Social studies of finance as a new vector for sociological research of modern society

The article introduces readers to a new academic direction for Russian sociology – social studies of finance. This research field is actively producing new scientific concepts and topics, as well as the epistemic tools to study society. Sociologists play their part in this collective work. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate sociological perspectives of finance, to investigate how sociologists see the subject of their scientific search and its theoretical problems. It is noted that the formation of the academic field has been going on for more than 20 years, therefore, each decade was allocated to a separate research wave, for which an analytical review of key sociological scientific works of the European sociologists from the specialized issues of academic journals (Socio-Economic Review и Economic Sociology. European Electronic Newsletter, Finance and Society etc.) was conducted. This analysis helped identify a range of relevant research issues and theoretical problems, to trace their evolution. As a result, the author concludes that the study of the sociological problems of finance is a key to understand the structure of modern society, for it has transformative influence on society at all its levels – from state and organization to individual.