Re-examining Post-War Soviet History through the Lens of Corn
Challenging traditional explanations of history and taking a new view on the past is the hallmark of a good historian; re-examining the history of post-war Soviet agriculture and economics is no exception, according to Aaron Hale-Dorrell, who recently received his PhD in History from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at the HSE International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences in September. Aaron Hale-Dorrell recently agreed to speak with the HSE news service about his research interests, his plans while at HSE, and his experiences living and working in Russia.
Decreased Consumption of Vodka Likely to Extend Life Expectancy for Men
Over the next 20 years, death rates among working age Russian men are expected to drop by a third due to a change in alcohol consumption preferences – namely, the decreasing popularity of vodka, according to Yevgeny Yakovlev, Assistant Professor at the HSE Department of Applied Economics, and Lorenz Kueng, Assistant Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
School Violence Driven by Social Exclusion
Abusive parents, internet and TV violence, and social exclusion are all contributing to growing violence in schools, with verbal aggression being the most common type of aggressive behaviour among young people, according to Irina Sizova, Head of the Sociology Laboratory at the HSE Branch in Nizhny Novgorod.
HSE Hosting Workshop on the Neurobiology of Social Influence
On August 30th and 31st, the Higher School of Economics is hosting the first international workshop on the neurobiology of social influence. The event is being organised by the HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making.
4.5%
could be the percentage by which GDP falls for the year. By way of comparison, in 1998, the decline in GDP was 5.3%
Women Directors Effective in a Crisis
A predominance of women on a company's boards of directors can lead to a loss of flexibility in governance. Yet in times of change, for example during periods of rapid growth or crisis, women can make better leaders than men: they are more willing to take risks and tend to find more unconventional solutions, according to a report 'The Impact of Gender Diversity of the Board and Ownership Structure on Corporate Performance: Evidence from Western Europe' by HSE researchers Tatiana Ratnikova and Dmitry Gavrilov.
‘ICEF Gave Me an Excellent Theoretical Grounding’
ICEF 2006 alumnus Yuri Kiselev is now head of debt capital markets in Russia and the CIS at Société Générale. In an interview for the ICEF website Yuri talked about his career and education in Russia and abroad.
Social Workers Seek to Standardise Their Emotions
Social workers tend to believe that society underestimates the complexity of their mission and fails to fully appreciate the gift of caring and compassion that they offer their clients. Experts warn that social work may lead to burnout, unless practitioners are taught the skills of managing their emotions in dealing with clients and equipped with standard algorithms facilitating their 'emotional work' and thus helping to alleviate stress, according to Olga Simonova, Deputy Head of the HSE Department of General Sociology.
Not Enough Altruists in the Post-Soviet Space
There is not a single country in the world where all people share the same system of values. Every society has members focused on serving others as well as those who value personal achievement above all and rely only on themselves. Independent altruists committed to helping others, yet expecting nothing in return, are relatively rare in all European countries, particularly in post-Soviet countries, where their proportion is among the smallest, according to Vladimir Magun and Maksim Rudnev of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness.
'Urban Movements and Local Civic Activism are the Most Flourishing and Productive Sides of Contemporary Russian Society'
Christian Frohlich has been a Research Fellow at the Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Non-Profit Sector since 2014. This year he is being fast tracked for tenure in the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences in the School of Sociology. Dr Frohlich has a DPhil in Sociology from Leipzig University, Germany. He spoke to HSE English News about his research into civic activism in Russia and about why he likes living and working in Moscow.