Nikolai Genov

Until 1989 Genov's research and teaching were mostly focused on topics of sociological theory and history of ideas. During this period he published the monographs "Talcott Parsons and the Theoretical Sociology" (1982) and "Rationality and Sociology" (1986) (in Bulgarian). After 1989 his research and teaching became increasingly occupied with transformation processes in various parts of the world and particularly in Eastern Europe. The monographs "The United States at the End of the XXth Century" (1991) and "The Rise of the Dragon: The Modernization of South Korea" (1994) as well as the collection "Risks of the Transition" (1994) (in Bulgarian) dealt with these topics. The publications on transformation issues were increasingly based on results of international comparative studies. This applies to the monograph "Managing Transformations in Eastern Europe" as well as to the edited volumes "Unemployment: Risks and Reactions" (1999) and "Continuing Transformations in Eastern Europe" (2000) (in English). The content of the latter publications is guided by a synthesis of a broadly conceived concept of social interaction with a differentiated concept of societal transformation. The synthesis opens the prospect for complex studies on fundamental processes of accelerated commercialization of economy, the democratization of politics, universalization of value-normative systems, digitization of technologies, and the ecologization of thinking and behavior. The series of international comparative research projects on Eastern Europe coordinated by Genov included: Personal and Institutional Strategies for Coping with Transformation Risks (UNESCO/MOST, 1997-2001); Ethnic Relations in South-Eastern Europe (Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, 2003-2005); Inter-ethnic Integration (EU, 2005-2007); Migration in the Post-Soviet Space (Volkswagen Foundation, 2008-2010). The monograph "Global Trends in Eastern Europe"(2010, reprinted 2016) contains the detailed analysis and conclusions of the studies on the transformation of Eastern European societies. The monograph is a conceptual turning point since the theoretical framework used by Genov gradually changed from the focus on the concept of societal transformation to the development and use of the concept of global social trends. The new framework is organized around the idea of four such trends called upgrading the rationality of organizations, individualization, the spread of instrumental activism, and the universalization of value-normative systems. Based on the sociological paradigm of social interaction the framework of social trends was applied in local, regional, and global studies published in the edited volume "Global Trends and Regional Development"(2012) and in the monograph "Challenges of Individualization" (2018). The claim of Genov is that the turn from methodological societalism towards methodological globalism opens the way to a new stage in the development of sociological knowledge. The new stage is marked by the concentration of the sociological research interest on global social trends as the outcome of interactions at micro-, mezzo, and macro-social structural levels. As seen from another vantage point the theoretical and empirical studies have identified the global trends as the major factors for building, reproduction, and change of current and future local, regional and global social situations. The monograph “The Paradigm of Social Interaction” (2021) is a synthesis of fundamental ideas of sociological knowledge.

From 1980 until 1990 Genov was the organizer of the International Varna Sociological School. From 1990 till 1992 he was co-director of the Centre for Research and Documentation in the Social Sciences (the Vienna Centre). From 1994 to 1996 he was vice-president of UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations (MOST) program. From 2003 to 2008 he was a member of the Advisory Board of the program. From 1996 until 1998 he was a member and from 1998 until 2002 vice-president of the International Social Science Council (ISSC, Paris). Between 2000 and 2010 he was Director of the UNESCO/ISSC International Summer School Comparative Research in the Social Sciences. From 2003 to 2005 he was Director of the Institute of Eastern European Studies at the Free University Berlin.

Nikolai Genov (Bulgarian: Николай Генов/Nikolaj Genow; born 1946) is an internationally respected sociologist of Bulgarian origin. He received his doctorate of Philosophy in sociology from the University of Leipzig in 1975 and his doctorate of Science from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1986. In 1990 he became a professor at BAS. Between 2002 and 2011 he was a professor of sociology at the Institute of Sociology and Institute of Eastern European Studies of the Free University of Berlin. From 2011 until 2016 he was the head of the Institute of Global and Regional Development at the School of Advanced Social Studies in Slovenia. He has conducted research and taught at the universities of Berkeley, Bielefeld, Frankfurt am Main, Cassel, Lund, Moscow, Rome, Seoul, and Warsaw.