Dear colleagues,

(Apologies for cross-posting!)

NZ No. 35, with a special focus on the social sciences, is
now out, and a number of articles are already online at
www.nz-online.ru. I am appending an English-language
summary. Once more I would like to draw your attention to
our English, German, and French pages (click on the
language icons at the top of the page), and to the Net's
fullest available list of links to web sites of
Russian-language journals in the humanities, arts, and
social sciences, at
http://www.nz-online.ru/index.phtml?cid=5000075

For subscription information, see
http://www.nz-online.ru/index.phtml?cid=5010266

Sincerest regards

Mischa Gabowitsch
Editor-in-chief



The social sciences, their methods and the question of
their autonomy from politics and other spheres of society,
are the main topic of NZ No. 35. Our Liberal Heritage
section features the text of a recent lecture by social
theorist Laurent Th?venot entitled, in an allusion to
Hannah Arendt, 'A Science of Living Together in the
World?. In his survey, which NZ is the first to publish,
Th?venot takes stock of recent innovations in the social
sciences, and relates them to the defining moments in the
history of those sciences, pointing out especially their
continuity with moral philosophy. He recalls sociology?s
break with political philosophy, the beginnings of its
quest for realism, and its thirst for system-building. He
then goes on to discuss the crucial problems of values,
reality, and scale in the sociological project, and argues
that rather than concentrating solely on the issue of
their own autonomy, social scientists should re-establish
the connection with moral and political philosophy and
focus on the study of ?the art of living together?. In our
editorial introduction to this text, we invite readers to
reflect on the perspectives for a sociology which is
liberal not in the sense of serving ?liberal? political
interests but in the more classical sense of laying the
bases for the fullest and richest development of
individuals? potential.
Under the Politics of Culture rubric, economist Geoffrey
Hodgson asks, Are Universal Economic Principles Enough?,
and argues that English-speaking economic science?s lack
of attention to the heritage of the German historical
school has made it oblivious to the importance of
historical factors in economic reality, and over-confident
in the application of generalisations that are of little
explanatory value.
The central piece of the discussion is Topic 1, entitled A
Debate on Methods, taking up Hodgson?s and other authors?
references to the German-Austrian Methodenstreit that
started in the 1880s. Introduced by NZ?s editor-in-chief,
Mischa Gabowitsch, the debate is ?launched? by Viktor
Voronkov, director of the Centre for Independent Social
Research in Saint Petersburg, with an impassioned attack
on quantitative methods entitled This crazy, crazy, crazy
quantitative world, in which he accuses quantitative
studies of being subservient to State interests and
obscuring, rather than furthering our understanding of
social reality, of the life-worlds of people in society.
Voronkov therefore proposes to ban quantitative methods
from sociology altogether.
Seven Russian social scientists from different backgrounds
reply to Voronkov. Inna Deviatko, the co-author of a
well-known article critical of quantitative sociology
published in 1994, argues that Voronkov?s charges against
quantitative methods could just as easily be levelled
against qualitative sociology, which has no greater claim
to autonomy and objectivity than, say, public opinion
research. Olga Shevchenko agrees with this and proposes to
shift the debate from quantitative vs. qualitative methods
to subjectivity vs. objectivity, although she admits that
quantitative studies? greater need for large-scale funding
more easily propels them towards positivism. Sergei
Oushakine compares the present discussion to a 1967 debate
between literary scholars Yury Lotman and Vadim Kozhinov
on the use of mathematics in the humanities and argues
that, just like semiotics learned mathematics back then,
sociology should now learn from linguistics and literary
studies. Yury Kachanov points out the common origins of
objectivism and subjectivism in scientific practices
harking back to early modern times. In his view, the main
debate is not about the respective merits of subjectivism
or objectivism, but about whether we are prepared to
objectivate the practices of the social sciences as part
of our quest for truth, or are content to accept research
methods as unquestionable, self-grounding doctrines. Anton
Oleinik draws attention to the pressures from schools of
thought and funding bodies social scientists are exposed
to, but also to the temptation of siding with their
objects of study. His conclusion is that scholarly
independence demands a Stoic attitude of detachment which
many researchers may not be able to muster. Alexander
Filippov argues that the social sciences need to fulfil
the same standards of universality and replicability of
their results as other scientific disciplines, and that
applies to both quantitative and qualitative methods. He
