Articles

Paradoxically both leading parties of Canada — Liberal and Conservative — can consider themselves “winners” in the 43rd Canadian general election: the Liberals remained the ruling party, while the Conservatives signifi cantly increased their representation in the House of Commons. At the same time, almost all parties in Canada feel like losers, as no one has fully achieved their goals. The 2019 election showed a continuing (if not intensifying) rift and confrontation between the eastern provinces that vote mostly for Liberals (along with British Columbia), and predominantly Conservative-supporting western Canada. The 2019 election again brought to the forefront of public debate the question of the principles of Canada’s electoral system — single-member plurality voting (“first-past-the-post”), now almost 150 years in use — and the prospects for reforming it to refl ect greater proportionality. It can be assumed that the elections of 2019 in Canada will be followed by a rather long “respite,” during which the Liberal minority government will be forced to cooperate with the offi cial opposition and with other political parties to pass the necessary bills. It will take a long time for the Сonservative Party to mobilize its forces in order to more successfully challenge the ruling Liberals in the next election.

This article provides a comparative analysis of the strategic attitudes of modern radical left parties towards participation in government. Using the example of two radical left parties — the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) and the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which were major parties in the coalition governments in Cyprus (2008–2013) and Greece (2015–2019), respectively — the author examines the factors that led them to government participation and analyzes their experience and subsequent political fates after the end of their term in offi ce. The study shows that the experience of government participation by radical left parties in terms of their electoral results and political achievements can be ranked from negative to catastrophic. The real infl uence of the radical left parties on the government policy was minimal; at best they managed to achieve only moderate social democratic reforms, while any truly radical transformation of society was negated. The radical left parties have not yet resolved the issue of how to implement their declared anti-neoliberal program, taking into account not only the balance of forces within a country, but also the need to overcome the restrictions imposed by the complex institutional frameworks of the European Union, the Eurozone and the WTO.

This study is devoted to problematic aspects in the implementation of the Russian politics of memory. The methodological basis of the work is a descriptive analysis of expert interviews. The eff ectiveness of the politics of memory is evaluated by the experts from a pragmatic point of view: its main tasks are seen as the creation of a positive Russian image in the domestic and foreign policy arenas; the formation and strengthening of nation-state identity; and the consolidation of Russian society. Attempts to use politics of memory as an instrument for settling international relations via concessions are assessed negatively by the experts. The building of a national politics of memory is assumed solely on the basis of the “memory of the winners.” An appeal to a discourse on “the memory of the vanquished” is seen as a destructive approach fraught with serious political risks. Among the latter are the erosion of Russian identity; the particularization of society; the growth of social anomie; and an increase in the infl uence of political and religious radicals. The article further emphasizes the principal “sore points” of Russian politics of memory: its opportunistic nature; the controversial, complex nature of the content side; a disregard for foreign experience; and the presence of outdated elements among the tools for infl uencing the target audience. Another problem is the presence in Russian mass culture of such patterns as the theme of the hero’s victory “in spite of the system” and the physical and moral anti-esthetics in demonstrations of “our own” [svoi] being passed off as realism.

This article provides an overview of various aspects of the relationships between political parties and social movements that form incentives, strategies and results of alliances between them. The electoral aspect describes how movements mobilize the electorate for parties. The state and political-parliamentary aspect is the provision by parties of opportunities for movements to infl uence adopted laws. The agenda and lobbying aspect is the ability of movements to pursue their interests through parties and for parties and movements to use each other to draw public attention to specifi c issues. The identity aspect is the cultivation and dissemination of social identities as a result of the union of parties and movements. The aspect of adversarial politics is the assistance of parties to movements when the latter act in the interests of the parties, but using non-parliamentary methods. The aspect of protests and “street politics” is the representation of movements by parties in parliament in exchange for representation by movements of parties on the street. The aspect of external context and crises is the assistance of movements to parties to consolidate society or completely transfer this prerogative to the movements. The aspect of the autocratic context and democratic transformations is the transformation of relations between movements and parties in autocracies, transitional regimes, and new and established democracies. These interactions are characterized by a regular exchange and “barter” of memberships, support, resources, ideas, and, of course, power between actors of varying degrees of institutionalization. The author demonstrates that such unions are sooner or later characterized by attempts of the allies to subordinate, co-opt and instrumentalize each other, to impose their own ideological and programmatic basis and structural model on one another.

This article presents some of the results of “A Study of the Political Culture of Students,” a research project carried out by scholars at the East China University of Political Science and Law. The project sought to analyze the political consciousness and culture of modern Chinese students, assessing the specifi cs and dynamics of changes in political views and ideology among young people studying in humanitarian universities. In its conclusion, the project reported that Chinese students are distinguished by a rather high degree of confi dence in the Communist Party of China and its political course toward the socialist development of the country. In the new conditions of the information age, the political consciousness and culture of Chinese students are formed under the infl uence of the Internet and have become more pluralistic and open. In the future, Chinese universities should conduct purposeful and systematic work to improve the level of political consciousness and culture among students, organizing various types of social practice for university students.

The contemporary world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the victory over fascism and the defeat of Nazi Germany as a result of World War II. The anniversary of the victory is rendered important by the need to resist active attempts to distort history, to negate the decisive role of the Soviet people and their army in defeating fascism. The Great Patriotic War has no equal in history in terms of the grandeur and intensity of the armed struggle and the eff orts expended on the home front. The decisive role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascist Germany was noted by many contemporaries, not only allies (such as Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example) but also opponents. The allies of the anti-Hitler coalition launched widespread off ensives only in the last stage of the war, when the victory was a foregone conclusion and paid for at a high price. The USSR lost 26.6 million citizens, including 8.7 million military personnel and 17.9 million ivilians. Thus it was that the Soviet people saved themselves and European civilization from destruction.

In a democratic political process, non-violent protest is an important channel of communication between civil society and the state. The growth of protest activity shows that part of the population is dissatisfi ed with the current political and economic situation, as well as with its place in the stratifi cation of society. Since 2017 there has been an increase in youth protest activity. Some protests of recent years have been accompanied by confl icts between protesters and the police, with subsequent detention of the former. This article presents the results of a sociological survey of some 600 young people, 14 to 30 years of age, conducted in Moscow schools, colleges and universities over 2018–2019. It analyzes the attitude of young people to the situation in the country, to various forms of political activity and, in particular, to protest activity and the infl uence of political ideologies and the Internet on the latter.