Suchergebnisse

The success of the market modernization of Russia depends in many ways on similarity of the Russian economic mentality and the European one. To estimate a degree of similarity of the former with the mentality of citizens of Western and Eastern countries, it is suggested that the techniques of a quantitative estimation and the analysis of national economic mentality - ethnometric methods - should be used. The authors analyze four most popular ethnometric techniques - G. Hofstede's, the project GLOBE, the project WVS and F. Trompenaars'. The most important parameters of national economic mentality are considered to be the indexes of individualism and hierarchy (power distance). According to the WVS results, Russia belongs to the East; according to G. Hofstede's technique, Russia occupies an intermediate position between the East and the West; GLOBE and F. Trompenaars give inconsistent results.

In modern Russia Peter the Great, according to representative opinion polls, is considered to be the best figure in the entire history of the country, significantly outstripping in popularity even domestic politicians of the 20th-21st centuries. This very high "folk" reputation significantlycontradicts the views of social scientists who see in Peter I not so much a successful national reformer, a "revolutionary on the throne", but a despot unscrupulous in his means, who for centuries to come linked modernization of the country with increased state coercion and heavy wars. However, comparative approach shows that other countries of catching up development pattern in the XVIII-XX centuries followed as a rule not the path of evolutionary reform but that of radical reforms aimed primarily at strengthening the army. Peter's Russia stands out against this background only in that it was the first to choose "modernization for the sake of military victories" and therefore, since the time of Peter I, remained among the "great powers" despite constant socio-economic backwardness. The legitimacy of this choice can be substantiated with the help of a world-systems analysis that emphasizes the great role of national sovereignty for the success of catch-up modernization. In fact, Peter I chose the war with strong Sweden as a main lever of modernization and a way to radically change the "rules of the game" - not only to open direct trade between Russia and Western Europe, but also to include it in the "great powers". The example of Peter the Great's reforms, whichalmost coincided with the Northern War, clearly shows that military mobilization can play the role of a "big push" in a country that is catching up, creating the prerequisites for all other qualitative transformations. At the same time, "modernization for the sake of victories" that took shape under Peter the Great initiated a trend that is dangerous for Russia as a country of catching up development, when its military successes hindered the seemingly unnecessarynational modernization, with military failures stimulating it.

This article offers economic and sociological theory of trust, embodying the idea of "social capital" by James Coleman. It also analyzes empirical data on personal and institutional trust obtained on the basis of nationwide opinion poll in the project "Comparative studies of trust in different countries during the period of globalization". The problem of trust is considered in the context of the international projects "World Values Survey" and "Trust Barometer" which made it possible to construct a mental world map of personal and institutional trust for various countries. It is shown that Russia has not a low, but a medium level of trust. In the mental world map some patterns were presented that reflect the basic trust as a form of social capital.