This paper re-examines poverty in a small Russian town, drawing attention to the public attitude towards the poor and the readiness of local society to be involved in the process of helping these people. The Russian official measurement and general approach to the study of poverty are not adequate to targeting the involvement of wider social groups in poverty reduction. This process needs a new approach for investigating poverty in Russia and the implementation of new social security services. A new approach could be based on interaction between people in difficult situations, local society, authorities and other stakeholders. This paper examines the opportunity to employ the idea of a participatory methodology for providing social security in the Russian Federation.

This article concerns the issue of interactions between socially oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and families with socially disadvantaged children whom such organizations are seeking to help. In the Russian regions, especially in rural areas, the employment of modern concepts in the investigation of NGOs as driving forces and results of social activities of the population revealed that these organizations often function quite separately from the community and maintain close links to government social services providers. We analyzed a wide range of factors that could decrease the gap between NGOs and the population. To investigate this issue, we used the results from several international research projects conducted by an international team in Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast in 2010-2015. Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast can be viewed as an average Russian region in terms of social and economic development. In our research, we invited leaders of NGOs-mainly those providing support to families-from several districts of the region and local families already in contact with NGOs. We also invited those who could potentially be interested in this cooperation, such as families with many children, families in difficult situations, and foster families. Based on our findings, we argue that relationships between NGOs and families depend on contributions from both sides. On the one hand, these relationships are shaped by the internal situations of NGOs, including the specifics of their creation, their ways of cooperation with state organizations, their funding sources, and the types of services they provide. On the other hand, the level of trust, the attitudes of people towards NGOs, the experience of engagement with particular NGOs, and the development of social networking within local communities also create some barriers and opportunities for cooperation between people and NGOs. Investigation of the mutual links between NGOs and different social groups can be helpful for understanding the development of the third sector in Russia as a whole and might provide valuable insights for NGO activists who would like to improve their activities.

Jouko Nikula – PhD, Senior Researcher, Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: jounikul@gmail.com Nina Ivashinenko – Doktor Nauk in Economics, Professor, Head of Economic Sociology Department, Lobachevsky State University of N. Novgorod, Head of UNN-ISESP RAS Laboratory. Russian Federation. Email: nni@fsn.unn.ru   This article discusses on-going foster care reform in Russia and analyses possibilities for the evolution of partnerships between stakeholders. The role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the realisation of programmes related to child welfare reform is considered, revealing that social partnership is a form of collaborative action. In other words, drawing on the work of Sandra Waddock, social partnership involves interactions performed by various actors to achieve common goals. The main characteristics of social partnerships are that they are specialised, voluntary and collaborative, and their main goal is to try to solve a common problem. However, not all cooperation between public authorities, NGOs and business is a partnership; in fact a successful partnership is characterised by a variety of features. These include mutual trust, complementary strengths, reciprocal accountability, joint decision-making, clearly articulated goals, equitable distribution of costs and benefits, performance indicators, as well as mechanisms to measure and monitor performance and a clear delineation of responsibilities. The role of non-state actors is increasing in welfare and other social services due to adverse demographic trends and the diminishing economic base available to the state for delivering social services. The state’s efforts to dismantle the former state-centred system of welfare has also resulted in the outsourcing of welfare responsibilities and services in child welfare to non-state actors. Alongside their growing role, many new questions have been raised about the quality of the NGOs’ activities and their skills. Therefore, the expansion of NGOs’ social functions potentially generates both opportunities and risks in the transformation of child welfare. Even if there are some green shoots of partnership between the public authorities and NGOs in this field, their relationship is not reciprocal. We argue that Russian NGOs need to improve their social status and the quality of their work to allow them to have their own voice when negotiating their relationship with different state actors.

The Russian non-profit organisations (NPOs) went through the long pass from political actors to social-oriented assistances and then to some drivers of socioeconomic development [1]. Avoiding the engagement of the population in political actions, the Russian government pays significant attention to involving people in socioeconomic decision-making processes and creating and developing a non-profit sector. The indicators measuring NPOs' activities have been included in a wide range of official governmental documents and projects. However, the non-profit organisations remain invisible on the socioeconomic landscape of Russian regions. One the one hand, there is a lack of theoretical understanding of the role of NPOs in regional socioeconomic development. On the other hand, the official statistics do not have enough basic information on NPOs scope, structure, financing, and contributions in socioeconomic development. As a result, some contradictions between official proclaimed targets of NPOs involvement in socioeconomic development and measurement of these results occur. This paper provides an analysis of the situation on a regional level. Using the Nizhny Novgorod region as a case study, we explore how different governmental bodies operate with statistics about NPOs and how this information is collected by the official statistics office. The findings based on a set of interviews, analysis of governmental reports and plans for official Federal statistics work plan. These efforts point the way toward putting the NPOs on the economic map of the Russian region for the first time in a way supporting participatory mechanism of regional socioeconomic development. All articles must contain an abstract. The abstract text should be formatted using 10 point Times or Times New Roman and indented 25 mm from the left margin. Leave 10 mm space after the abstract before you begin the main text of your article, starting on the same page as the abstract. The abstract should give readers concise information about the content of the article and indicate the main results obtained and conclusions drawn. The abstract is not part of the text and should be complete in itself; no table numbers, figure numbers, references or displayed mathematical expressions should be included. It should be suitable for direct inclusion in abstracting services and should not normally exceed 200 words in a single

Шестой принципрегулярность выхода журнальных номеров. Этот принцип очень важен для периодического издания. Если журнал выходит кое-как, с длинными задержками, пару раз в год, с постоянным сдваиванием номеров, то он перестает быть журналом как таковым. Когда мы только начинали этот проект, мы объявили, что журнал будет выходить пять раз в год (раз в два месяца, за исключением летнего периода), в последнюю декаду указанного * * * С удовольствием принимаем Ваши поздравления с пятилетием журнала! 10. Какие исследовательские направления в экономической социологии Вам кажутся пока недостаточно изученными? На этот вопрос можно ответить двояким образом. Можно перечислить направления, по которым до сих пор велось очень мало работы, и, возможно, именно это Вы имели в виду, задавая вопрос. Например, очень мало работы сделано для изучения связей права и хозяйства, предпринимательства, сбережений. Но не следует забывать и о том, что у нас попрежнему не хватает хороших исследований почти по всем «классическим» темамтаким, как рынок, фирма, гендер и хозяйство и т.д. Так что, полагаю, и здесь нам нужно больше высококачественных исследований. Основные работы Р. Сведберга Смелсер Н., Свердберг Р. Классическая традиция экономической социологии // Западная экономическая социология: хрестоматия современной классики / Сост. и науч. ред. В.В. Радаев; Пер. М.С. Добряковой и др. М.: Российская политическая энциклопедия (РОССПЭН), 2004. С. 25-58. Сведберг Р. Новая экономическая социология: что сделано и что впереди? // Западная экономическая социология: хрестоматия современной классики / Сост. и науч. ред. В.В. Радаев; Пер. М.С. Добряковой и др. М.: Российская политическая энциклопедия (РОССПЭН), 2004. С. 111-130.