Articles

This article analyzes the emergence and operation of the Tripartite Maritime Safety Cooperation initiative (TMSC). The fi rst mechanism in the history of the Indian Ocean region involving interaction at the level of security advisers of India and its key security partners — the Republic of Maldives and Sri Lanka — existed for three years; at the moment its activities are frozen. The author sets himself the task of analyzing the reasons for the creation of this initiative, the interests of the participating countries, the activities carried out in the framework of the TMSC and their results, and fi nally the possible reasons for the termination of the TMSC’s functions. The author concludes that the reasons for the failure of the TMSC initiative in their current form are objective, and that India, if it intends to create an eff ective alliance, will have to either change the approach to the formation of such mechanisms, formalize them even more, or negotiate with China as an alternative security provider.

This article presents a conceptual analysis of the phenomenon of the citizen in the subject fi eld of political science. The authors distinguish three aspects of analysis: historical-political, socio-political and political-psychological. It is noted that the contradiction that exists today in Russia between the concept of “citizen” and the phenomenon of “citizen” is due to the historical context of their development. A citizen is presented as the socio-political role of a person in the state and society which determines his formal political, legal and social status and is prescribed to him by cultural traditions and the political system. The political and legal status of a citizen is described through the category of citizenship. The image of the ideal citizen is infl uenced by the political regime and moral principles. Civil society is considered an environment for the formation and self-realization of a citizen. The political and psychological characteristics of a citizen as a subject of socio-political relations are determined by a developed civic consciousness, a formed civic identity and a wide repertoire of forms of civic activity.

This article analyzes the results of a study conducted in 2017–2018 by the Program of Sociology and Psychology of Politics of the Political Science Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The study examined the features of the perception of foreign countries (of Western Europe, BRICS and the former Soviet Union) by Russian citizens. The results of the study lead to a number of conclusions. First, the perception of a number of other countries — the images of the “signifi cant other” — are the backbone structures of Russian political consciousness. Their importance and relevance is explained by the desire, through an appeal to “others,” to see the cultural and historical specifi cs of Russia and the Russian national-state identity more clearly. Secondly, the hypothesis put forward by the authors was generally confi rmed: the images of foreign countries in the minds of Russians are shaped under the decisive infl uence of socio-political discourse — a situational factor that broadcasts certain semantic patterns through various mass media. At the same time, the infl uence of prolonged socio-cultural and generational factors on the system of ideas about a foreign country is less pronounced. The most vivid example of such infl uence was the total negativization of the image of Ukraine, a transition from the category of “ friends” to one of “aliens.” In the structure of Russian perception of other countries, the “ friend — alien” scheme likewise occupies a central position. States perceived as “ friends” (for example, Belarus, Kazakhstan) are deemed, a priori, to possess more positive characteristics. These positive evaluations are usually emotionally tinged and fairly weak from the point of view of cognitive justifi cation. This also characterizes the images of those states that are viewed by Russians as “allies,” conventionally “ours” (e.g. Brazil, China). At the same time, Western countries perceived as “aliens” are endowed with mostly negative emotional characteristics.

This article presents a systematic analysis the motivational profi le of the political participation of young people in the activity of contemporary Russian parties, using research conducted by the Sociology and Psychology of Politics Program of the Political Science Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University. Particular attention is paid to the psychological foundation of youth political activism among contemporary Russian citizens, the characteristic features of the political behavior of the younger generation, and comparative analysis of the motivational aspirations of the young activists of Russian parties. The article also analyzes the infl uence of the basic institutions of political socialization on the formation of the personality of young Russian politicians. The author examines the basic motives that contribute to the the choice of by young people of the sphere of politics as a profession for the formation of one’s own personality. Judging by the results of the study, the author concludes that the motivation of young people going into politics depends, in many respects, on the generational specifi city of their political socialization, in which a desire for their own self-realization is clearly expressed.

An extensive body of research has been assembled by modern social science on the interaction of state power and big business, yet despite this the relevance of a thorough theoretical review of these relations has not diminished in recent decades. This article analyzes a number of paradigms that defi ne value criteria, worldviews and theoretical and methodological standards aff ecting both scholarly research in this area and the development of state policy and actual politics. These are rational-critical, corporatist and neo-corporatist paradigms, that of the “new state management,” and such critical theories as neo-Marxism and the theory of political networks. When analyzing these paradigms, the author pays special attention to the operationalization of key concepts and the defi nition of basic interpretations, models and concepts of corporate-state interaction. The study of theoretical-methodological approaches contributes to the systematization of the results of research in the study of applied mechanisms of interaction between government and big business. The author concludes that the paradigms cited to a certain extent only coexist and actualize depending on the situation in the world economy, the political relations of individual states or their alliances, cultural characteristics and other factors.

