Horoshkevich N.G.

Purpose. To analyze the studies of political culture by foreign sociologists of the classical period of sociology development. Methods. With the help of scientific research methods: historical, analytical, inductive and the method of generalizations the paper studies the works by foreign sociologists of the classical period referring to the elements of the social political culture. Results. The article identified: the trend and the main aspects of studying the political culture in foreign sociology of the classical period. Scientific novelty. The scientific papers, studying the history of political culture, analyze sociological studies of political culture with the theories of other sciences in the framework of certain trends of political culture study. The article is devoted only to the sociological insights in the field of political culture which could update the analysis of sociological knowledge in particular and contribute to sociological research within the sociology of political culture and political sociology. The article considers the most famous sociologists of the classical period of foreign sociology. Their findings are analyzed and presented in chronological order. The studies of the first sociologists deal with the general orientation of the society development and, only in this respect, the elements of political culture. The further works by the scientists of this stage relate to the most famous actors of political interactions: population, political parties, political leaders, parliament and government machine. Their main characteristics, activity organization are researched and drawbacks are identified.

Aim. To analyze the history of studying the “society” concept in sociology. Methods. The method of documents, its variety classical analysis, was used for this article. Results. This article examines the development of the concept of "society" throughout the history of sociology since its founder A.Comte up to the contemporary period. The interpretation of the concept was influenced by sociological areas of the authors. Therefore, the article considers the concept of society from the point of view of different approaches and within these frames the specifics of its definition are featured. These approaches are macrosociological, microsociological and an attempt of combining them. Together with the examination of the concept within the framework of these approaches, the definition has been studied in terms of development stages of this concept, identifies by N.Luhmann. In addition, the article considers the concepts of not only foreign but also Russian sociology. To study the interpretation of society by the Russian sociologists the concepts division proposed by Zborowski G.E. was used. Scientific novelty. The article considers the concept of "society" of foreign and modern domestic sociology both from the perspective of different sociological approaches and of the term development stages. The author’s definition of "society" notion is also offered.