The future of society according to future Russian lawyers

• Main Authors: Ushkin Sergey Gennadievich, Koval Ekaterina Alexandrovna
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2020-09-01
• Series: Вестник Института социологии
• Subjects: sociology; social future; social well-being; normativity expectations; «good society»; projective social inquiry; justice
• Online Access: http://www.vestnik-isras.ru/files/File/Vestnik_2020_34/Ushkin_i_dr._28-42.pdf

This article shows that studying the views of future Russian lawyers on the projective future of society is a relevant development, since this particular socio-professional group does not only put forward certain demands in regards to projective subjective social wellbeing, but also possesses the lawmaking potential necessary for the transformation and normative engineering of Russian society. The article analyzes the results of the author’s own research, conducted in 2016 in 12 cities of Russia (based on All- Russian State University of Justice and its subsidiaries). According to the author, the results of research in the field reveal a relatively high level of subjective wellbeing registered among the respondents, with their core values being justice, freedom, upholding law and order, public initiative. In order to measure normative expectations, those surveyed were offered to characterize three models of a supposed society using an array of parameters: “the best society” (utopian), “a bad society” (dystopian) and “a good society” (one that’s attainable and suitable for life and personal growth). As a result, certain projective requirement indexes were obtained for implementing these models in a future society. It came as somewhat of a surprise that, in spite of the widespread belief that the value orientations of modern youth have a “consumer” nature to them, material wellbeing turned out to be far from the most significant parameter. The highest values were shown by indexes which correlated with such virtues as justice, equality and lawfulness, which speaks to their considerable influence on the respondents’ evaluation of their subjective wellbeing. The authors also noticed a fundamental difference when it comes to future Russian lawyers’ thoughts on the paths towards attaining justice. The indexes for a society constantly subject to reform and a conservative society were practically on the same level. This indirectly points to the existence of a deeply rooted divide when it comes to values, indicating that people are looking into the future with uncertainty, which is proven by a multitude of studies done by other authors.