Ethno-social monitoring models: problems of ethnic processes. Scientific forecasting
Authors:   Research Centre the Subtropical Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sadovoy Alexandre N. 
Published: December 2024

Ethnological monitoring organization models, tested since the early 1990s in the subjects of the Russian Federation, are considered in the article. Particular attention is paid to the problem of scientific forecasting algorithm forming of the ethno-social situation change, using the principles of three methodological approaches - process, systemic and selective. The systematic approach is determined by the fact that the object of monitoring is a dynamic complex and multi-level system (complex) of social communications - political, socio-economic, socio-cultural. Only some of them are traditional (stochastic). The ethnic component of the structure of social relations (between social institutions) manifests itself in an extremely wide spectrum: from the ethnic sectors of the rural and urban economy with elements of network organization to the system of communications of cultural and confessional associations with local governments.
The process approach has a two-component sructure. On the one hand, monitoring itself should be considered as a complex of interdependent processes with clearly expressed actors (participants) of the process, their social attitudes, the algorithm (sequence) of research of the current situation. Based on the algorithm of the structural-functional analysis, the persons involved in this process (both legal and physical) are divided (by function) into three groups: a) "responsible" for organizing the process and implementing its results in political practice; b) "executors" - organizers of the ethno- social situation investigation - representatives of the expert community; c) "participants" - persons and organizations indirectly involved in the monitoring deployment/ The persons (both legal and physical) involved in this process, based on the structural-functional analysis algorithm, are divided (by function) into three groups: a) "responsible" for organizing the process and implementing its results in political
practice; b) "executors" - organizers and representatives of the expert community; c) "participants" - persons and organizations indirectly involved in monitoring.
According to the author, the object of modern monitoring (as a procedure) is not so much social processes that initiate the national (state) and group (ethnic) interests clash, but indicators of socio-economic, ethno-social and ethno-cultural situation (environment). The use of these indicators does not expand the possibilities of scientific forecasting of the ethnosocial situation change, but on the contrary, narrows them.
In this regard, it is proposed to consider the materials of monitoring studies as an independent group of sources to identify the intersection of latent forms of ethnic processes - ethnic structure and settlement system changes, traditional social organization and subsistence systems transformation, political consolidation, migrant adaptation, assimilation, and traditional culture commodification. Reorientation of the object of ethnological monitoring on ethnic processes objectively promotes: applied anthropology of the subject area change; expansion of chronological framework (up to two centuries); principles of sampling approach.
With the change of the subject area there is a prospect of the formation of databases to analyze the relationship of political history and ethnic history of the peoples of Russia.