2016. vol. 15. No. 1

Enterprise systems (ES) are intended to tie together the various functions of an organization through the integration of information flows, data management, organizational processes, and workplace activities. Compared to legacy systems, which can be siloed in disparate parts of the organization, enterprise systems are meant to be used across the entire ’enterprise’. The biggest benefits of these systems include businesses achieving greater standardization of work, data management, and having an information system that makes for better decision making and greater responsiveness to changing conditions. As they constitute a fundamental shift in how work is done, ES can be inherently disruptive as the technological landscape of an organization is transformed through the installation of a new information system. This also makes them prone to failure, as the installation of the system is often met with large delays, user resistance, and a failure to integrate with existing work practices. In this paper, we contrast reengineering approaches (i.e. the restructure of work) with implementations in which the technology is fitted more to existing work practices, to achieve more incremental and less disruptive change. We argue that while consultants strongly promote a reengineering-led ES implementation, their adopted methodology for understanding existing business processes is such that they are able to grasp only an idealized view of these processes, often very different from actual practice in any specific context. We propose instead that consultants adopt a practice-based, ethno-methodological approach, essentially becoming everyday ethnographers, who can better inform these business, organizational, and managerial decisions.

This text presents a record of the conversation between Hannah Arendt and Carlo Schmid, which was broadcast on October 19, 1965, on the third television channel of Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Northern German Broadcasting), and coincided with the publication of Arendt’s book On Revolution. The conversation between Arendt and Schmid is thematically connected with other works of Arendt concerning revolutionary topics (Die ungarische Revolution und der totalitäre Imperialismus, Between Past and Future, The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and On Violence). The conversation partners discuss the nature and characteristics of revolution, the differences of the French and American revolutions, the significance of freedom and of the social question, the system of councils or elementary republics, the link between progress and happiness, and finally, why revolutions occur and why they fail. Arendt considers revolution as the beginning of something new, and the manifestation of the true spirit of the political. Arendt sees the essence of revolution in the radical transformation of the social system, where old power relations should disappear, and new institutions for the realization of freedom should appear. However, for this to happen, people need to work together. As a result of co-action appearing in the public space, human freedom should be realized. In comparing the French and American Revolutions, Arendt concludes that only the American Revolution was successful, because it made the people's participation in public affairs possible. The focus of the French Revolution gradually shifted to the social question, which led to the fall of the revolutionary spirit and, ultimately, to the defeat of the revolution. Nevertheless, the French Revolution became the model for all subsequent revolutions in the world.

Based on L. Boltanski, and L. Thévenot’s “domestic order” described in “orders of worth”, the article deals with the deontological ethics that lays the groundwork for Japanese political culture. Towards this end, I analyze conceptual issues of “orders of worth” in trying to reduce the theory to Japanese political reality. The most ancient constituent act known as the Seventeen-article constitution is described as an example of Japanese political thought. In consistently applying the principles stated by Boltanski and Thévenot, I conclude that the Constitution meets all of the conditions to be considered as a fundamental work, which lays a solid cornerstone of Japanese traditional political and social order. Among all of the “orders of worth” offered by Boltanski and Thévenot, I chose the “domestic order” as the most acceptable to focus on the characteristics of the phenomenon of domination in the Japanese ruling elite, which contrasts with the domination of the European type. In analyzing the listed differences, the author concludes that the root of the Japanese understanding of justice correlates with the understanding of righteousness. As a result, I conclude that the Japanese way of political conceptualization focuses around ideal forms of state rule and ideal order, and is, in a certain sense, typical for the classical political thought of ancient times. In such a type of thought, conceptions of righteousness, justice, truth, sincerity, and harmony are the points of departure for any political consideration. In this context, I can call the Japanese traditional political culture as a deontologically and axiologically-oriented culture focused on political ideals and public weal.

Mykhailo Drahomanov’s political views are of considerable interest from the standpoint of the historical studies of Ukrainian national movement in the last quarter of the 19th century, relations of national movements with each other and with the imperial center. It may also be relevant for the theoretical comprehension of «nationalism» with regards to the analysis of current events. Drahomanov was not merely an active politician but also an ideologist who aimed to elaborate the theoretical framework to justify and to describe objectively his own activities and the activity of his allies and antagonists. Being the ideologist of Ukrainian «radicalism» (i.e. socialism) from 1870s, by the fall of 1880s Drahomanov found himself in an ideological confrontation – this time not with the Great Russian/Pan-Russian nationalists, imperials and Polish nationalists – with the Ukrainian national movement itself. In the end of the 1880s-beginning of the 1890s Drahomanov published a series of works which explained his understanding of the «national» and the prospects of the «Ukrainianism». Through the consideration of the separatist attitudes he insisted that there were no conditions of the emergence of the independent Ukrainian state without «the universal disaster». Hence, the aim of the Ukrainian movement is to change the political and administrative orders of the existing states. To do this they needed to propose attractive solutions for the majority of other participants of the political life. According to Drahomanov, for the Russian Empire it could be a federative reconstruction, which will give the opportunity to fulfill the national purposes on the local level regarding the power and maturity of national and/or local movements. These concerns, as he assumed, might be of interest not only to «plebeian nations», but also to the Great Russian population.

