Social development: traditional and modern approaches to study

Problem setting. The course of scientific debate for explaining social development has been determined for a long time by the competition of two theoretical and methodological approaches. The first approach – the evolutionist one affirmed the unity of the historical process, which obeys certain general laws (the so-called historical progress theories), and the second – the civilizational one presented social dynamics as a complex configuration of coexisting civilizations and cultures that successively replace each other over time (the historical circulation theories).

Recent research and publications analysis. Among the domestic scientists who paid attention to the study of social development conceptual ideas, it is necessary to mention L. Bevzenko, А. Danilova, B. Dubina, S. Makeeva, M. Mishchenko, Yu. Pavlenko, O. Paskhaver, I. Popova, V. Tarasenko, V. Khmelko and some others.

Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. At the present stage of science development, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on the analysis of the essence and features of the fundamental aspects of the social development concepts. The study is devoted to systematization, comparative analysis and identification of fundamental aspects of conceptual approaches to understanding and interpretation of social development.

Paper main body. The general features of the evolutionist concept can be summarized as follows. The historical process has a single form and continuous dynamics of development, which is associated with progress. The evolutionary changes, occurring linearly and having predictable nature, condition the progressive social dynamics from primitive states to more complex ones, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from chaos to organization. The basis of evolutionary development is a single consequence mechanism, acting independently of humans’ will and consciousness, the core of which is the desire for social self-transformation.

The concepts of historical circulation (cyclical, civilizational development) represent another traditional approach that explains the development of society and cultures. Most representatives of this approach consider the culture as a biological organism, which undergoes similar phases of its development: birth, adulthood, maturity, flourishing, old age, and death. The course of the world historical process is regarded by the theory of the historical circulation as a synthesis of different cultures and civilizations, having little interaction with each other and minor mutual influence.

Modern theories, focusing on the active role of society members, individually or collectively participating in public life, consider social development as a contradictory and nonlinear phenomenon of the global world, as a radical, multidimensional, multistage and large-scale historical process transforming society and its institutional and socio-cultural environment. It covers all social subsystems and leads to the formation of effectively functioning institutional complexes supporting and enhancing the social aromorphosis and idioadaptation based on positive feedback between all the sociocultural system elements.

Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Nowadays, with the emergence of new concepts of social development, there is a possibility for a certain integration of these approaches into a new, systemic-cyclical approach, which defends, on the one hand, the multidimensionality and multivariate character of historical process, its alternative nature, and on the other hand – the inevitability and regular continuity of social development.