Articles

The article is devoted to the problem of conceptualizing the concepts of “stateness” and “state sovereignty”, revealing the structure of the factors of stateness and the essence of state sovereignty. The study is based on a system-organic vision of the nature, existence and development of the state as a single and integral sociopolitical organism, and not as a state machine. It is shown that the socio-political organism of the state can be considered as an autopoietic system capable of its own reproduction.
The identification of the factors of stateness and the essence of sovereignty by the author is based on the achievements of modern researchers of the problem, on the causal methodology of Aristotelian organicism and the doctrine of the essence of Hegel, which made it possible to determine the structure and meaning of the four grounds-factors (aitions), to reveal the essence of state sovereignty. As a result, within the framework of the teleological approach, the acting, ideal, material and target factors are formulated as key aspects of statehood that determine the statics and dynamics of the existence and development of the state.
The presence of autopoietic properties of the state made it possible to propose a relational model of the socio-historical process of state life, in which three, mutually conditioned, organic functions, in a causally closed loop, cyclically provide the metabolism (self-maintenance) of state, self-restoration of stateness and selfreproduction of state power.

The article reveals the problems associated with the conceptualization of the term “populism” in the scientific community, the definition of its main characteristics, the use of populist practices in the political process, their manifestations in electoral campaigns. Particular attention is paid to the task of studying the perception and understanding of populism, the specifics of populist practices, and the peculiarities of political rhetoric during the election campaign for the State Duma of the 8th convocation on the territory of Moscow, both from the side of power and pro-government structures, and from the side of the systemic and non-systemic opposition. The article presents and analyzes the results of an expert survey conducted by the author among representatives of the professors at the leading universities in Moscow, the capital’s local government bodies, and acting political strategists.

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of biopolitical approaches to the study of urban governance on the example of the works by M. Foucault, B. Latour, J. Jacobs and J. Scott, and also assesses the possibility of applying these approaches in practice. For example, the idea of M. Foucault on the relationship between the organization of the urban environment and power practices allows modeling decision-making algorithms, that makes possible to influence the forms of behavior and life of the population, including through the structure of urban space. B. Latour’s observations on the ability of scientific constructs to transform the real order of things convince us to use prescriptive models in the formation of a desirable trend for the further development of urban spaces. J. Jacobs and J. Scott pointed out the need to take into account the habitual daily routine of the population, which helps to introduce flexibility and variability into management practices. The biopolitical view allows us to bring together the three considered approaches and use them both to study the biopolitical aspect of urban governance and to implement biopolitics.

The article analyzes “discourse” as one of the key notions founding the formation of biopolitical concepts represented in M. Foucault’s and S. Žižek’s works. The main purposes of the article are determining the features of the discourse as a political and philosophical notion rooted as such because of Foucault’s research; grounding the point, according to which the conceptualization of the “biopolitics” notion is tightly linked to the development of the “discourse” notion; comparing the approaches to defining biopolitics represented in M. Foucault’s and S. Žižek’s works. The methods of the present research include historic and comparative approaches. A conceptual analysis plays an important role as well. This method helps not just in explaining the conceptions of the discourse and biopolitics, but demonstrate their natural connection in this research problematics. The article concludes that discursive nature of biopolitics as a concept developing from the second part of the XX century in the western political thought is absolutely evident. On the one hand, the discourse is a sphere of biopolitical practices, on the other hand, it is a source of their formations. This thesis is illustrated by comparing the biopolitical concepts of M. Foucault and S. Žižek. Nevertheless, being rather similar to each other, the approaches represented in the discussed authors’ works are different in terms of terminology used.

“What Is to Be Done?” is one of the most famous political novels of the 19th century. For a long time, Russian science has been dominated by the view that the novel contains a call for revolution. This article attempts to prove that the novel “What Is to Be Done?” is not a call to action, it is a reflection on possible scenarios for the development of the country. The main text of the novel is a set of behavioral models for young raznochinets. These models are designed for peaceful life in the capitalist society of autocratic Russia. But, in addition, Chernyshevsky hints at the possibility of a revolutionary scenario. If the government will refuse liberal reforms, suppresses dissent, prevent young people from building new economic relations, the answer will be a revolution.

