Police Order and Situational Solidarity: the Dynamics of Interaction and Transformation

Head: Filippov, Alexander F.

The project has been carried out as part of the HSE Program of Fundamental Studies.

The Report summarizes and analyzes the results of work on the first part of a two-year project of CFS on contemporary issues of social order and situational solidarity.

The project is a study of trends identified in the social life of the last decade and is of fundamental interest for sociology and political philosophy, namely, changes in the nature and forms of interaction between the police and the spontaneous order.  Police order is defined as an external, imposed by government intervention in the most varied areas of social life. Situational solidarity (by analogy with "situational action" in ethnomethodology) is defined as a kind of immanent, ordinary, fluid, and the local order, and potentially conflict-producing and politicized. Situational solidarity, unlike the police order, is not focused on institutions of power and authority . Policing is a special way of governance (governmentality), which aims to establish (to recover) the order, as quickly as possible. Police are ready "to respond to what you can not fully predict and prevent, plan in detail » (Peter Manning). More broadly, the police is in effect the work of the state " to establish good order » (Mark Neocleous), « the functioning of the government in its full potencies and in a variety of manifestations, ranging from family to prison or to the work place (M. Dubber & M. Valverde) . In this sense, the police and all the bureaucratic administration (often excessive) fall into one category. The phenomena of situational solidarity are numerous and emergent by the very their nature, i. e. they appear in unexpected ways, are not predictable and are amenable only by preliminary classification. These include mass gatherings (including waiting rooms, waiting in lines, etc.), flash mobs, legal and illegal protest / support actions,  flaneurism, etc. All these phenomena by their nature are ideally suited to one of the key tasks of Police (to response to the unexpected occurrences, and to establish order), still have the potential of self-organization which is  significantly higher than the temporal and conceptual horizons of police regulation. This has repeatedly been the source of social tension and, apparently, will remain so in the near future.

Police administration and the spontaneous formation of orders are not random and arbitrary phenomena, they are rooted in culture, ideology and sustainable forms of social interaction. These forms should be studied along with those figurations of social events, which set the immediate issue of the study. It is defined as the figuration of a social event, and includes interaction of a spontaneous situational solidarity ("social disorder") and a police control.

The research subjects are the ways of conceptualization and implementation of police state principles in ideological, scientific and everyday practices.

The goal of the research is to develop a theoretical framework  for describing and analyzing the problem of the interaction between police order as a form of government based on the instance of power and authority, and situational solidarity as a result of local collective practices, more temporary, unstable and decentralized.

To achieve this goal we conducted both theoretical and theory- oriented empirical research. As a result of theoretical studies we have formulated general principles of the interpretation of the concepts of " social order " and "security " in the context of examining a police state. The purpose was to clarify the conditions of cooperation and conflict between imposed and situational overlaying forms of social order, to discuss the methodology of studying the social order in a variety of sociological and social philosophical schools and approaches to these issues. In addition, we considered the historical evolution of the concepts "police" and " police state ", and described the historical dynamics of the police state in Russia in XIX-XX centuries. Empirical studies have analyzed the social sustainability mechanisms, transformation, and descriptions of the local order in public debate and in public places.

In 2013 the results of the project were as follows:

1. Theoretical papers set out to clarify the concepts of social order and safety, and the combination of imposed and situational orders, the methodology for studying order in different sociological schools and theoretical approaches.

2. Historical and theoretical works devoted to the notion of the police, the police state, as well as to a macrosociological description of the historical dynamics of the Russian state in the 19-20th centuries.

3. Studies of the practices of interpretation and of providing security in certain areas of social life.

4. Translation and preparation for publication of sociological and social philosophical works on the theory of order and police state (located in the annex to this report ) .

Theoretical results of the research project can be used in working out a methodology for studying the phenomena of order and disorder in contemporary societies, the police and functioning of government, and social movements.

Empirical results of the research project can be used to improve practices of safety provision, and to stimulate efficiency in state policy in supporting public associations and movements.

Publications:

Филиппов А. Ф. К исторической ситуации полиции в России // Социологическое обозрение. 2013. Т. 12. № 2. С. 41-42.

Филиппов А. Ф. Советская социология как полицейская наука // Новое литературное обозрение. 2013. № 123 (5). С. 48-63.

Ахутин А. В., Филиппов А. Ф. Переписка о Шмитте и политическом // Социологическое обозрение. 2013. Т. 13. № 12. С. 34-47.

Филиппов А. Ф. Мышление и смерть: “Жизнь ума” в философской антропологии Ханны Арендт // Вопросы философии. 2013. № 11. С. 155-168.

Корбут А. М. Этнометодология и безопасность // Отечественные записки. 2013. № 2. С. 222-228.

Корбут А. М. Гоббсова проблема и два ее решения: нормативный порядок и ситуативное действие // Социология власти. 2013. № 1-2. С. 9-26.

Filippov A. F. Joseph de Maistre entre « révolution contraire » et « contraire de la révolution, in: Joseph de Maistre : Un penseur de son temps et du nôtre [Actes du colloque de Moscou], 2013. Chambéry, Revue des études maistriennes, 15 Issue 15. Savoie : Université de Savoie, 2013. P. 169-178.

Филиппов А. Ф. Общее, общественное и публичное в их преемственности и изменении. Рецензия на книгу: От общественного к публичному / Под редакцией О. В. Хархордина. СПб.: Европейский университет, 2011. // Социология власти. 2013. № 1-2. С. 269-285.

Филиппов А. Ф. Послесловие // В кн.: Жизнь ума / Пер. с англ. СПб. : Наука, 2013. С. 492-515.

Филиппов А. Ф. Действие как событие и текст: к социологическому осмыслению Поля Рикёра // В кн.: Поль Рикёр в Москве / Под общ. ред.: И. И. Блауберг, А. В. Борисенкова, О. И. Мачульская. М. : Канон+, 2013. С. 277-294.

Кильдюшов О. В., Перегудова З. И., Кононова О. А. Диалог Олега Кильдюшова и Зинаиды Перегудовой // Социологическое обозрение. 2013. Т. 12. № 2. С. 43-54.

Kurakin D. Reassembling the ambiguity of the sacred: A neglected inconsistency in readings of Durkheim // Journal of Classical Sociology. 2015. Vol. 15. No. 4. P. 377-395.