Social Change, Values, Civic Engagement and Inclusion in European Societies

Previous and Current Research

Yuriy Savelyev, D.Sc. (Dr. habil. in Sociology), Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Department of Sociology and teaches sociology and research methods. He has over 50 publications in international and Ukrainian academic journals including International Sociology, Thesis Eleven, Sociológia, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, Ideology and Politics Journal and Ukrainian Society. 

He authored a book Багатовимірна сучасність: Соціальне включення в оцінці суспільного розвитку [Multidimensional Modernity: Social Inclusion in Assessment of Social Development, 2017] and a chapter in Ukrainian Sociology in the 21st Century: Theory, Methods, Research Results. Bakirov V., Golovakha E. (Eds.).  Kharkiv: Karazin National University, 2018.

The scope of his comparative research comprises social change, modernization, values, civic engagement and inclusion in European societies. He received Merit Award of the Worldwide Competition for junior scholars from International Sociological Association (ISA) in 2006 and was Carnegie Research Fellow at Boston College in 2011. In 2013 he fulfilled research at EUROLAB, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany funded by GESIS Research Grant no.El-2013-112.

In his scholarship Dr. Savelyev applies modernization theory to Central and East European post-socialist countries and seeks to answer a question what should be done for successful development of Ukrainian society. In particular, his research tests a modernization model (Welzel, et al., 2003; Inglehart, Welzel, 2010) for Central and East European post-socialist countries and answers a question what should be done for successful development of Ukrainian society.

It is demonstrated that high levels of poverty and social inequality are a main barrier for development of Ukraine and a cause for social tension. Using a method of linear decomposition of a trend (Firebaugh 1989; 1992) in logistic regression statistical modeling, it is found that despite the fact that there are fewer people who share post-materialist values compared to other East European countries, Ukraine, nevertheless, also encounters a latent fundamental shift from traditional materialist value priorities towards emancipatory post-materialist orientations.

Based on the research results one can predict that the increase of well-being and a corresponding rise in a sense of existential security among the population will accelerate the change of values that will create opportunities for political and civic participation and more effective control over the state institutions. Comparative analysis indicates that emancipatory value orientations were a significant predictor of political participation in Ukraine as well as in Germany and Poland but not in Russia and Belarus. It terms of the modernization model these findings allow moderate optimism in the assessment of the prospects of development of Ukrainian society.

Discovered significance of historical effect in value change leads to a substantial elaboration of the existing modernization model. The efforts of the national government, local authorities, international organizations, civil society should be directed at assistance to Ukrainian people in becoming capable social agents and escaping “the poverty trap”. Thus, the purposeful and competent policy of Ukrainian government, true institutional reforms, restriction of “crony capitalism” rent-seeking practices and social inequality reduction provide a chance to modernize Ukrainian society successfully and abate social tension.

Selected Publications

Yuriy Savelyev

Development and Dystopia: Studies in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Eastern Europe

International Sociology, 2019, Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp. 237-240. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580919831638a 

Yuriy Savelyev

Antinomies of late modernity: Eastern Europe in peril of demodernization

Ideology and Politics Journal, 2018, Vol.9, pp. 14-63. 

Yuriy Savelyev

Measuring the Development of Society through Social Inclusion: An Unnoticed Decline in Capabilities during a Period of Economic Growth in Ukraine

Ukrainian Sociology in the 21st Century: Theory, Methods, Research Results [Monograph]. Bakirov V., Golovakha E. (Eds.).  Kharkiv: Karazin National University Publishers, 2018, pp. 377-390

Web of Science ResearcherID D-3817-2016 https://publons.com/researcher/1415173/yuriy-savelyev/

Scopus Author ID 57189896685 https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57189896685

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