Articles

In this article the author examines the process of formation of a regional political order during the 17th–20th centuries in the territories whose population adhered (and adheres) to the traditions of Mahayana Buddhism. Analyzing the process of statehood formation in Bhutan, Tibet and Khalkha-Mongolia, the article traces the infl uence of Buddhism on the formation of state institutions and the determination of the head of state — the monarch. A provisional conclusion is advanced to the eff ect that, unlike the Theravada tradition, the monarch could fulfi ll both the role of head of state and the functions of a spiritual leader. This appeared particularly rational in Tibet, which since the middle of the 17th century was ruled by the Dalai Lamas. The institution pf the Dalai Lamas, which arose in the Gelug School of Buddhism, envisioned in the Lamas the embodiment of the Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, which organically fi t into the concept of theocratic power. At the same time, a civil administration was created in both Bhutan and Tibet, with powers corresponding to its status. The transfer of supreme power was associated with reincarnation, which subsequently caused serious problems and created political crises. The stabilization and achievement of the peak of power of Tibetan statehood is associated with the name of the Dalai Lama XIII, who, fl eeing the invasion by British troops, hid for two years in Khalkha-Mongolia and thereby ensured the legitimacy of the supreme power of Bogd Gegeen VIII, who became the last Great Khan of Mongolia after the fall of the Qing Empire. In 1912 an agreement was concluded between the two monarchs, and the tendency toward the rule of Buddhism in the region, not only in the spiritual but also in the secular sphere, was dubbed pan-Buddhism. The author also cites data on polities that did not receive full development: the Kudun state within one of the Buryat aimaks in 1919 and the theocratic movement in the Khorchin lands of Inner Mongolia in the 1930s. The article concludes that despite its significant encompassment of the population, Buddhism did not become a driving force that would compete with the two leading powers of the region — Soviet Russia and the Japanese Empire — which maintained more radical views on the political order in the region and more eff ective tools for its construction.

This article analyzes the diff erences between legal and political approaches to the defi nition of the content of the category “subject of the electoral process.” The purpose of the article is to operationalize this category from the perspective of political science. The regulatory-legal approach prevailing in Russian political science does not allow for analysis of the political strategies of all possible participants of electoral interactions. The author proposes to understand the electoral process as part of the political process, and presents its subjects as agents implementing their own strategies. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the neo-institutional approach, which allows us to consider the political process as a system of interactions among diff erent actors in the electoral space.

This article is devoted to the study of the evolution of humanitarian discourse in the nations of the West after the Second World War. Analyzing the transformation of approaches to the interpretation of human rights, human security and development presented in the program documents and political practice of the European Union countries and the USA, the author addresses the relationship between the politicization of humanitarian discourse and the universalization of the Western political identity.