Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Social Consensus

This article presents, understands, analyzes and classifies the main theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the phenomenon of social consensus in the history of philosophical, social and political thought. Using a comparative approach, extrapolation and content analysis, the authors reveal the conceptual principles of social consent, consider it through the categories of inequality and hierarchy, identify the grounds for an optimistic view of social consensus, establish the key factors of lability (instability) of social consent from the point of view of the psychology of mass behavior, comprehend a skeptical approach to the perception of social consensus, study public consent through the prism of formal and informal norms, dissect public consent in terms of political culture and the legitimacy of power. The definition of public consensus is formulated as a situation in which individuals, institutions and subjects of public authority have certain common points of contact, which become the basis of political integration and cooperation. At the end of the material, a conclusion is made about the relative importance of public consensus, depending on the specific type of political culture and the ideological and theoretical direction of political, social and philosophical science.