Monitoring of interethnic relations as an urgent ethno-sociology: the history of formation and the role in the implementation of the ethnopolitics of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The article contains the concept of “urgent ethno-sociology”. The article explicates methodological and organizational-methodological aspects of monitoring interethnic and ethno-state relations as the main direction of implementing the tasks of urgent ethno-sociology. The article examines the history of the formation and development of monitoring of ethno-social processes in the Republic of Kazakhstan and in foreign research centres. The main methodological approaches applied by various domestic and foreign scientific centres that conducted such research are analyzed. The article reveals the specifics of monitoring interethnic relations and ethno-political processes conducted over the past few years by the Institute of Philosophy, Politics and Religious Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The following general conclusion is formulated from the materials of the conducted research: the ethnopolitics of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 30 years of independent development of the state has achieved undoubted and generally recognized success in consolidating the multi-ethnic Kazakh society, in forming a single national, civil identity of all ethnic groups. Monitoring studies of Kazakhstani sociologists have played a significant role in these processes, providing exclusive social information and verified scientific and practical recommendations to the bodies of political management of ethno-social relations in the republic. However, the analytical and predictive capabilities of monitoring are not fully updated. The most popular and promising direction of improving the system of urgent ethno-sociology is the construction of multiparametric and multi-model monitoring systems based on the mutually agreed application of traditional quantitative and qualitative methods of ethno-sociology (mass questionnaires, included observation, focus groups, expert surveys, formalized in-depth interviews, etc.) and modern technologies for digital processing of “Big Data” arrays. Key words: monitoring, urgent ethno-sociology, ethno-social processes, interethnic relations, ethnopolitics, indicators of interethnic tension.