Unique Societies-Common Alienation? Revisiting Alienation in Contemporary Context

The paper is aimed at examination of the difference of nature and characteristics of alienation and and in post-Soviet and Western countries. Recent findings (Lytkina, Welzel 2013) show that in such post-Soviet countries as Russia and Kazakhstan anomie can be measured by powerlessness and normlessness whereas meaninglessness, social isolation and job dissatisfaction form a measurement of alienation. The linkage of powerlessness and normlessness might be explained by the general Mertonean assumption of discordance between the culturally defined goals and the means the social system provides an individual with. Hence, lack of control over desired outcomes (powerlessness) causes anomic behavior (normlessness). Still, powerlessness is commonly used as an indicator of alienation (Seeman 1982, Olsen 1965, Dean 1961) whereas meaninglessness is sometimes used as an indicator of individual anomie, or anomia (Seeman 1982, Legge 2008). These arguments make formulate the following problem: are thus alienation and anomie in post-Soviet and Western countries different? If yes, what are the reasons for its difference and how can the differences be captured theoretically and empirically? Post-Soviet countries can be conceptualized as the ones who underwent the process of social transformation, thus they can be conceptualized in Durkheimean logics. One can assume that in the time of transformation the level of anomie rose significantly. Western European societies, on the contrary, experienced a relative stability. Post-Soviet countries experienced a dramatic change in the value and normative systems which before the collapse of the Soviet Union were characterized by the collectivistic nature, whereas Western societies were characterized by pluralism of normative and value systems together with high level of individualism. Which phenomena and which indicators are thus relevant for the two types of societies? These and other considerations will be taken into account.