The article discusses various types of systems development cycles and their mechanisms. The paper presents development of socio-economic systems, describes periods of their dynamics, as well as sources of their formation and cycle stimulators in the form of innovations, values, needs with the dynamics of cycles speeding up. The combination of socio-economic and socio-cultural cycles in the spiritual life of society is described. A planetary model of society development is proposed. A variant of spiral-cyclical development of society in phases is formed.

The article presents various types and structures of social formations. Сivilizational and formational approaches are considered, their comparative analysis is given. The author presents classification structure of civilizations and the place of human values with elements of civilization. He also deals with issues of interrelations, mutual influence and interaction of civilizations with regard to present-day problems of society and communities. The levels and forms of civilizations interaction are compared taking into account the processes of globalization, glocalization and humanization. The function of compatibility and interaction of factors of civilizations general development is formulated.

The present work focuses on the applications of decentralized network structures with split leadership to various spheres of society. They are denoted herein as hiramas (High-Intensity Research And Management Associations). Special emphasis is placed on the use of hiramas in the organization of nontraditional interdisciplinary creative labs and NGOs in civil society, interactive teaching, and in business. It is stressed that the importance of traditional hierarchical institutions exemplified by universities and academic research institutions is not diminished by the spread of alternative decentralized network structures. Hierarchical institutions are to be held responsible for the consolidation and self-identification of the national scientific community, for furthering the interests of the scientific community in the face of external and internal challenges, and for evaluating the performance of decentralized network structures to select the hiramas that should receive material and ideological support.

The article presents the structural subsystems of society, which are the mechanisms of its support (stabilization or preservation) with emphasis on social relations. The autor analizes the views and opinions of scientists regarding the social organism filling with the basic system elements. Types of social structures are presented, including socioethnic, socio-demographic, socio-spatial, stratification one and others. The definition of social interaction is given with nuances: socio-economic, socio-political and socio-cultural interactions. Interactions and mutual influences of the sources and stimulators of society renewal are defined. The variant of functional conformity of the compatible environment of renewing and subsystems of the society organizations is offered. The assumption on expansion of the society subsystems to seven spheres on the basis of a cyclic model of its development is set forth.

The development of network society (the network revolution) in the present-day world necessitates the establishment of networked regulatory organizations that can exert a positive influence on this process. They represent analogs of biomolecular chaperons that function in the living cell. Such social chaperons can design optimal scenarios of the network revolution. They can take account of various possible organizational options (paradigms) of network structures. Chaperons can creatively use paradigms that function in biological systems ranging from unicellular organisms to schooling fish, social insects, and apes. Social chaperons can contribute to their implementation using the whole spectrum of possible strategies of promoting expedient network scenarios and convincing political leaders and government regulators of their importance for humankind.

The paper proposes an approach that gives a scientific character to the concept of network-centric management, and considered systemic paradigms allow to consider it as an engineering construction. It proposes the concept and management contour models of the first and the second kind, revealing communities’ management mechanisms and processes of their self-organization. They represent not only new opportunities, but also unfamiliar threats. Only basic knowledge of socio-engineering will help to build a security system, to ensure the survival and development of society. However, given any methodological complexity the human factor plays a decisive role. Management of complex systems requires self-dependence, intelligence coordination and real time actions, the synergy of knowledge, intuition and participants’ sagacity as well as harmonious interaction with the environment, including society.

With the capitalist economy development more evident becomes the tendency of a definite isolation of financial sphere from the so-called “real sector” of economy. This “isolation” is supported the basic principles of economic thought, in particular by money neutrality principle (the classic dichotomy) of the neoclassical school. Today, financial sector and financial capital have transformed from a mediator serving reproduction into a key factor, largely determining economic development of both individual national economies and the world economy as a whole. Hypertrophic growth of financial sector causes a widening gap between material-substantial and financial flows. Resulting imbalances lead to severe crises phenomena, the most powerful of which is the global crisis began in 2008. Its effects are still determining a high degree uncertainty of the whole world development. This article deals with scientific comprehension of the problem of providing financial and economic security of an open economy, which includes Russia, in arising difficult conditions of increasing instability and global competitive tension.

Opening address of editor-in-chief.

With the capitalist economy development more evident becomes the tendency of a definite isolation of financial sphere from the so-called “real sector” of economy. This “isolation” is supported the basic principles of economic thought, in particular by money neutrality principle (the classic dichotomy) of the neoclassical school. Today, financial sector and financial capital have transformed from a mediator serving reproduction into a key factor, largely determining economic development of both individual national economies and the world economy as a whole. Hypertrophic growth of financial sector causes a widening gap between material-substantial and financial flows. Resulting imbalances lead to severe crises phenomena, the most powerful of which is the global crisis began in 2008. Its effects are still determining a high degree uncertainty of the whole world development. This article deals with scientific comprehension of the problem of providing financial and economic security of an open economy, which includes Russia, in arising difficult conditions of increasing instability and global competitive tension.

The article considers classification of conflict of a new type, their relationship with society and globalization processes. It demonstrates interrelation of postmodern culture with protest movements, the role of communication technologies and the emergence of a new field of confrontation — cyberspace. The paper dwells on criteria of the network society and network conflicts and p ossible tools for their analysis.