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The article is based on the data of the comparative sociological study of the latest wave of the EVS and WVS (2017-2022) and considers values through the opposition “essentialism - existentialism”. The authors use the methodological approach to identifying a system of values, which was developed by R. Inglehart and K. Welzel. According to the level of tolerance, 82 countries were placed on the “essentialism - existentialism” scale: in most cases, intolerance to the other is poorly differentiated. Intolerance extends to all objects that differ from the accepted standard. The authors identify two groups of indicators of tolerance - to origin (racial or ethnic) and to behavior patterns - based on correlation and factor analysis. To identify the number of factors, the authors used the procedure based on the values of the correlation matrix, then the orthogonal rotation method (varimax). The resulting model has high quality characteristics and shows a strong connection between the level of tolerance to other behavior patterns and the level of economic well-being of the country. The level of social trust also affects the level of tolerance: the higher the level of social trust, the higher the tolerance to other behavior patterns, and, on the contrary, the higher the level of distrust (disunity), the higher the level of intolerance to differences, i.e., disunity, atomization and mistrust determine intolerance to others. People supporting the existentialist principle are more tolerant to differences in the worldview, lifestyle, behavior and customs. The dominance of essentialism or existentialism in society leads to specific legal consequences, for example, in the state migration, marriage-family and religious policies. Thus, the study of tolerance allows to locate the country on the “essentialism - existentialism” scale.

The authors consider reasons for the countries uneven development, provide sociological foundations for the study of this phenomenon, examine countries’ sociodynamics, reconstruct a map of countries development in the contemporary global world, and explore the trajectory of Belarus. The authors argue that the vector of sociodynamics is not predetermined, it depends on internal factors, and culture plays a key programming role. Value choice is an important factor determining the pace and direction of the contemporary society evolution. The article is based on the available data of international projects - European Values Study (EVS) and World Values Study (WVS). The period covered by these studies is forty years - from 1981 to 2021, and in Belarus surveys have been conducted since 1990. Authors’ generalizations are based on the Inglehart-Welzel model, and they confirm the hypothesis that the dynamics of value orientations in the Belarusian society follows the trajectory of changes that took place in Western Europe and North America in previous decades. The authors argue that social-demographic groups of the Belarusian society can be placed at different stages of the values transformation, i.e., urban and more educated population of Belarus (mainly the younger and middle-aged groups) are close to contemporary Czech Republic and Slovakia and slightly differ from Austria and Germany in terms of the value orientations.

The article considers new trends in the value system of the Belarusian society. Based on the data of the international sociological surveys conducted as waves of the European Values Study and World Values Study, the authors identify changes in the value orientations of the Belarusian society over the past thirty years. The authors use the methodological approach to identifying the system of value orientations that was developed by R. Inglehart and K. Welzel. The study of fundamental trends in the changing value world of the contemporary society is of practical importance for understanding internal factors of the current socialpolitical processes and for assessing prospects for the further sustainable development of socialpolitical institutions. The article aims at identifying the main directions in the transformation of the value orientations of the Belarusian society since the acquisition of state sovereignty. The authors conclude that the Belarusian society moves from the values of survival to the values of development and self-expression. In the project, the authors conducted an analysis of the demographic structure of the Belarusian society in terms of value priorities and found out that the demographic base of secular-individualistic and self-expression values consists of highly educated residents of large cities of younger (under 30) and middle (up to 49) age. Given the growth of the share of population with higher education and the second wave of urbanization (the outflow from small towns to large cities), we should expect an expansion of this demographic base and, accordingly, the further spread of these value orientations. In this situation, the education system acts as a source of the ongoing changes and develops the value matrix of the coming social reality.

The article considers the transformation of basic values, life plans and behavioral strategies of the youth in contemporary Belarus. The changes in basic values are directly connected with the youths adaptation to the conditions of global instability. The new generation is sensitive to social injustice, violations of rights and freedoms, unwillingness to take into account their opinions on current issues of social development and the future. The self-perception of people regarding the possibility to realize basic values in the current social-economic conditions is an important factor of social stability. In both 1990 and 2018, family holds the first place among the basic values in Belarus; work takes the second place as a factor of decent life and familys success; the importance of friends and leisure remains the same over the decades, while the importance of politics and religion grows. International comparisons show that Belarus has the same hierarchy of values as European countries. The surveys prove a decrease in popularity of the traditional media among the youth and an increase in individualism, importance of personal self-realization in family and at work, and in reliance on ones own forces. In the public space, the needs and expectations of people have changed - there is an increase in political radicalization and critical perception of the most important events, which affects the behavioral patterns of social-demographic groups. Education together with the family and new information technologies have a significant impact on values - there is an intragenerational gap, alienation from society and increasing informatization. The article is based on the results of the sociological surveys conducted in the framework of the European Values Study (EVS) (the results of 1990 and 2018 are compared).

