can be forced or uniform, impetuous or sluggish.

Main elements social process are:

participants,
subject (initiator) of the process,
reasons and observer,
being a member of the scientific community.

The participants in the process include all active and passive members of society, whose interests are affected by the changes taking place in society. By the number of participants in the process, one can judge its nature, scope and level of coverage. The subject (initiator) of the process is one of its participants, who has significant resources that allow for a long time to maintain the dynamics and direction of social changes. The initiator of the process is able to seriously influence the course of such changes by reproducing favorable conditions aimed at achieving the expected result. The influence exerted by the initiator on the process may be unconscious, causing certain changes contrary to the will and interests of the initiator. All this can stimulate widespread cases of loss of control over the changes caused by the initiators. The role of the initiator of the process can be strengthened many times if he has broad powers of authority, obtained by him both legally and illegally. Being the manager of funds and resources, exercising the right of legislative initiative, the subject of the process sets the rules of the game for all its participants, setting the desired direction vector for the process.

Social systems can also act as the subject of social processes. Each evolving system has its own dynamics, represented as either a continuous cumulative process or a cycle.

Causes are an integral element of social change, acting as a factor in their manifestation. If the initiator of the process can be hidden from the attention of researchers, then the cause is organically inherent in the process and constitutes its internal source. Potential causes of social processes include:

natural causes - depletion of resources, environmental pollution, disasters, etc.;
demographic reasons - population fluctuations, overpopulation, migration, the process of generational change;
changes in the sphere of culture, economy, scientific and technological progress;
socio-political causes - conflicts, wars, revolutions, reforms; addiction, saturation, thirst for novelty, increased aggressiveness, etc.

The most important element in the mode of perception and assessment of social processes is the scientific community - a community of scientists, specialists, practitioners who formulate key standards for assessing, measuring and regulating the processes under study. With the help of such standards, norms, the initiator of the process is able to control and model the course of events, and the observer is able to determine the criteria for evaluating the deployment of processes in space and time.

The observer, being a formal or informal member of the scientific community, is the source of the cognitive parameters of the process. The cognitive meaning of the process is given in the act of its perception, knowledge, explanation and understanding. Displaying the process, the observer, based on the approaches developed by the scientific community, seeks to recognize the logic of the process, actualizing the very fact of its occurrence, and develops a certain mental scheme for understanding and explaining the events obtained during the observation. By interpreting the results and course of social processes, the observer makes visible the sources, scale and direction of current processes, using reliable and generally accepted methods of analyzing and processing information.

The observer is predominantly a passive participant in the process, constituting an idea of its character, giving it a certain meaning and significance. In order to measure the processes under study, the observer proposes a coordinate system that is significant for all its participants.

Every process can be measured. The nature of the measurement of processes is arbitrary from the method of its structuring, the type and position of the observer. The main structural units that determine the direction and intensity of ongoing processes are social systems.