This article examines the forms of public communication and public selforganization in Russia in the fi rst half of the 19th century. Such forms of public socialization as circles, salons, clubs, scientifi c organizations, and others are analyzed. The purpose of the study is to shed light on particular features of public communication and public self-organization in Russia during the period. Complex and contradictory processes were under way in both the society itself and in the relations between society and the state. On the one hand, the government contributed to social modernization, the development of new forms of self-organization by society. On the other hand, the government also tried to be as vigilant as possible in monitoring any manifestations of public activity, both by normative acts and by creating various control bodies.

This article is devoted to the study of the political aspect of Russia’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East. The author draws attention to the global megatrends that, taking on regional specifi city, signifi cantly aff ect the regional system of international relations and, as a consequence, the formulation of Russia’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East. The article identifi es such manifestly significant megatrends as the globalization/regionalization of world politics; the changing role of the West in the international arena; high demographic dynamics; and the increasing importance of the religious factor in public life and public consciousness. Based on an analysis of the infl uence of the these trends on the Middle East region, the author sets out and substantiates a thesis of what can be considered the main political goals of Russia in the Mddle East, to wit: promotion of infl uence in the region by participating in the settlement of Middle East confl icts; assistance in the creation of a regional security system; and the creation of a favorable environment for the realization of economic interests in the region.

This article uses archival materials stored under a seal of secrecy during the Soviet period to examine factors that contributied to the rapprochement of Turkey and Bolshevik Russia after the First World War. The author points out that the Entente conducted military operations against Bolshevik Russia and Turkey, and that Russia’s security would have been seriously threatened if the Entente proved victorious in Asia Minor. The existence of independent states in the South Caucasus separated Russia and Turkey, which were fi ghting against the Entente. A victory of the Entente countries would strengthen their infl uence in both the South Caucasus and the North Caucasus, where serious anti-Soviet uprisings continued, and lead to the establishment of control over the Caspian Sea and passage through Central Asia. An invasion of Central Asia meant control over Eurasia, which was considered the center of the world. The Entente countries, having turned Poland into an enemy of Bolshevik Russia, tried to “strangle the Soviet government in its cradle,” regarding its existence as an obstacle to the realization of political, economic, fi nancial and other interests. As long as the Bosphorus and Dardanelles remained under the control of the Entente, which could freely enter the Black Sea, and Crimea was in the hands of White General Wrangel, Turkey could not be secure and Bolshevik Russia could not feel safe in Ukraine and the South Caucasus.

This article is devoted to the study of mutual perceptions of power in Russia and the other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The purpose of the study is to identify the key features of the image of the power of Russia among residents of the other EAEU countries and the power images of each of these other Union member states among residents of Russia. Toward this end the author highlights the formation of a problematic fi eld of perception of power in the Eurasian space and the adaptation of various theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of its image. The research methodology employed for the article includes focus interviews. To interpret the data, qualitative methods with quantitative elements are used, in particular methods for encoding and scaling answers to open questions. The results of the study make it possible to identify the features of mutual perception of power in the minds of citizens of Russia and countries participating in Eurasian integration, to track the impact of individual political and psychological factors on the formation of images of power, and to record their diff erences among residents of each country separately.

This article examines the development of the Russian concept of politics during the period in which the modern Russian literary language was emerging. The semantic analysis is based on dictionary entries, translations, government publications and journalistic writings that dealt with the topic of the political. Russia’s political vocabulary expanded and became more diff erentiated over the course of the 18th century. The traditional term “state matters” (gosudarstvennye dela) was supplemented by the foreign term “politika” and its derivatives, and Aristotelian and Machiavellian semantics of politics entered into Russian discourse. This adoption signalled the orientation of elite discourses towards Western categories of thought and Russia’s membership among the nations of Europe. This article presents the specifi c semantic contexts that were created through this transfer and the lexical means that were used in Russian to talk about the domain of politics.