International Macrosocial Indicators: Potential of Sociological Comparative Studies

Abstract

The article continues to consider a number of projects initiated by international institutions, which are a source of a system of indicators for the comparative study of societies at the global level, as well as expand the range of methodological and analytical tools in Sociology. Research exploration is a substantive continuation of the article "International Macrosocial Indicators as Analytical Tools in Sociology", published in issue 2 2020 of the journal Sociological Studios; both articles are combined with the relevance and justification of individual provisions and should be considered together. In this article, the authors' limitations on the use of data from international comparative projects (comparability, interpretation and ranking) receive additional interpretations caused by the different number of countries participating in the coronavirus pandemic situation, as well as temporal changes in the structure of indicators. As part of the practical need to apply these projects (the teaching of disciplines related to comparative sociology) the authors recommend to pay attention to the factor of the coronavirus pandemic.

The authors demonstrate the calculation of indices, visual differences in data in temporal and spatial dimensions. This part of the study, like the previous one, also accumulates a sufficient amount of electronic links to international projects within a single source. It is worth noting that the number and thematic variability of international macrosocial indicators is not limited to this study either.