Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Esta publicación cientíca en formato digital es continuidad de la revista impresa
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197402ZU34
ppi 201502ZU4645
Vol.41 N° 76
Enero
Marzo
2023
Recibido el 22/11/22 Aceptado el 12/01/23
ISSN 0798- 1406 ~ De pó si to le gal pp 198502ZU132
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
La re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas, es una pu bli ca ción aus pi cia da por el Ins ti tu to
de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co “Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che” (IEPDP) de la Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas de la Uni ver si dad del Zu lia.
En tre sus ob je ti vos fi gu ran: con tri buir con el pro gre so cien tí fi co de las Cien cias
Hu ma nas y So cia les, a tra vés de la di vul ga ción de los re sul ta dos lo gra dos por sus in ves-
ti ga do res; es ti mu lar la in ves ti ga ción en es tas áreas del sa ber; y pro pi ciar la pre sen ta-
ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas apa re ce dos ve ces al año y pu bli ca tra ba jos ori gi na les con
avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
co, los cua les son so me ti dos a la con si de ra ción de ár bi tros ca li fi ca dos.
ESTA PU BLI CA CIÓN APA RE CE RE SE ÑA DA, EN TRE OTROS ÍN DI CES, EN
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Pe rio di cals Di rec tory, EBS CO. Se en cuen tra acre di ta da al Re gis tro de Pu bli ca cio-
nes Cien tí fi cas y Tec no ló gi cas Ve ne zo la nas del FO NA CIT, La tin dex.
Di rec to ra
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OIRALITH
M. C
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Asis ten tes Ad mi nis tra ti vos
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Vol. 41, Nº 73 (2023), 347-355
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Features of understanding social
relations in modern law: theoretical,
administrative, civil legal regulation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4176.19
Yuliia Zaporozhchenko *
Kostiantyn Kolesnykov **
Halyna Tatarenko ***
Andrii Fomin ****
Oksana Zuieva *****
Abstract
The purpose of the research was to redene the concept of social
relations from the point of view of its theoretical, administrative
and civil aspects of legal regulation, considering, for this purpose,
various scientic contributions. The main content is based on
the meaning of the concepts of “public relations” and “social
relations” as political and legal entities with dierent paradigmatic
essence. The methodological basis of the research was constituted by the
comparative-legal and systemic analysis, the formal-legal method, the
method of interpretation, hermeneutics and the methods of analysis and
synthesis. By way of conclusion the authors have established that the term
“public relations” characterizes relations between people, which provide
for the unconditional priority of the economy over other spheres of society
(political, ideological, cultural), material and symbolic spaces where there
is no place for a person with his values, rights and freedoms. At least, the
latter do not acquire due regulatory support.
Keywords: administrative public relations; legal regulation; civil
relations; legal theory; modern law.
* Doctor of Historical Sciences, Department of History and Theory of State and Law, University of
Customs and Finance, Dnipro, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1303-0693
** Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of History and Theory of State and
Law, University of Customs and Finance, Dnipro, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-
2636-952X
*** PhD, Head of the Department of Constitutional Law – Law Faculty, Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian
National University, Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6291-4455
**** Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of History and Archeology,
Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.
org/0000-0001-9565-3706
***** Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Public and Private Law,
University of Customs and Finance, Dnipro, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8054-
1509
348
Yuliia Zaporozhchenko, Kostiantyn Kolesnykov, Halyna Tatarenko, Andrii Fomin y Oksana Zuieva
Features of understanding social relations in modern law: theoretical, administrative, civil legal
regulation
Características de la comprensión de las relaciones
sociales en el derecho moderno: regulación teórica,
administrativa, civil jurídica
Resumen
El propósito de la investigación fue redenir el concepto de relaciones
sociales desde el punto de vista de sus aspectos teóricos, administrativos
y civil de la regulación jurídica, considerando, para ello, diversos aportes
cientícos. En el Contenido principal se fundamenta el sentido de los
conceptos de “relaciones públicas” y “relaciones sociales” como entidades
políticas y jurídicas con distinta esencia paradigmática. La base metodológica
de la investigación estuvo constituida por el análisis comparativo-jurídico
y sistémico, el método formal-jurídico, el método de interpretación, la
hermenéutica y los métodos de análisis y síntesis. A modo de conclusión
los autores han establecido que el término “relaciones públicas” caracteriza
las relaciones entre personas, que prevén la prioridad incondicional de la
economía sobre otras esferas de la sociedad (política, ideológica, cultural),
espacios material y simbólico donde no hay lugar para una persona con
sus valores, derechos y libertades. Al menos, estos últimos no adquieren el
debido respaldo regulatorio.
