Articles

Alongside globalization regionalization is considered the most important socioeconomic and political process of our time. The emergence of regional studies as a new scholarly fi eld for the study of internal and external factors in the development of territorial communities was a response to the need for studying the nature of regional processes and their infl uence on many aspects of international life and international relations. In the part of the subject fi eld designated as political regionology, where internationalized actions of regional social actors are considered, this area of knowledge is closely intertwined with the problems of the regional sociology of international relations. The relevance of research in this area is determined by several factors, including the increased activity of social processes at the regional level; the emergence of new social actors reaching the regional level; a non-linearity of global processes that requires regional instruments to counter global crises; and an understanding of the signifi cance of all aspects of spatial development.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is one of the most important international institutions ensuring the protection of Central Asia. One of the key areas of its work is countering the terrorist threat. The priority issues of the CSTO are suppressing the activities of terrorist and extremist organizations, countering terrorist recruitment and countering terrorist propaganda. The purpose of this article is to identify the features of the CSTO anti-terrorism strategy, primarily in the context of ensuring security in Central Asia, and especially under the threat of the movement of militants from defeated terrorist groupings in the Middle East to the Central Asian states. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the regulatory and legal basis for the cooperation of the organization, including in the context of reconciliation of the legislation of the participating states in the fi eld of countering terrorism. In particular, the signifi cance of adopting a single list of terrorist organizations is underscored. The features of the functioning of key institutions ensuring the implementation of CSTO anti-terrorist policy, as well as permanent operations and anti-terrorist exercises are considered in detail. The author comes to the conclusion that the CSTO has established itself as an eff ective mechanism for countering terrorism. However, there remains a need to work out such activities as countering the fi nancing of terrorism and combating the propaganda of terrorist ideology.

The purpose of the article is to consider the theoretical problems of coexistence and interaction of the culture of the titular ethnic group and the cultures of ethnic minorities in the national state. To this purpose the author analyzes the phenomenon of the national state in a historical aspect, uses sociological data, and also analyzes international treaties, analyzes various points of view of scientists. It is stated that the common civil (political) culture in the national state (national culture) has a supra-ethnic character and does not express the interests of any particular ethnic group, including the titular one, at the same time it replaces ethnic cultures, calling into question their full development. A number of arguments are presented in support of the existence and domination of the national culture. It is argued that the national state inevitably protects certain concepts of the good, but this should not lead to anyone’s discrimination. The author concludes that the presence of a national morally colored policy can paradoxically be combined with liberalism, in particular, if such a policy is objectively necessary for ensuring rights and freedoms. As for ethnic cultures, the author sees the fair rules of their interaction in ensuring that each of them, through deliberative procedures, can infl uence the changing national identity.

Experts claim that more than 60 states are currently developing military cyber capabilities. At the same time, there are no internationally recognized frameworks that could regulate the information and communication technology (ICT) environment as a sphere of confrontation. The purpose of this article is to fi nd an answer to the question of whether it is possible to conduct meaningful and substantive Russian-American negotiations — given the current state of relations between the two countries — on the reduction of military cyber threats and to achieve positive agreements in this area. To answer this question the authors propose to use analogies from the existing bilateral agreements in the fi eld of strategic stability. They consider three aspects pertaining to any negotiation process: 1) the subject of potential negotiations and general ideas about it; 2) the objectives of the negotiations pursued by both parties; and 3) the presence of political will. They also search for an answer as to whether it is possible to use the existing frameworks for regulation and reduction of the nuclear threat, and, if so, to what extent and in what way. Despite the fact that there is an existing positive groundwork for overcoming bilateral differences in the sphere of strategic confrontation, in the current political atmosphere it is still premature to talk about an analogous treaty between Russia and the US on the reduction of the military cyber threat. Despite this, certain steps can be taken to bring the two countries closer to the conclusion of such an agreement — for example, the resolution of issues of the practical application of international law to incidents in the ICT environment.

The digitization of all spheres of state activity and the availability of network technologies led to the development of the information society. The traditional economy began to acquire new features and forms of economic activity and began to focus on innovative development and the implementation and use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The subject area of this study required an interdisciplinary approach and work with a variety of sources. Explicative methods, the scenario-building method, a functional institutional approach and commonly accepted methods of analysis and synthesis were important for the study. An acknowledgment of the importance of the role of the digital economy is the annual increase in its share of the GDP of the developed countries of the world as well as the development of appropriate programs and initiatives within the framework of state development strategies. The BRICS countries should use their technological capabilities to appropriately digitize their economies in order to neutralize the existing gap between themselves and the most highly developed countries. This study showed that the use of modern ICT is a global trend and greatly simplifi es and automates the procedures of international trade. The BRICS countries are in fairly strong positions according to various indicators and indices of readiness for the transition to the digital economy.

This article reconstructs the logic and direction of the sanctions against Russia of a number of countries in Europe and North America. The restrictive actions of these states are a joint coordinated strategy of containing the social and economic development of Russia. At the same time, the implementation of this strategy causes serious disagreements in the political elites and societies of Western countries, creating new lines of disengagement in the fi eld of security, the development of trade, and in cultural and humanitarian relations. Sanctions policy is represented diff erently in the countries in question. The American course is focused on long-term consolidation of restrictions with respect to Russia and is part of the domestic political process of rivalry among elite groups. The European choice in this case varies across a wide range of possible scenarios: from gradual normalization of relations to building more constructive cooperation based on economic interest and, possibly, creating a common security space, to a policy of increasing tensions with escalating threats and breaking existing economic ties.

The author examines the political-philosophical and sociological aspects of the formatting of violence in international relations (IR). The study reactualizes concepts aimed at the advancement of the world community toward social justice and the absence of war based on the optimization of political and legal regulation of IR. The analysis connects the teleology of “social justice” with the functional and systemic approaches to the hierarchy of regulators of violence, which theoretically substantiates the prospects of international “pacifi cation.” The activation of the problem of progress towards social justice was stimulated in international-political theory both by the memory of the world wars and the Cold War and by modern changes in social reality — the turbulence of world politics. Such a hierarchy is an indispensable condition for overcoming the imbalances that arise in the anarchistic variety of regulators; it orders the subordination of regulatory complexes (formats) that determine the regulation of international relations.

This article addresses the issue of defi ning the determinants of electoral diff erentiation over the territory of a large city, with he city of Donetsk and the elections held in it from 1991 to 2012 used as the example. The characteristics of the electoral geography of a large city are described in detail, and the issues of their “causes” as well as markers of detected determinants are discussed. The following methods of mathematical statistics were used: the study of voting results and their comparison with socio-demographic indicators (especially with population census results) using the Pearson correlation coeffi cient; the determination coeffi cient; variance analysis ; and multiple regression analysis. The study maintains that there were two main determinants of the electoral geography of Donetsk: 1) a more signifi cant “Center — Periphery”; and 2) a less signifi cant “East — West.” In authentic elections these determinants have explained up to 99% of the variations in the main electoral indicators in the districts of the city. The demographic markers of these two determinants were the proportion of people with higher education and the ethnic composition of the population. Falsifi cation of election results causes a signifi cant decrease in the statistical reliability of the identifi ed links.