The article is devoted to populism as a political phenomenon and as an object of analysis in po- litical theory. The focus is on the debate around the definition of populism. The article reviews various approaches to the study of populism, particularly ideological and discursive approaches. The author also analyses populism from the point of view of the normative theory of democracy and discusses the issue whether populism is a threat to liberal democracy or a correction of it. The problem (...) of defining ‘the people’, a key populist concept, is considered separately, and it is concluded that nationalist and populist discourses essentially intersect, so it is impossible to separate them completely. The article argues for a discursive approach to populism. Populism’s primary feature is a claim to speak in the name of the people. Populism is an element of the representative demo- cracy and represents both its constant potential and a menace to it. Populism also appeals to the claim for democratic legitimacy that is a basic normative demand in modern societies. It is logi- cal to consider populism not as the essential characteristic of a political actor (party, movement, leader) who is or is not a populistic but as the aggregation of the populist repertoire, a combina- tion of its elements and their orientation. (shrink)

Researchers distinguish two approaches that are paradigmatic for the cluster of social theories: positivist and interpretivist. We have outlined the problematic core that contains the main differences between positivist and interpretivist sociology. In our opinion, the opposition between positivist and interpretive sociology is indicative of social theory, and we have shown the dual nature of social reality. We refuted the classification of social theories into nominalist and realist, showing that such a division does not reveal the dual nature of social (...) reality. The difference between interpretivism and positivism is that positivist sociology focuses on the study of social systems as an independent reality, while interpretive social theory thematises social reality as a socio-cultural universe, and from this perspective raises the question of social institutions. (shrink)

Since its inception, the theory of modernization has undergone so many transformations that it makes sense to speak of a «modernization discourse» rather than a theory and to consider the concept itself from the point of view of social epistemology in conjunction with social imagination. This paper is devoted to substantiating this approach. The concept of modernization is interesting in this regard because it contains not only hermeneutic but also prescriptive elements: by placing society in a broader historical framework of (...) past, present and future, it creates a normative horizon for self-understanding and social transformation. It allows us to imagine our society as a historical whole, to imagine a social ideal and social development as a path towards it. At the same time, it appeals to the images of the social imagination - the social imaginary, depending on the context. A separate question, therefore, is what semantic load this concept receives when it is adopted by a different socio-cultural and political context. Such research could help to understand the internal logic of political processes in a society and its destiny. The paper consists of three subsections: the first is devoted to an overview of theories of modernization and their transformation under the influence of social epistemology; the second deals with the imagination as an anthropological a priori for considering social imagination; finally, the last subsection, which also serves as a conclusion, justifies why, given the purpose of the study, it is more appropriate to consider the concept of modernization in the context of the social imagination rather than as an ideology. The concept of ideology refers to political bias, to the question of truth and a critique of power discourse. In contrast, the concept of social imagination is politically neutral and refers to a cultural background of politics. It thus circumvents Man nheim’s paradox by being conceptualized as constitutive of a political order. (shrink)