Palabras clave: relaciones públicas administrativas; regulación jurídica;
relaciones civiles; teoría jurídica; derecho moderno.
Introduction
In the last decade, many works have appeared in the scientic literature
devoted to the philosophical and sociological analysis of the problems of
the theory and history of the development of public relations. These studies
allow a deeper understanding of the consistent patterns of the historical
process, more accurately predict the future course of social processes. Such
studies need further development of the categorical framework, where the
central place is occupied by the concept of public relations.
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the analysis of the
content of this category in the domestic scientic literature. Many aspects
of this problem are reected in the publications of the authors, however,
some signicant issues - and among them the issue of dening public
relations – are still the subject of discussion and, as noted in the press, need
to be further developed. This article attempts to highlight the most general
characteristics of public relations that are needed to dene this concept.
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Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 347-355
1. Literature review
The term “public relations” in scientic literature, in particular
philosophical literature, is dened as “various connections that arise
between the subjects of social interaction and characterize a society or
community in which these subjects belong as an integrity” (Andrushchenko,
2006).
It is usually believed that this concept, being developed mainly by
representatives of the Marxist intellectual tradition, is associated with the
problems of social objectication- desobjectivation, social exclusion, social
fetishism, social production, base and superstructure, social classes and
social antagonisms (Andrushchenko, 2006).
Public relations are diverse and can be classied according to their
objects, subjects and the nature of the relationship between them. So,
the subjective basis for the identication of public relations is the social
communities of people, and the objective basis is the ownership of the
means of production.
It is known that the emergence and development of human society
are considered a social form of the movement of matter, in contrast to
mechanical, physical, chemical and biological, therefore, social relations
and processes are understood, rst of all, as all relations and processes,
public life as a whole. In this sense, the classics of the Marxist intellectual
tradition dened public phenomena as social, noting their dierences from
natural phenomena. On the other hand, they clearly and unambiguously
noted the “personality” of social relations that develop between people of
dierent formations.
Public relations were divided, as it is known, into two groups: material
and ideological. Economic relations as dierent by nature connections
between people in the process of production, exchange, distribution and
consumption developed “regardless” of the will and consciousness of a
person, represented the dening basis of public relations.
The varieties of public relations that were predetermined by material
conditions included class and national relations, as well as everyday
relations, family relations, etc., which had their own, relatively independent
object, to study which they were aimed at: interclass – about a dierent
form of ownership; interethnic – about the commonality of economic life,
territory, language, culture; everyday – about ties in the non-productive
sphere, family, marriage relations, family ties, etc. At the same time,
political aairs were considered the highest level of development of public
relations.
Politics, as already noted, was seen as a concentrated expression of the
economy, its generalization and completion. Political relations arise, exist
350
Yuliia Zaporozhchenko, Kostiantyn Kolesnykov, Halyna Tatarenko, Andrii Fomin y Oksana Zuieva
Features of understanding social relations in modern law: theoretical, administrative, civil legal
regulation
and develop as issues of taking, retention and use of state power in the
interests of realizing the economic and social interests of the ruling class.
At the same time, one of the most important signs of political relations was
considered to be a consciously organized nature, possible only if there were
political organizations of the ruling class, the interaction of certain political
ideas and organizations expressing the interests of this class.
The leading role was assigned to the socialist ideology, the mastery of
which formed the only correct worldview. The ideological component of
public relations assumed the introduction of socialist ideology into the mass
consciousness and the provision of appropriate (class) education, which is
rightly regarded as inciting enmity and class hatred.
So, the purpose of the article is to dene the theoretical, administrative,
civil-legal aspects of regulating public relations.
2. Materials and methods
The research is based on the works of foreign and Ukrainian researchers
on methodological approaches to understanding public relations from the
point of view of legal theory, administrative law, civil law, etc.
Through the use of the gnoseological method, the essence of public
relations was claried from the point of view of the legal theory,
administrative law, civil law, etc., thanks to the logical-semantic method,
the conceptual framework was deepened, the essence of the theoretical,
administrative, civil-legal aspects of regulating public relations from the
point of view of legal theory, administrative law, civil law, etc. Thanks to
the existing methods of law, we were able to analyze the essence of public
relations from the point of view of legal theory, administrative law, civil
law, etc.
