Genesis and evolution of the concept of societal in the social and human sciences. Part 2. Receptions of the concept of the “societal” in Ukrainian academic discourse

- Суший, О.В. (orcid.org/0000-0002-4364-7571) and Афонін, Е.А. (orcid.org/0000-0002-7493-6907) (2026) Genesis and evolution of the concept of societal in the social and human sciences. Part 2. Receptions of the concept of the “societal” in Ukrainian academic discourse Sociology: theory, methods, marketing, 2. pp. 145-155. ISSN 2663-5143

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Abstract

The article explores the transformation of the concept of the societal within the Ukrainian socio-humanitarian discourse and proposes an innovative methodological perspective for analyzing social processes. It reconstructs the historical and theoretical origins of the idea, examines the peculiarities of its integration into the national intellectual context, and identifies the key semantic transformations of the notion. It is established that the Ukrainian tradition lacks a direct analogue to the Western term “societal”, which has led to conceptual ambiguity between the categories “social,” “societal,” and “public.” This ambiguity, however, has contributed to the emergence of a metaperspective understanding of the societal as an integral property of social organization capable of uniting different levels of social being. The concepts of O. Donchenko, V. Bekh, and V. Shulha are analyzed as representing distinct epistemological angles of interpreting social reality through the prism of the societal-namely, the psychosocial, systemic, and structural-normative dimensions, respectively-while jointly demonstrating the potential of this idea as a foundation for an integrative analytical framework that transcends the fragmentation of social analysis. On this basis, the article advances the concept of societal dynamics as an analytical metaperspective for comprehending social reality. Societal dynamics is defined as the process of change and interaction among the structural components of society, generating new qualitative states of the social whole. A synergetic perspective serves as its methodological foundation, within which the societal is conceptualized as a dynamic field of emergent interactions spanning the micro–macro range. The methodological potential of this concept for social forecasting is substantiated in terms of providing a holistic explanation of the multidimensional manifestations of social reality, integrating its multilevel structures, and specifying the dynamics of societal processes. In the Ukrainian context, societal dynamics acquires particular significance for studying social transformations driven by war and post-war challenges and emerges as a universal analytical instrument of contemporary socio-humanitarian cognition and the comprehension of social reality in its increasing dynamism and complexity.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	societal; societal dynamics; socio-humanitarian discourse; meta-analysis; synergy; synergetic methodology; emergence; social transformations
Subjects:	Science and knowledge. Organization. Computer science. Information. Documentation. Librarianship. Institutions. Publications > 3 Social Sciences > 303 Methods of the social sciences Science and knowledge. Organization. Computer science. Information. Documentation. Librarianship. Institutions. Publications > 3 Social Sciences > 304 Social questions. Social practice. Cultural practice. Way of life (Lebensweise) Science and knowledge. Organization. Computer science. Information. Documentation. Librarianship. Institutions. Publications > 3 Social Sciences > 314/316 Society > 316 Соціологія
Divisions:	The Institute of Social and Political Psychology > Department of Mass and Community Psychology
Depositing User:	Доктор О.В. Суший
Date Deposited:	29 Jun 2026 10:54
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2026 10:54
URI:	https://lib.iitta.gov.ua/id/eprint/749736

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