The article is devoted to the "reading" and production of nature (in the terms of Macnaghten and Urry) in the discourse of young industrial towns arising in Russia after 1917. The empirical research is focused on four Ural settlements of Krasnoturyinsk, Lesnoy, Zarechny, and Kachkanar. Two chronologically different types of sources are used, those related to the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, which accumulated official and unofficial discourses. The main field method is the go-along interview. The analytical scheme elaborated to deal with the collected materials includes: a) semantic statements specifying the general vector of expression and perception of nature; b) the status of nature in a relationship with man, and; c) the predicative elements which reveal the understanding of nature and its relationship with non-nature. Three phases of the discourse of nature are highlighted on the basis of the analytical scheme. 'Conquest' is a semantic statement at the first stage. In the second stage, it is changed by the rhetoric of partnership, while the third stage emphasizes environmental issues. The article concludes that a fundamental duality is characteristic for the discourse of nature in young towns. On the one hand, it articulates environmental risks, and an admiration of forests and mountains since "natural" and "refined" environment are valued as a source of positive local identity, comfort, and interesting leisure opportunities. On the other hand, there is a recognition of the need for the further industrial use of nature to maintain the vitality of the town. The ecological line (argument?) is weaker because the perception of enterprise as a backbone of the basis of life persists.

This review examines the key issues of the international conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) held in August 2015 in Prague (Czech Republic). It gives an outline of the plenary speech by A. Hochschild at the opening of the conference dedicated to the connection between emotions and political beliefs. The review focuses on the key debates in contemporary European sociology of religion that were held during the 15 sessions held by the research network of sociologists of religion of ESA. Such vectors as conflict, identity, religion and state are highlighted. Special attention is paid to gender issue, women priests and bisexual Christians. The diversity of types of social inequality in the context of various religions and regions of the world is discussed, in particular, in Europe and Near East. Reports by Russian sociologists of religion are indicated. Particular attention is given to the papers on monasticism as a role model for religious actors in Buddhism and Christianity. It is shown that institutional changes in monasticism may cause signal the changes in the role religion in society. The review examines a research on monasticism as a traditional institution in Christianity using the example of the Roman Catholic church in Switzerland and as an innovative institution in Buddhism using the case of a Buddhist community in Spain. The structure, history, current status and future academic plans of the ESA research network of the sociologists of religion are analyzed. The interdisciplinary potential of the sociology of religion and thematic areas connected with the study of religion by other research networks and are covered, including culture, migration and gender studies.

A History of the Urals by British historian Paul Dukes is the first book to introduce the English-speaking reader to the life of the Urals from Ivan the Terrible to the present day, the characters of the narrative thus being not only Yermak and Tatishchev, but also Trotsky, Yeltsin, and Roizman. Known from his publications of Catherine's Russia and of the USA and the USSR superpowers, among others, Dukes became interested in the Urals through communications with Ural historians. Duke's addressing of their works allows the reader to evaluate the advances in (re)understanding the 1990s—2000s  history of the region. Dukes is trying to attack the stereotypical perception of the Urals as just the boundary between Europe and Asia in featuring both the national and global significance of the region. In addition, today, the vertical axis of the "north—south" is much more relevant then the "Europe—Asia" horizontal. Analytically, the history of the Urals is revealed through three waves of Russian modernization, and considering data on governmental control, the exploitation of resources, and the cultural adjustment for each period. There is a noteworthy interplay of regional and national scales in A History of the Urals, to which the comparative observations of the Russian and British empires, and the Soviet and American industrializations are sometimes added. The book envisages the Urals via a set of aligned and brilliantly matched images, from the “Slata baba” (Golden Woman) of ancient maps, to the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, captured by Paul Dukes himself during his recent excursion to the Europe-Asia boundary.

King’s Vanishing Body: The Origins of Prison, Criminal Law and State (Review: Michel Foucault, Théories et institutions pénales: cours au Collège de France, 1971–1972 [Paris: EHESS, Gallimard, Seuil, 2015])

Review: Otfried Höffe, Est' li budushhee u demokratii? O sovremennoj politike [Is There a Future for Democracy? On Contemporary Politics] (Moscow: Delo, 2015).

Review: Alen Guttmann, Ot rituala k rekordu: priroda sovremennogo sporta [From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports] (Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press, 2016).