3. Results and discussion
O. Skakun denes the legal regulation of public relations as being
carried out by civil society and the state with the help of the entirety of legal
means of streamlining public relations, their consolidation, protection and
development (Skakun, 2003).
The priority of general public interests is emphasized by M. Kelman and
O. Murashyn (Kelman and Murashyn, 2006).
“Public relations” as a scientic term is a purely formational concept,
the origin of which is associated with the Marxist intellectual tradition, the
birth of which dates back to the middle of the XIX century. The long and
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Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 347-355
short of it is that the starting foundations of public relations are economic
relations as priority (basic), which determines the nature of political and
ideological relations as superstructural, secondary (Liutikov et al., 2021).
The essence of public relations can only be understood by considering
production relations as starting, fundamental, dening, above which the
superstructure rises – political, legal, moral, philosophical and other views,
as well as political and other institutions and organizations (Villasmil
Espinoza et al., 2022).
A feature of public relations is that their subjects are not all communities
of people, but only those that arose objectively in the process of historical
development: 1) socio-class communities (classes, intraclass and
interclass social strata and groups); 2) ethno-national formations (tribes,
nationalities, nations); 3) socio-demographic groups (family, men, women,
youth, persons of retirement age, etc.); 4) socio-professional groups
(workers, peasants, entrepreneurs, specialists, employees, etc.); 5) socio-
territorial communities (population of separate administrative-territorial
units, regions, residents of separate cities and villages, urban and rural
population). It is obvious that there is no proper place for a person, his/her
rights and freedoms, value and social priorities in this system of coordinates
provision (Tylchyk et al., 2022).
Also, public relations do not provide for the consideration of the
individual as a full-edged subject of social interaction: a human as a
biosocial being with his/her interests, needs, freedoms and values fell out
of the context of their denition, understanding and interpretation, since
priority was given to public interests, public property, public organizations
and single political party (of course, the communist one) as the highest form
of organization of the ruling class. The personality as a subject of public
relations was considered only as a representative and bearer of the interests
of a social group (classes, nation, collective, etc.) (Matviichuk et al., 2022).
The denitions of the essence of public relations, which are provided
in the domestic scientic and educational literature, is a continuation of
the Marxist intellectual tradition, which seems to be quite appropriate,
provided that the monograph or textbook, teaching aids are prepared
in accordance with the canons of the above tradition. However, in such
cases there should be a clear distinction, given the multi-paradigm nature
of scientic knowledge, intellectual traditions in their formational and
civilizational dimensions, understanding of their fundamental irreducibility
to one another (Leheza et al., 2022).
Orientation of law to the regulation of public relations signicantly
impoverishes the regulatory potential of law, since the priority of the
general (class) interest over the individual, the common good – over the
personal, socio-public – over the civil is realized. Civic virtues are regarded
352
Yuliia Zaporozhchenko, Kostiantyn Kolesnykov, Halyna Tatarenko, Andrii Fomin y Oksana Zuieva
Features of understanding social relations in modern law: theoretical, administrative, civil legal
regulation
as secondary, and often even sacriced to public interests as supposedly
unconditionally priority and determining.
It is no coincidence that domestic scientists, considering the essence
of social relations, rightly emphasize the importance of their correlation
with social theories alternative to Marxism, in particular, social norms (E.
Durkheim), social systems (T. Parsons), social action (M. Weber), social
interaction and social role (G. H. Mead), social exchange (G. C. Homans)
(Andrushchenko, 2006).
The formation and development of non-linear intellectual traditions are
associated, as it is known, with human-centrism, respect for the dignity of a
human, ensuring his/her rights and freedoms as starting and determining
points in the process of functioning of society. Structural functionalism
as a scientic paradigm arose as the personication of the natural human
right to a decent life. It is signicant that the variants of natural law theory
in dierent periods of history acquired a characteristic meaning and
ideological orientation.
Separate provisions of natural law theory date back to V-IV century
B.C.E.: the philosophers of Ancient Greece in a dialogue form developed
the ideas of character, essence, rooting of law in the objective and subjective
nature of things, in the eternal order of the universe with its subordination
to the ow of time and the immutability of human nature. It is still relevant
to raise the question of law as a result of a “voluntary agreement” between
the citizens of Athens (Kobrusieva et al., 2021).
