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International functionalism as proposed by David Mitrany envisions non-territorial functional agencies to supplant the states system. Mitrany makes no provision for democracy in functional agencies. Instead, he assumes that the policies of international technocrats would be 'technically self-determined' and uncontested – a stance several critics deem antidemocratic and naive. A second, related criticism holds that even if functional agencies were formally democratic, democracy could not operate effectively since functional polities would be too 'thin' and fragmented to sustain democratic commitments among their members. The article qualifies the first charge and rejects the second. First, defined as an institutional decision-making principle, 'technical self-determination' is Mitrany's add-on to the underlying functionalist logic, not an inseparable part of it. That logic instead holds that institutions work best if their form and scope of authority follow their function and that function-specific agencies therefore could meet some needs better than the state. Contra Mitrany, this does not privilege technocratic over democratic decision-making and it does not imply that functional agencies would be free from political conflict. Nor, second, would functional agencies necessarily be unsuitable for democracy in practice. Several strands of democratic theory suggest that even people who do not share a 'thick' communal identity can develop a commitment to meet shared needs democratically. If one accepts this, it loosens functionalism's technocratic stigma, highlights its potential as a democratically viable alternative to both state-centric and supranational models of international order and broadens our conception of possible democratic futures.

The purpose of the article is to consider and reveal the peculiarities of socio-cultural "turn" in public relations science on the example of functionalism critics, postmodern influences, and cultural appropriation in the XXI century. The research methodology is based on a paradigmatic approach in science that helps to reveal the context and dynamics of the transition from the functional paradigm, whose representatives reduce public relations to a "management function" and level the potential of the "cultural function" of the industry, till sociocultural in the measures of which public relations are an influential social and cultural practice in the modern world. Besides, in the article the Cultural Studies methodological tool kit was applied that helped to reveal the problem of cultural approbation in the way of post-colonialism and the role of PR campaigns in the (re)production of a postmodern understanding of consumption. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the article reveals the peculiarities of the cultural or socio-cultural "turn" in the science of public relations in the context of criticising the functional approach. Conclusions. It was found that the sociocultural "turn" and the related criticism of the epistemological and ideological foundations of the functional approach, which reduces PR to the organisational function of companies in order to increase their efficiency and attractiveness on the market, drew the attention of researchers in the field to the methodological potential anthropology, sociology, post-colonialism, cultural studies, feminism, political economy, among others, as well as scholars from other disciplinary fields to the problem of testing their own tools in PR theory and practice. It was proved that the socio-cultural "turn" is a movement of thought from understanding public relations as a functional process in an organisational context to its perception as a cultural practice and "intermediary" in cultural appropriation, in the creation of meanings and constitution of a hyper-real environment.

Issues and arguments -- Challenges to scientific rationality -- Causes, confirmation, and explanation -- Functionalism defended -- The failures of individualism -- A science of interpretation? -- Economics: a test case -- Problems and prospects