concludes gloomily that the absence of debates on methods
in Russian sociology is not due to a hardening of battle
lines, but to the fact that most Russian sociologists?
quest is for funding rather than truth. Finally, historian
Nikolai Kopossov places the debate in a historical
context, interpreting Th?venot?s, Hodgson?s and Voronkov?s
contributions from the points of view of the specific
experience they are rooted in, and proposing to take
Th?venot?s text as a starting point for a much broader
discussion on the future of the social sciences as a
social practice.
In the Morals and Mores section, Stanford professor Hans
Ulrich Gumbrecht provides an ?external? view on Russian
debates by commenting on a discussion on the scientific
nature of the social sciences and humanities at a recent
conference in Moscow, and comparing some Russian analysts?
?rustic? belief in scientific method to the more catholic
US model of Humanities and Arts (How Scientific Should the
Humanities Be?). Finally, our columnist Yevgeny Saburov
devotes his column to economists? use of the figure of the
social agent (Bring Out the Actor!).
Our second topic is devoted to the politics of radio,
prompted by recent changes in the programming of the
US-funded Radio Liberty?s Russian service. Ethnologist
Ilya Utekhin looks back upon the part Radio Liberty played
in Soviet times, and discusses the uses different
generations of Russian listeners make of its unique
programmes (Time of Un-Liberty). This is followed by an
interview with Kevin Klose, president of the USA?s
National Public Radio, on NPR?s role in the US media
landscape and the public?s renewed interest in serious
analysis and high-quality reporting since the terrorist
attacks of 11 September 2001.
Under the Politics of Culture rubric, we publish an essay
by Lev Usyskin which argues that many of Russian
liberalism?s current woes stem from its inattention to PR
and an inability to counter distorted representations of
its successes in the 1990s. In a short comment on
Usyskin?s text, Mischa Gabowitsch argues that, rather than
talking about how to polish up their image, Russian
liberals should more seriously engage in internal debate
in order to identify the shortcomings of their ideology
and policies.
Our next big topic, sports, is introduced by columnist
Alexei Levinson in his Sociological Notes, devoted this
time to The Body Cult and the Leadership Cult. Levinson
compares the taboo that used to surround the bodies of
Soviet leaders with post-Soviet Russians? interest in the
athletic side of their presidents.
Topic 3, entitled O! O! O! O! O!, presents a range of
views on the contemporary, and historical, significance
and fortunes of sports. In The Form of Violence: In Praise
of Aesthetic Beauty, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht maintains that
finding sports beautiful does not need intellectual
justifications, that it can be an immediate aesthetic
experience, and one which, in team sports at any rate, is
intrinsically linked to the enjoyment of violence
channelled into beautiful forms. Philosopher Hans Lenk, in
The Ethics of Sports as a Culture of Fairness: Fairness in
Competitions and the Structural Dilemma, shows how in both
sports and society at large, the spirit of informal
fairness which has always been an important supplement to
formal ?rules of the game?, has been replaced by a spirit
of existential grimness. Athletes and other citizens are
now often torn between the demands of fair play and strong
social and institutional incentives to win at all costs.
Lenk argues that this situation places new
responsibilities upon institutions and their
representatives. Historian Mikhail Prozumenshchikov takes
a look Behind the Party Curtain of the Sports Superpower,
and shows how the Soviet party apparatus applied its logic
of economic planning and bureaucratic control to
high-performance sports, and provides a rich array of
examples of the often conflicting pressures to which this
exposed athletes. Finally, classical philologist Vadim
Mikhailin compares Competition Sports in the Ancient Greek
and Modern Traditions, and shows that although the
classical and modern Olympic ideas could not have been
more different from each other at their outset, both
eventually degenerated along the same lines, turning
athletic competitions into displays of the individual
athlete?s hubris.
The New Institutions section presents the International
Youth Human Rights Movement, a network NGO based in
Voronezh which co-ordinates human rights campaigns across
much of the former Soviet Union and beyond.
Our Journals Review section features a review of recent
issues of Russian journals, focusing on journals covering
politics and society, and a survey of the landscape of
cultural and intellectual periodicals in the Czech
Republic by Alexander Bobrakov-Timoshkin.
Finally, the New Books section contains a dozen reviews of
Russian and English books on topics ranging from the
Russian human rights movement and the life of Nikita
Khrushchev to the history of arts, with special focuses on
ethnology and images of Russia in the West and vice-versa.