The article considers the features of the political field of strong and weak power, and social institutions and structures that influence the transformation process. The authors propose a new reading of the concept of political field, and its main characteristics are the status roles of subjects, configuration of space, nature of the relationship of opposing forces, and methods for preserving the priorities of the opposing subjects. The article identifies interaction problems between the government and the opposition, mechanisms of power retention, tendencies and prospects for the development of the political field of weak and strong power under crises, global instability and government mistakes that lead to dramatic changes in the public opinion. The authors note that clashes in the political field restructure the political space in a new way, which is due to both peculiarities of the historical development and the social-economic and political situation. Transformations of the post-Soviet world are not complete, and the transition of post-Soviet countries to the sustainable development is possible only by adaptation to new realities. The peculiarity of the political field is the constant confrontation of its subjects: the more unstable the political field, the higher the unpredictability of events and the role of the leader. In the contemporary state, there is always a danger of destabilization due to information wars and new forms of influence on the mass consciousness, values and behavior. The empirical basis of the article are monitoring sociological studies conducted from 1987 to identify the level of social tension and political stability, fullness of the political space, rankings of politicians, etc.

The article presents the data of two research projects - European Values Study (EVS) and sociological monitoring of the information field of the Republic of Belarus conducted by the Centre for Sociological and Political Studies of the Belarusian State University. The authors make the following conclusions: the basic values of the Belarusians are quite similar to the values of other European countries; the values of the Belarussians have developed for centuries under the influence of the key events in the European history; the values of society change slowly and can be transformed only in the life cycle of at least two generations; changes in the basic values are impossible under any external or internal pressure. Any attempts to quickly change value preferences of the people under pressure usually lead to the accumulation of negative moods and finally to social upheavals. Contemporary technologies open wide opportunities for informational violence and manipulation of public consciousness. The informational impact of the traditional media and the Internet (including social media) became one of the main factors affecting the structure and content of individual value orientations. The media create the sustainable intellectual background that determines the individual perception and subsequent behavioral response to events in the country and the world. The changing everyday reality forms a new value matrix, and the media become the key technological player due to the new information-communication possibilities.

The article considers methodological approaches to the study of the media field transformations under contemporary changes and presents the results of the annual sociological monitoring conducted in the Republic of Belarus (2003-2017). The authors claim the redistribution of influence on the audience from traditional media in favor of Internet resources and other forms of network communications. Traditional mass media and communication media undergo radical changes, the subjects of which are professional editions and journalists together with the consumers of mass media information, who reproduce and disseminate the meaningful for them content in the Internet through the networks of virtual media communications. The sociological monitoring allowed to identify the level of influence of different types of media at the certain period of social-political and social-economic development of the Republic of Belarus. At the first stage of the media field studies (2003-2005), traditional mass media held leading positions, but from 2006 the Internet has rapidly increased its impact, and in 2014 a fundamentally new segment - the social media - stood out from the Internet and became a new actor of the media field. In 2017, the Internet together with television play a decisive role in the development of the media field. At the same time the interest to sociological studies of the features and content of mass media functions has increased, and there is also an obvious request for developing new methods and improving the existing techniques for the sociological study of the contemporary media field.

Based on the sociological data the article determines the causes of emergence of social tensions in the country and society, estimates the reliance of such situations on the population’s satisfaction with the living conditions, and argues the importance of maintaining the sustainable stability for the sustainable development of the state. The author aims to build a comprehensive rating of ‘social concern’ of the post-Soviet states’ citizens as a sum of the following empirical indicators: economic problems of individuals and their families; chances to ensure decent living conditions (health care, access to education, security, etc.); environmental problems; political problems. The article also reconstructs an ideal-typical model of social transformation of post-communist societies consisting of three main stages: searching, stabilization, sustainable development. Based on the analysis of empirical data, the author states that some transitional societies at the turn of the third millennium (for instance, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan) have reached the stabilization phase. The author proposes to assess the level of social stability with the indicator of social tension obtained through the ‘many-stage data grouping’. The empirical data presented in the article are the results of the projects of the Center for Sociological and Political Studies of the Belarusian State University.

The value system is the pivotal constituent of both individual and social conscience. The axis of the publication is the endeavor to establish the extent to which the events associated with the formation of the independent sovereign Belarusian state have affected the core value system of the population.

As has happened more than once in history, today education again needs a clear direction for its development. The whirlwinds of change calmed down, and it became obvious that a lot of good things had been lost: education is essentially conservative, and this is its great advantage. Education shows a path to eternal truths, to understanding the laws of evolution and the world of the mind. The university in this sense is not a place of services, bargain, purchase or sale, it is a temple of science and truth, which by definition cannot be widespread. The university lives its own life but in connection with the state, its history, national traditions and values. The article considers the problems of the transformation of sociological education and institutionalization of sociology in Belarus. The teaching of sociological disciplines began with the opening of the Belarusian State University (BSU) in 1921. Professor S.Z. Katzenbogen became the first teacher of sociological disciplines and the head of the department of sociology and primitive culture. This was followed by a more than a thirty-year forced break due to the removal of sociology from the curriculum, repressions of the 1930s, the Great Patriotic War and post-war reconstruction. The revival of sociology began in the 1960s with the efforts of G.P. Davidyuk and E.M. Babosov. Sociological departments were opened at the Academy of Sciences and leading universities; sociology became one of the main sources of knowledge about the contemporary society and social well-being. Despite all difficulties and obstacles, sociology has become in demand under the current uncertainty, global instability and social turbulence. However, the ignorance of national experience and educational traditions and mechanical borrowing of foreign practices is unacceptable and leads to stagnation.