CRITICAL REALISM AS A METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING THE FINANCIAL SECURITY OF THE STATE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/2617-5940.2.2025.13Keywords:
financial security of the state, critical realism, systemic management, stratified existence, financial governanceAbstract
The paper substantiates critical realism as a comprehensive methodological framework for managing the financial security of the state. The research aims to demonstrate that the financial sphere, as a complex socio-economic formation, cannot be effectively analysed or governed solely through positivist or interpretivist paradigms. By introducing the critical realist approach into the field of finance, the paper seeks to determine the state’s financial resilience, sustainability, and adaptive capacity in conditions of systemic uncertainty and global transformation. The methodological basis of the research is the application of the critical (scientific) realism paradigm, integrating the principles of ontological stratification, causal explanation, and retroduction. The study employs comparative paradigm analysis, logical abstraction, and system structuring to develop a multi-level system of financial security management. The research reveals that critical realism, by acknowledging the multidimensional and emergent nature of financial reality, offers a more comprehensive explanation of the mechanisms that generate observable financial phenomena. The study argues that financial security is not reducible to quantitative indicators but represents a synergistic outcome of economic, political, social, cultural, and moral dimensions of public life. Within this perspective, the management of financial security must extend beyond empirical monitoring to include the activation and regulation of underlying institutional, behavioural, and axiological mechanisms. The developed system model allows for the differentiation of general and specific management functions, the formation of supporting subsystems (informational, institutional, scientific, resource, and risk management), and the identification of causal feedbacks ensuring adaptive policy responses. The originality of the study lies in formulating and applying the methodological principles of critical realism to the domain of state financial security for the first time in Ukrainian specialized literature. The research enriches financial methodology with a new metatheoretical paradigm that enhances the explanatory and predictive capacity of public financial governance.
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