The reign of Tsar Peter I Alekseevich is a special period in Russian history. Undoubtedly, the reforms of Peter I became the most important stage in the history of Russia. Peter the Great is one of the few Russian sovereigns who officially spoke about his political ideology, and at the legislative level presented a detailed explanation of the tasks he set for the country. The laws, written personally by Peter I or prepared with his direct participation, represented a kind of project of the future structure of the Russian state, the fundamental principles of the new establishment of all areas of life of Russian society. It is in his legislation that Peter the Great fully appears as an interesting political thinker who, based on ancient political traditions, introduced ideological innovations into the political life of the country.

The article analyzes the process of state-building during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible and its influence on the vectors of further political development of Russia. The authors applied methodological principles of the world-system analysis and civilizational analysis. The article shows that the development of the Russian State during the reign of Ivan IV is carried out in the paradigm of extensiveness, military and commercial expansion. Along with the Byzantine heritage, the Russian state also inherited the Golden Horde, primarily due to the inclusion of spaces that were previously integrated into the logic of the general imperial development of the Golden Horde. In the western direction during this period, despite the stalemate in the Livonian War, the Russian State was increasing its interaction with European countries (primarily with Britain), but thanks to the policy of Ivan IV, Russia did not become the periphery of the emerging capitalist world economy. Numerous challenges of the state-building process led to the formation of a highly centralized model of political government, which possessed a set of characteristic features and maintained continuity with the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

This paper is a conceptual development of the study of worldview as a term and a social phenomenon. The work refers to the existing concepts of ‘worldview’ and its structure, reveals the actual features of the public and expert perception of related categories (‘ideology’, ‘myth’, ‘utopia’), and also suggests directions for the development of the existing academic discourse related to research in an extremely important problem field. The structure of the worldview is described through the pentabasis model, which makes it possible to build value connections between the elements of the worldview (‘person’, ‘ family’, ‘society’, ‘state’, ‘country’) and identify the principles that correspond to these value connections. The final part of the article describes the institutional framework of the pentabasis, which consists of a system of symbols, ideas, rules, practices and rituals. This approach outlines a possible direction for the development of the existing academic discourse and will allow further verification of fundamental hypotheses related to the key worldview guidelines of Russian society, its value matrix and the possible institutional framework of the latter. The pentabasis model can be in demand to formulate a proposals focused on applied public governance decisions.

Nikolai Chernyshevsky is one of the most prominent radical thinkers of the 19th century. This article attempts to answer two questions. First, can Chernyshevsky be considered a revolutionary? The second is whether the novel “What Is to Be Done?” is propaganda of the revolution? In Soviet times, the dominant point of view was that the novel contains a call for revolution. In the post-Soviet period, the point of view began to dominate that Chernyshevsky was not a revolutionary, but a reformer. And the novel contains a call for peaceful activity. According to the author, both positions are incorrect. They characterize the need of readers of different epochs to see Chernyshevsky as a revolutionary or reformer. Chernyshevsky does not propagandize in the novel “What Is to Be Done?” peaceful development or revolution, the novel is a reflection on possible scenarios for the development of the country.

The article discusses the connection between literature and politics on the example of Aleksandr S. Pushkin (1799–1837). Already the first poetic works by Pushkin reflect his civic thought and ideas about the rule of law. An analysis of his works of fiction and non-fiction shows that he used scholarly and literary approaches for the analysis of Russia’s past and the assessment of existing problems. He denied schematism in the interpretation of the past, advocated progress based on the wise ruling the country, citizenship, and patriotism of the people, supported the idea of reforms leading to the elimination of serfdom and the autocracy, but his good and visionary advice was not heard. On the contrary, he was sent into exile, first to the south, then to Mikhailovskoye. After his release from exile in 1826, he was under police surveillance. The historical role of his works lies in the fact that he played a significant role in the growth of national consciousness and public interest in politics.