Regional safety as an object of sociological monitoring

Abstract

The starting point for the scientific discussion of the article is the widely accepted fact of the economic and social inequality of different Russian regions’ development including inequality of risks. The article aims to explain the necessity of conducting complex economic and sociological regional monitoring of different communities safety status. The authors emphasize the scientific and practical need in the information on the subjective estimates of risks and ways to overcome them obtained through the representative sociological surveys. Using the retrospective format of the methodological reflection of the empirical studies conducted by the authors and their colleagues in different Russian regions, the authors analyze the methodological grounds for the study of such indicators as social safety, risk perception, estimates of life safety, etc. which are effective for regional monitoring aims. The authors consider such concepts as ‘risk-compensation’ and ‘risk-advantage’, ‘risk-security’, ‘risk-permissibility’ and ;risk-decision’; and prove the prognostic potential of the social acceptability of risk as a complex indicator for social actors’ communication on the security status of regions and local safety.