Articles

This article focuses on corruption cases in the area of military-technological cooperation between India and other countries in the context of Indian political development from 1947 to the present. Among the biggest scandals that changed the political landscape of the nation were the cases of HDW and Bofors (both 1987), “Operation West End” (2001), Scorpene (2006) and AgustaWestland (2014). All of these contributed to political crises and aff ected the balance of political forces in India. The struggle against corruption has been and continues to be complicated by the fact that strong ties have emerged between government, business and the armed forces over the years of Indian independence. At the same time, in modern conditions politicians fi nd it increasingly diffi cult to hide their participation in corruption schemes thanks, on the one hand, to the increased capabilities of the media and public organizations and, on the other, to competition within political elites.

This article discusses the concept of global design in the USSR, focusing on the Soviet artistic futurology of the 1950s that contrasted Soviet ideals — the “Soviet man,” the Soviet system of interpersonal relations and ideas about communist society — with individualistic ideals of the Western type. Using the example of the novel “The Nebula of Andromeda” (1957) by Ivan Antonovich Efremov, the author examines the value foundations of ideal design — anthropological, ethical and ontological — that correspond to the level of a person, to interpersonal relations and to society as a whole. Efremov set himself the task of modeling the political system of the future and determining the ways in which it would be formed. The writer’s political project exists at the intersection of the interests of government and society, refl ecting both the offi cial guidelines of the Central Committee of the CPSU ( formulated in the text of the third party program of 1961) and the hopes of society inspired by scientifi c and technical romanticism.

This article describes the mechanism of the behind-the-scenes displacement of N. V. Podgorny from the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to facilitate the installation in that position of L. I. Brezhnev. First Podgorny received 56 negative votes at a Kharkov Regional Party Conference; then at the XXV Congress of the CPSU (February 24 — March 5, 1976) he lost his post. The displacement was carried out by a troika of fi rst secretaries of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee of the party from diff erent periods who, over time, came to occupy time major posts in the party and the state: L. I. Brezhnev, A. P. Kirilenko and V. V. Scherbitsky. These three personally developed the removal operation and carried it out indirectly through a narrow circle of proxies, bypassing the offi cial procedures for resolving personnel issues that existed then in the party.

This article presents the fi rst study of special electoral bodies that combine the functions of electoral administration and the highest court in the consideration of electoral disputes. Using cross-case analysis, the author examines the functional experience of electoral tribunals in 17 countries of the world. Distinctions between electoral tribunals and election commissions and electoral courts are discussed. The phenomenon of the electoral tribunal is characterized as historically the fi rst and most radical form of realization of the idea of the autonomy of electoral management. In terms of scope and concentration of powers, electoral tribunals are the strongest electoral bodies. Formally having the status of a fourth branch of government in some countries, the electoral tribunal actually violates the principle of separation of powers in a system of public administration of elections. The lack of opportunity to appeal against the actions of the supreme electoral body is a source of internal political tension and prevents the electoral tribunal from gaining recognition from international organizations.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of “hybrid wars” and “hybrid threats” in the context of military-political strategies of the USA and through the lens of military, political and informational environment between Russia and the West. The authors note that there is no common approach among foreign military experts to understanding the problem. Some of them view Russia as a state that has created its own “hybrid war” strategy, and assume that “hybrid threats” to sovereign states posed by Moscow are real, while others reject as erroneous the assumption that Russia has created and pursued a “hybrid strategy” in a purposeful way. The authors conclude that, in the absence of a clear and consistent defi nition of these phenomena, the understanding of “hybrid wars” and “hybrid threats” depends on ideological perception of international political processes and experts’ interpretation of relations between Russia and the West.

Development of contemporary informational society embraces all the spheres of human social activities. The sphere of military-political interaction traditionally rested beyond the framework of mainstream in the communications system and included a number of specifi c rules, forms and rituals that served as a sort of guarantees from a destabilizing infl uence of propaganda upon foreign policy decision-making process. But the development of the technologies of integrated communications that are based upon the ability for unlimited transformation of a digitalized content together with the potential of instanteneous and nearly simultaneous impact upon the primary audiences, including decision-makers, creates a new model for the infi ltration and mutual infl uence information society and the sphere of international security. Now we witness active diff usion of the social and technological specifi cs of contemporary integrated communications into the areas of foreign policy and military-political interaction. This is an objective trend but in creates serious new challenges. And the results of their implementation are yet to be understood completely. But at this point it is already clear that their infl uence go far beyond classic propaganda and use of informational manipulation technologies in the military confl icts. A new socio-political phenomenon emerges and it has a potential to alter the specifi cs and algorithms of employment of the key institutes of international security.