Susak V. Paternalistic Attitudes and Practices of Ukraine's Citizens under the Conditions of Postcommunist Transformations

The dissertation is devoted to the elaboration of the concept of paternalism in the cognitive-action deeds of individuals, specifically within the context of postcommunist transformations, with further empirical approbation of the defined concept in modern Ukrainian society. Basing the author's typology of social relations and principles of objective reality of individuals in society in the context of the dichotomy of "paternalism and collectivism vs liberalism and individualism", we developed a theoretical model of types of personality: "external" and "internal" according to the characteristics of one's consciousness on the "general locus of control" scale: orientations on paternal care vs attitudes on self-organization and self-sufficiency. While comparing real measurements of corresponding indicators of peoples' attitudes and practices towards the parameters of model "externals" and "internals," we made conclusions about the level of paternalism acceptance. For conducting the necessary calculations we elaborated conceptual scales of measurement and situated the model characteristics of "externals" and "internals" on their opposite sides. Using author's interpretation of "postcommunist transformations" - a concept based on analyses of the features of dialectic interaction between "traditional" and "innovative" organic components of radical social changes - we argued the probable functions of paternalistic attitudes and practices in the context of postcommunist Ukrainian society: an opposition to innovative, a reproduction of traditional, a combination of traditional and innovative, and support of modernization. In this perspective, we modeled "externals" as the supporters of traditional norms of social life and "internals" as the agents of innovative changes towards society democratization. The empirical findings of our research hypothesis suggest the following tendencies in the attitudes and practices of Ukraine's citizens. During the period of 1994-2006 we observed a gradual decrease of general domination of external locus over internal. The most significant factors that influence the parameters of general locus of control of people were economical predictors and factors of age, education and religion. The basis for prevalent externality of citizens of postcommunist Ukraine is changing under the influence of time; that is, people's preferences towards economic prosperity and social safety, based at the time of the communist regime in the USSR on the models of universal employment and graded welfare, are being replaced by a positive orientation on the influence of external factors in ensuring prosperity and life safeness, conditioned by the expectations for help from a "welfare state" leaning on the achievements of market economy. Anti-innovative conservatism generally dominated creative traditionalism and aspirations towards innovative development in the parameters of attitudes and practices of Ukrainians. This is the argument for incompleteness of postcommunist transformations in modern Ukrainian society, that became evident in the structuredness and institutionalization of the traditional component versus the situationality and instability of the innovative. System changes in consciousness and actions of citizens of post-socialist Ukraine towards the domination of aspirations for self-organization over expectations for help "from above" is a long and non-linear process that will be based on the formation of new social stereotypes and cultural traditions. Effective acceleration of such socio-cultural transformations is possible upon the assumed implementation of targeted state policies aimed at supporting internality of people and cooperation between them. However, the contemporary Ukrainian governments implement the policy of "welfare state" through simple imitation of the social-policy state model that was developed under conditions of market economy in the mid-twentieth century, which appears to be non-effective in nowadays postindustrial world. Such a realization would create a significant obstacle for civil society in the maintenance of postcommunist Ukrainians' excessive orientation on care from the state. The state will be able to move toward surpassing this barrier by initiating a new policy aimed at the development of a "new" political culture and a "new" paternalism in its structure. In general, it is important to promote the activization of human and social capitals that develop in the environment of free-market globalization.