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle denied the sophists’ understanding of law
as an “articial invention of people”: written laws do not exclude eternal,
unwritten legal truths, as well as laws “imbedded in the hearts of people by
the divine mind itself”. The eternal, unshakable divine order determines
not only the essence of human relationships, but also the universe. For
example, Aristotle saw two main parts in law: natural and conditional.
The natural component of law consists in its equal signicance in all
social strata, being independent of the degree of its recognition or non-
recognition. While a conditional law, being originally formed by a human as
“indierent”, in the case of determining its social priority, this indierence
overcomes (Rabinovych, 2001).
The natural legal tradition underwent a signicant evolution in the era
of the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment and the Modern Age, developing the
postulates of eternity and the immutability of human nature, the divine and
natural origin of law, which was reected in the intellectual activity of the
great thinkers of the past: H. Grotius and B. Spinoza (Holland), T. Hobbes
and J. Locke (England), J-J. Rousseau and P. Holbach (France) (Petryshyn,
2002).
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Recently, the natural legal tradition has been developing as a starting,
dening intellectual theoretical and methodological platform for the
humanization of law, its approximation to civilized standards of freedom,
social justice, guarantees of human and civil rights and freedoms. In
Ukraine, this direction of law is implemented, in particular, as a process
of approximation (adaptation and harmonization) to the legal standards of
the member states of the European Union (Kopeichykov, 2002).
The above proves, in our opinion, the priority of natural law, which,
being related to the legal norm, legal law, the supremacy of law, arms the
validity of the statement “Human is the measure of all things” (Heraclitus),
the truth of which could not overcome the living procession of History with
its ups and downs, gains and losses, challenges and dangers (Halaburda et
al., 2021Leheza, 2022).
Conclusions
Therefore, it can be argued that public/social relations determine
the nature of society, ethno-national groups and communities of people,
an individual, determine his/her place in the political and legal space,
guarantee rights and freedoms. The space of communication forms and
ensures the realization of a person’s capabilities, ensuring his/her rights
and freedoms, satisfying his/her needs, fullling his/her aspirations and
hopes, translating ideals into the practice of everyday life.
At the same time, special tasks are assigned to legal science as a means
and mechanism for regulating public/social relations, legal socialization
of a human, ensuring his/her rights and freedoms and, most importantly,
his/her formation as a person, a citizen of the country, as a full-edged
representative of civil society.
In the scientic literature, the terms “public” and “social” are used
both to refer to the same phenomena, events and processes (lack of
identication), and various social phenomena. In other cases, the social is
identied with the public. As a rule, this takes place in two cases: in the
case of comprehending the entirety of phenomena and processes that exist
in a particular society, as well as in cases of emphasis on the dierences
that distinguish social phenomena and processes from natural, technical,
technological and informational.
This approach, which can be dened as a broad one, understands social
relations as economic, political, and ideological phenomena and processes,
while public relations are determined as social ones.
This circumstance gave rise to some authors to consider social relations
as synthetic, generalizing the interaction of material and ideological social
354
Yuliia Zaporozhchenko, Kostiantyn Kolesnykov, Halyna Tatarenko, Andrii Fomin y Oksana Zuieva
Features of understanding social relations in modern law: theoretical, administrative, civil legal
regulation
relations. However, in our opinion, social relations do not just reect the
most important signs of human interaction, but are primarily are the result
of the direct inuence of civil society, which is being formed in Ukraine,
and consist primarily in ensuring human and civil rights and freedoms, the
implementation of universal human values as unconditional priorities of
the process of social change.
Outside of the human-centric orientation as determining in terms of
determining the nature (type) of relations, relations between people do
not acquire a social character, which allows them to be characterized as
public, where, as already noted, relations concerning mode of production,
the nature of distribution, exchange and consumption of material good are
priority.
In other cases, the concept of “social” is interpreted narrower than
“public”, is considered only a part or a constituent of the latter. Under such
conditions, social relations stand out as allegedly special in the system of
public relations, are considered on a par with economic, political, ideological
forms of human interaction. This approach rather unies the essence of
social relations than demonstrates their dierence, the fundamental
irreducibility of one social phenomenon to another.
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
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Vol.41 Nº 76
