Articles

The article examines various approaches to defining the concept of a ‘minor party’ and its characteristics within the current configuration of the party system in the Russian Federation. The author proposes a set of criteria for classifying a political party as a minor party and provides a historical overview of the functioning of minor parties in the Russian Federation’s party system, tracking changes in their number and configuration. Within the broader category of minor political parties, the author suggests a clustering approach based on the historical and genetic features of their emergence. Additionally, the article analyzes the survival and operational strategies of minor parties, as well as their forms of electoral participation. In conclusion, the author argues that minor political parties can become long-term and, in their own way, effective political projects, provided they achieve localized successes within their niche segments of the electoral landscape.

The article presents the conceptualization of contemporary electoral practices in the subject field of modern political science. The author considers the practice of introducing remote electronic voting as the most recent form of expression of citizens’ will and a direct element of the development of e-government in the Russian Federation in the context of large-scale digitalization of socio-political life. The main research areas of Russian authors are determined, key trends in the development of digital technologies in the political process and the electoral sphere are analyzed. The author also raises the issue of ensuring citizens’ trust in the remote electronic voting system, and examines associated risks in the context of international tension. The point about the need for the participation of Russian researchers and practitioners in conducting comprehensive interdisciplinary studies of contemporary electoral practices in order to counteract the negative effects of external information pressure is expressed.

The value of a personality, its socio-political role is a kind of indicator of the constitutional and legal status of the state as an institution that establishes and regulates a system of social relations and legal norms. Based on the analysis of a short period of Russian history, the article reveals the patterns of formation of scientific and axiological approaches of leading Russian liberal thinkers to the problem of the relationship between the individual and the state. Within the framework of the liberal discourse of Russian political thought, this topic was widely discussed in the middle of the 19th century due to its close contact with Western European culture and the introduction of liberal views and ideas into the socio-political life of the country. As is known, in classical liberalism, the rights and freedoms of an individual form the basis of legal definitions of the state and economic order, society being built on the assertion of civil liberties. Russian liberalism throughout the 19th century was characterized by a complex and sometimes contradictory understanding of individual liberty and the problem of interaction between the individual and the state: a person as a sovereign individual and at the same time as a subordinate part of the public-state space. These problems were the focus of attention of the leading thinkers and scholars of the period, united by the desire to consider an individual in his sovereign personal integrity, inscribed in the organic unity of a large sociocultural circle — the state.

The article describes the normative model of Russian statehood developed by the authors, which reflects the ideal state of the system, taking into account its historical and present content. The historical component is manifested in the fact that the model includes axiological constants of Russian statehood in their traditional meaning identified by researchers of socio-political thought. The part corresponding to the present is based on the current value orientations of mass consciousness, as well as the values declared at the moment in regulatory legal acts. The essence of normativity is largely embedded in its orientation to the future, since this is where a certain ideal state of statehood is located. The model is presented in the form of a triangular pyramid, at the base of which are values rooted in philosophy, religion and psychology of people: life, faith, knowledge, traditions. The top of the pyramid is a social ideal, represented by the value of silence / peace. The inner space of the pyramid is the value orientations of Russian society, and the edges represent instrumental values regulating relations at the political, social and personal levels. The proposed model expands the possibilities of conceptual understanding of the traditional axiological foundations of Russian statehood and modern political processes.

The article focuses on two important problems for contemporary Russian political science: the problem of understanding the concept of ‘statehood’ and the problem of building a model of Russian statehood. In the first case, the various points of view existing in Russian social and humanitarian knowledge are considered in detail, and on the basis of the Russian traditionalist conservative methodology, an original understanding of statehood as a stable axiological complex of spiritual and political principles is proposed. In the second case, based on the axiological nature of statehood, the research potential and limitations of possible modeling of statehood in general and Russian statehood in particular are clearly shown. At the same time, new methodological approaches have been developed that seem to allow continuing work on the development of normative and historical models of Russian statehood.

Political transformations, institutional changes in higher education, paradigm shifts, changes in disciplinary matrices, scientific networks, space and language of science contributed to the non-linear development of political science in Russia and prevented the formation of a metanarrative about the history of Russian political science. As shown by the conducted study, as well as the study of the history of
political science in other countries, such a metanarrative can only be created on the basis of the principles of historicism and contextualism. A significant contribution to the successive development of this discipline was made by scholarly and educational institutions specializing in the production of political knowledge and training professionals in this field. The corresponding infrastructure began to form in Russia at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries. At the same time, a key role was played by universities serving the production and transfer of political knowledge, academization of political research, professionalization of political specialties. Using the example of Moscow University, several lines of development of political education are traced in the article: the evolution of disciplinary forms of political science, educational infrastructure and processes of circulation of political knowledge. The institutionalization of political science led to the establishment in 2008 of the Faculty of Political Science at Lomonosov Moscow State University, which continues to play an important role in ensuring continuity in the field of political studies and political education in Russia.

This article is based on the definition of politics as a specific type of activity by actors (officials, professional politicians, and the ruling political elite) concerning power, its acquisition, and retention through methods and technologies legitimized by society through accessible expression of will on the one hand, and as a system of interactions between the state (power) and society (its organizations, institutions and individuals) — on the other. In this work, public policy is understood as a political course, legally and legitimately implemented by institutions of state power, which defines the target objectives alongside with the value foundations of specific areas of activity administration. At the same time, the character and features of the functioning of a particular state and society, as well as the content of the policies being implemented, are determined primarily by their civilizational foundations.
Based on an analysis of the current situation related to the functioning of contemporary states, the authors have made a conclusion that these states have lost their original pro-social nature and orientation toward public good achievement. This work argues that the prolonged transformation of the substantive and functional characteristics of state systems and institutions has led to the formation of the state’s own self-sufficient hierarchies, goals, values and interests, which often not only ignore and contradict public interests, values and goals but also have a distinctly antisocial character. Political elite capturing public policy leads to a deep crisis in the state-society interactions system and negative consequences for social development. The article places particular emphasis on the state’s use of modern digital technologies and algorithms, which predominantly act as new tools for manipulating public consciousness, covertly appropriating power, and legitimizing such appropriation, leading to a form of “comfortable totalitarianism.”

The article is devoted to identifying the features of Russia as a state of civilization, its inherent system of political and spiritual ideas and values. The emphasis is on the contemporary sound of this concept, its role in upholding the national sovereignty of Russia, its correlation with the general historical imperatives of social development. On the eve of the 270th anniversary of Moscow University, attention is also drawn to the ongoing development of the problems of civilizational characteristics of Russia by political scientists of Moscow State University, who have always sharply opposed the view of Russia as a meaningless geographical space that can be filled with any economic, political, mental form, for whom today the main thing is to rely on domestic traditions, consistently uphold national interests, and create nationally oriented schools in science and education.