Social compromise in Victorian England in the research field of the new social history

A.K. Shabunina

Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119334 Russia

E-mail: shabunina@bk.ru

Received December 1, 2022

 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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DOI: 10.26907/2541-7738.2022.6.167-179

For citation: Shabunina A.K. Social compromise in Victorian England in the research field of the new social history. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2022, vol. 164, no. 6, pp. 167–179. doi: 10.26907/2541-7738.2022.6.167-179. (In Russian)

 

Abstract

This article is devoted to the methodology for studying the practice of social compromise in Victorian society in the context of the evolution of the modern scientific paradigm and the transformation of the space of scientific search. The current scientific focus of the new social history puts sociocultural practices at the center of its concern. From a methodological perspective, the latter are implicitly governed by the inherent principle of interdisciplinarity, as shown here using the example of the social processes in Victorian England. The practice of social consensus, which has been shaped through the research process, is helpful to consider, using the sociocultural approach, the social and cultural components of the evolution of Victorian society. The results obtained demonstrate that a complex of economic, political, and social practices developed during the period under study, and it significantly changed the sociocultural landscape of public relations in England. The formation of these practices was influenced by the following features characteristic of Victorian society: consistent electoral reforms, the legalization of trade unions, the spread of cooperatives, the democratization of government institutions, the emigration of low-skilled workers, the formation of a new social ideology, and the increase in the educational level of workers. As a form of conflict resolution, the consensus was reached through the prism of combining cultural norms and values of the polar strata of society, where the expanding middle class acted as a stabilizer of the common worldview space. The English social compromise was formed under the conditions of both industrial and imperial successes, made it possible to overcome the socioeconomic crisis, and laid the foundations of the modern European political strategy for pre-empting possible causes of conflict. The most important finding of this investigation is that the constructed research model of social compromise can be expanded by complicating the subject of research and by restructuring epistemologically the historian’s tools while using the multidimensionality of the transdisciplinary approach and further pushing the boundaries of research.

Keywords: social compromise, public compromise, new social history, sociocultural practice, research field, interdisciplinarity, research boundaries, Victorian England

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