SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF SOCIAL PROTEST: REVIEWING BASIC CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES

Article analyzes the main approaches to understanding the nature of social protest in contemporary sociology. The need to search for the social protest origin is stated. The options for the reflecting social protest as a manifestation of social activity, social movements, civil society and social conflict are described. Reasons using the postulates of the sociology of conflict for social protest's study are discussed. The basic methodological understandings of social protests are formulated. They are: the acceptance of natural character, multicausal and multifunctional nature of social protest; the need to distinguish between causes and reasons, motivations and causes of social protest. The heuristic character of these findings for empirical studies of social protests is stated.