Articles

This article offers an analysis of the reasons, character and historical lessons of the 1917 revolution in Russia. A century after the fact, these issues not only remain relevant, but are in fact at the center of current theoretical and political discussions. Despite the multiplicity of conspiratorial interpretations of the Russian revolution, the defining factor in understanding its meaning remains the identification of its objective conditions, systemic contradictions, the logic of the political process in the country, and the nature of the ideas held by the leading political forces of ways to reconcile the nation’s pressing political and social transfigurations. This was the reason for the revolution’s abrupt and dramatic course. Despite all the ambiguity of the historical consequences of the Russian revolution, it became a truly epoch-making event that has had a tremendous impact on the destiny not only of Russia, but of the entire world.

A round table titled “Russian Society and State Authority after the Parliamentary Elections” was held at the end of October 2016 at Lomonosov Moscow State University; the event was jointly organized by the university’s Sociology and Psychology Program (Political Science Department), the Russian Political Science Society and the Center for Socio-Political Projects and Communications. At the round table leading experts from the fields of political science, sociology, psychology, history and journalism discussed the results of the latest Russian election campaign (for the State Duma’s VII convocation, 2016-2021); their influence on the development of the political process before Russia’s presidential election in 2018; and emerging trends in the public consciousness of the political elites and the citizenry of modern Russia.

This collective article examines the distinctive features of election campaigns in contemporary Russia using analytical research drawn from the Russian legislative elections of 2016 (the State Duma’s VII convocation); the authors also formulate practical recommendations for politicians participating in future electoral cycles. The necessity of creating effective tools for campaigning lead the authors to pay particular attention to developments in modern political science and to promising technologies that are currently not sufficiently used in Russia — particularly social networks, the problem-targeted approach, SWOT analysis and PEST analysis. The group’s research was presented at a political science department competition on the resolution of political cases held on May 16, 2016 by the department of political science at Lomonosov Moscow State Unversity.

Siam (Thailand) is one of the few countries that retained its independence during the colonial period. This is largely due to the efforts of Siamese King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868–1910), who took serious diplomatic steps to neutralize the expansionist designs of France and Britain. In particular, he fostered the formation of a trusting relationship with the Tsarevich Grand Duke Nicholas, who became the Russian Emperor Nicholas II. During their two meetings — in Siam in 1891 and in 1897 in Russia — the two rulers stressed their “spiritual kinship.” Because of this, European countries were forced to negotiate with King Chulalongkorn as a monarch equal in status to European rulers, and the Russian government can be credited with assisting Siam in defending its independence.

This article investigates the structural bases of historical memory as a purposeful production of political mythologization. On the basis of a theoretical review of the concepts of collective and historical memory, the authors develop a methodology for describing the structural components and dynamics of a state’s historical politics that make it possible to identify the key myths used in building a political identity for the community and constructing a sociopolitical reality for the mythologem. The article demonstrates that the democratic institutions of modern states rely on the symbolic potential of political myth in the implementation of the discourse of legitimation based on the resource of history and collective memories inscribed in the mythscape of the national community. The authors further elaborate the experience of applying mythmaking in the structure of the symbolic policy of the state.

This article focuses on issues related to the study of the characteristics of the application of contemporary mass Internet communication technologies in order to create a virtual social and political reality. In the critical analysis of classical concepts of the Internet as a free space communication. It showcased the technology used in the processes of virtualization concepts of mass socio-political reality. As a result of research work concluded that the virtualization process of modern political management particularly vivid expression obtained in the Internet space in which was formed a powerful arsenal of tools and technology substitution of real objects, processes and phenomena of their distorted virtual models. Functional and semantic load in terms of coverage of virtualization and modern political space has been steadily transferred to the virtual space, which by virtue of its originally-designed publicity direct impact on the formation of mass political values, meanings, world views and understanding of the political reality. This formed the political representation in the majority of cases are significantly biased towards real political reality, however, they act as true for society.

This article presents an applied model for assessing political stability in the regions of the Russian Federation that was periodically used in practice during the period 2011–2016. The model assumes that a dangerous (critical) violation of the regional equilibrium, which is identifiable with stability, is observed in cases when regional structures of executive power (represented by the head of the region and his administration) lose control over five key resources: administrative, legal, economic, social, information and interpersonal. On the basis of the model under examination, the author offers some recommendations for improving regional policy in modern Russia and optimizing the administrative techniques used by state authority.

In December 2016, the Program on Comparative Politics and the Program on International Relations and Integration Processes of the Political Science Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University held a round table devoted to the analysis of regional processes in the conditions of current world development. Teachers and graduate students of two programs took part in the round table. During the discussion, a broad range of issues was covered, both in terms of geographical scope (from Africa and Latin America to the Middle East and the Caspian Sea region) and the substance of the issues under consideration (from the risks of integration processes and regional security to the role of the expert community and the cooperative potential of professional sports). At the same time, the central theme remained the interests and values of Russia, its place and role in the ongoing processes and its relation to the development of regional interaction. Abstracts of the participants’ presentations appear below.

This article is devoted to an analysis of the theoretical correlation of two topics: the theme of the university in politics and the theme of identity politics. The author examines the academic discourse on national identity and the position of political theory, which determines the most common view on the political role of the university. Using the example of relations between the university and the state that arise in the formation of national identity, the problem of conceptual compatibility of the two topics in one study is addressed. This problem arises if the researcher examines the role of the university in politics from the position dominant in modern political theory and represents it in most cases only as an object of politics. A solution to the problem, as demonstrated in the article, is possible via revision of the dominant theoretical approaches to the theme of the university in politics and to the topic of identity politics and the discourse of national identity.

This review examines the problems and prospects for the development of the national system of educational training for political professionals in the context of the transformation of the Russian market of political activity. The study examines the logic of the main stages, the factors of the evolution of educational training for professionals working in the political sphere, then analyzes the conformity of the content of educational standards and programs in the field of political science and related areas to the changing demands of the national market of political professions. Attention is paid to the consideration of significant domestic conceptual developments that characterize the key niches of relevant labor activity in the innovative process of the Russian market of political professions, and to analysis of the socio-political context of the transformation of the activities of political specialists in the country. The authors identify, problematize and systematically characterize the tendency of increasing the practical orientation of the national system of political science education, its gradual approach to the requirements of the labor market and the demands of the state and society at the current turbulent stage of Russia’s development.