Theoretical and Methodological Heritage of Alain Touraine: Heuristic Potential regarding Modern Social and Political Processes (on the Example of Volunteer Activity)

Abstract

The article is aimed at determining the principles regarding the expediency and strategy of applying the ideas of A. Touraine for the analysis of modern volunteering as a variant of collective action under the conditions of existence of a post-industrial society.
Emphasis is placed on considering the theoretical and methodological heritage of A. Touraine, which is presented in his work «The Return of the Acting Man» (1984). Its leading elements are: the theory of social action (examines the relations between actors involved in various social conflicts and have different cultural vectors) and the method of «sociological intervention» (does not predict events, but analyzes the mechanisms by which collective actions are formed, on at the highest level – social movements).
It has been proven that the modern volunteer movement corresponds to all the signs that, according to the French researcher, characterize a social subject under the new conditions of the development of society. That is, volunteering can be interpreted as a collective action, the content of which is the unification of people through updating their ideas about themselves, through confronting them with themselves, through the creation of conscious situations, which will ultimately lead to a higher level of self-management of society.
It is substantiated that the method of «sociological intervention» by A. Touraine contains real mechanisms not only for reproducing the process of formation of any social groups that present different directions of volunteer activity, but also for their transformation into a social (volunteer) movement in the context of changes in consciousness and actions of each of its members.
A certain set of actions is proposed to obtain more effective results of the analysis of the modern volunteer movement in the context of the application of A. Touraine’s theory of social action in order to organize constructive management of its development by civil structures. Among them: clarifying the signs of volunteering as a way of social interaction under the new conditions of society’s development; highlighting the interests and motives of members of volunteer organizations and associations with different areas of activity; analysis of the features of subject-subject interaction in various forms and formats of volunteer activity; research of the specified aspects in the social and political practice of modern Ukraine.