Articles

This paper continues the series of articles published in the journal devoted to the analysis of the challenges of the current global crises in terms of their impact on world politics and international relations. The authors highlight several features of the pandemic crisis of 2020–2021, in particular the “global empathy,” violation of the spatial logic of globalization and the spread of “infodemics”. The paper presents an extensive overview of current research on the Corona Crisis through the prism of social science. The common understanding of all the risks and dangers generated by interdependence, the vulnerability of the transitional world order, democratic institutions, and the inevitability of the common fate of humankind are all elements dictating the need for transnational cooperation, reforms in global governance, regional integration, and greater legitimation of supranational factors. The authors emphasize the importance of the “global health” category in international relations and its growing influence on the world order. It is emphasized that global risks derived from the ongoing crisis are inherently political. Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic provides a compelling basis for bringing anti-crisis policy to the forefront of research in the whole range of “crisisology disciplines” like political science, world economy, global studies and environmental political studies, social psychology, international relations, political forecasting, and theories of sustainable development. Finally, the article focuses on the emerging opportunities for Russia, the implementation of which is associated with maintaining biotechnological leadership in the development of vaccines and its transformation into the increasing international authority, trust, and soft power.

The article discusses the ‘technologies’ of the colour revolution used in Northern Macedonia starting from the analysis of the activity of the pro-Western opposition (since 2011) aimed at political destabilization and preparation for protest actions. In 2015, indeed, the pro-Western opposition was able to mobilize a significant number of protesters in Skopje and organize a so-called “Maidan.” Due to this large manifestation and protests, N. Gruevski announced his resignation as Prime Minister, a transitional government was established, and the results of early parliamentary elections were invalidated. In 2017, a pro-Western politician, leader of the SDSM party, Z. Zaev, became Prime Minister and in 2020 new parliamentary elections were held. The victory of the parliamentary coalition “We can” (led by the SDSM party), which gained more seats than the VMRO-DPMNE party in the Parliament, allowed Z. Zaev to form a government. The results of the study show that since 2011 the pro-Western opposition has destabilized the political situation in the country organizing a protest movement. The pro-Western opposition also carried out a series of ‘information attacks’, spreading unconfirmed information compromising N. Gruevski and Sasho Mijalkov (a cousin of N. Gruevski, who led the secret police). These elements allowed the opposition to mobilize the population in Skopje and organize a colour revolution, which overthrew the Prime Minister and led to a change in the general balance of political forces in the country.

The article adopts the civilizational approach in its diachronic aspect, which considers the development of human civilization as a consistent change of various types of global world order. The authors analyze the crisis of the modern technogenic-consumer civilization associated with its key explicit and implicit values. The essential features and lines of formation of a new type of civilization, which has already been called spiritual and ecological, are outlined. The article analyzes the emerging civilizational shifts in the sphere of culture, politics and economy. The key argument of the article is that the formation of new civilizational relations has a point-like spatial character of origin and an embryonic period of maturation. According to the authors, one of the key ‘locus’ in the transition from the technogenic-consumer civilization to the spiritual and ecological civilization can be identified in the Siberian region due to its objectively inherent spatial, climatic, historical and cultural features. The peacemaking and cultural-synthetic potential of Siberia, which lies at the intersection of transport, energy and civilizational corridors of Greater Eurasia, is of particular importance in the current situation of crisis. The article concludes by providing specific recommendations for the implementation of the Siberian spiritual and ecological civilizational project.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the features of foreign transport policy taking into account the examples of the development of the Suez and Panama Canals, the results of which can be used for further research and practical application in the formation of Russia's transport policy for the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The author applies comparative research methods, which first identifies the general and individual elements of the transport policy for the development of international waterways of foreign countries and then analyzes the features of the development, implementation, execution, and effectiveness of these elements in the corresponding transport route. The purpose of the work is to emphasize the importance of the international experience of developing the policy of international shipping routes as an analytical starting point in the formation of the transport policy of Russia (NSR). The methodology of the study of transport policy for the development of international shipping routes is based on a systematic and structural-functional analysis that helps to establish and apply the positive experience of international transport policies to the Russian case. The empirical analysis is based on the comparison of policies for the development of navigation on the Suez and Panama Canals from their inception. The specific methodological and empirical approach allows the author to formulate the hypothesis and explore the opportunity of the application of these cases to Russia. The article concludes that the highlighted characteristics of the transport policy of the Suez and Panama Canals should be used in the implementation of the Russian NSR policy, taking into account the designated tasks of the strategic development of the Arctic.

The concept of ‘Russian malign activities’ is often used both in public speeches by many Western officials and in discussions within government bodies, but it remains not clearly defined. The first section of this article provides a definition and a general meaning of the concept while the second presents the overview of two approaches used to describe this phenomenon in its application to the Russian case. Indeed, according to the first approach, “Russian malign activities” are integrated into a developed plan of measures for the dissemination of certain information or disinformation with the final objective to increase the international clout of the Russian Federation. The second approach looks at these “malign activities” as a part of the hybrid war waged by Russia, primarily against NATO countries. Finally, the third section of the article analyses the origin and possible explanations for the widespread diffusion of the speculations about “Russian malign activities.” The article argues that the idea of “Russian malign activities” is broadcasted primarily through the United States and Great Britain with the aim of portraying Russia as an enemy and consequently to delegitimize all of its activities, especially within the informational field. This thesis became widespread only in the British-American world, which already contained fertile ground for such a perception of Russian politics. The use of this thesis affects both international relations and global security.

The article explores the effect of the implementation of digital technologies able to affect the modern processes in the field of political management. The starting assumption is that the key political actor — the state — is undergoing today an important transformation. The article starts by analysing the concept of ‘sovereignty’ in a broad historical perspective, as well as in its modern interpretation (through the lens of neorealism, neoliberalism and post-positivism). Although in the conditions of hybrid confrontation the virtual space appears a challenge to sovereignty, the state remains a powerful actor. The key task of the state today indeed is the control of the virtual space, while the protection of the ‘information sovereignty’ becomes a priority in the framework of its information policy. The definition of the concept of ‘information sovereignty’ used in the article is drawn on the comparison of different available approaches. The authors finally suggest different directions through which the protection of ‘information sovereignty’ can be implemented, namely the development of information infrastructure, the identification of threats and the creation of an appropriate legislative framework.

The article takes into consideration different important approaches to understand the concept of state sovereignty in the modern world. The article analyses the views of “traditionalists” and “globalists” on the problem of sovereignty in the context of international relations. In recent years, indeed, Russia regained full-fledged sovereignty in all aspects of this concept, having re-balanced monetary and social policies, paid off foreign debts, diversified foreign trade, ensured food security, reduced its dependence on imports, achieved a low level of inflation, significantly reformed and strengthened the armed forces. Not surprisingly, in 2020 a considerable attention was paid to the political and legal protection of sovereignty. The article examines the implementation of various aspects of the concept of sovereignty in the framework of the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the 17 laws passed through the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2020. The article concludes with an overview of a number of initiatives in the framework of ‘parliamentary diplomacy’ that were launched over the last few years and that serve to strengthen the country's authority on the global stage, and, therefore, protect Russian sovereignty.

The article analyses the attitude of French conservative thinkers of the late 19th — early 20th century towards social policy, drawing on the intellectual heritage of two conservative authors, namely Adrien Albert Marie, Comte de Mun and Henriette-Lucy, Marquise de La Tour du Pin. The article provides the intellectual and political context in which the two thinkers developed their views regarding social policy. The analysis draws on comparative and historical methods to trace both, the intellectual milieu influencing the two conservative thinkers and their own ascendancy on other intellectuals of the time. The article also relies on a series of legal documents and traces the development of social institutions in order to estimate the influence that Comte de Mun and Marquise de La Tour du Pin had upon laws and practices. The research finally identifies the most important ideas of the two authors in the context of social policy: reliance on the Catholic church and Christian norms in social issues, corporative organisation of the society, responsibility of the upper class. Based on this set of ideas, indeed, both authors suggested the introduction of retirement schemes, sickness and unemployment benefits and medical insurance.

The article presents an analysis of the existing incentives and strategies for interaction and mutual influence of political parties and social movements in a democratic context. This analysis is complemented by the overview of the consequences of this interaction and influence on the structural and ideological foundations of both political parties and social movements and, more globally, the social environment, party system, political regime, and political system. Due to the success of new social movements in mass mobilization the interaction of parties and movements has intensified since the 1970s. This process led — in particular — to the development of a phenomenon usually known as ‘party-movement’, namely a social movement morphing into a political party. The relations between political parties and social movements however are characterized not only by alliances, but in some cases also by rivalry or even confrontation. The article concludes by examining the main factors of the involvement of movements in politics, presenting a typology of movements participating in politics, and a typology of the party system according to its susceptibility to the influence of social movements.

The article presents the results of the analysis of political news about electronic voting on YouTube. The research focuses on 12 countries that have made electronic voting the only or a widely used way to implement active suffrage (Belgium, Brazil, the Kingdom of Bhutan, Venezuela, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Namibia, the Philippines, Switzerland, Estonia and Russia). The main tasks of the research were: to collect a database of videos about electronic voting; to determine the tone of the coverage of electronic voting in each considered country; to identify trends in the use of YouTube as an outreach channel. This methodological process was set to answer the main research question: what type of attitude to electronic voting is shaped by political news about electronic voting in YouTube: neutral, positive or negative? Finally, based on the analysis of existing conceptual and theoretical approaches to the issue of impact of social networks on political processes, the article attempts to test the explanatory capacity of the concept of ‘information capsule’ in relation to political news about electronic voting on YouTube.