Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2018. 6.

This article is devoted to the study of the evolution of humanitarian discourse in the nations of the West after the Second World War. Analyzing the transformation of approaches to the interpretation of human rights, human security and development presented in the program documents and political practice of the European Union countries and the USA, the author addresses the relationship between the politicization of humanitarian discourse and the universalization of the Western political identity.

This article analyzes the diff erences between legal and political approaches to the defi nition of the content of the category “subject of the electoral process.” The purpose of the article is to operationalize this category from the perspective of political science. The regulatory-legal approach prevailing in Russian political science does not allow for analysis of the political strategies of all possible participants of electoral interactions. The author proposes to understand the electoral process as part of the political process, and presents its subjects as agents implementing their own strategies. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the neo-institutional approach, which allows us to consider the political process as a system of interactions among diff erent actors in the electoral space.

This article addresses a number of acutely debatable issues related to the terminology, defi nition of the subject, the subject itself, the tasks and the principles of ethnopolitics. When considering the terminological aspects of ethnopolitical discourse, primary attention is paid to the use of the terms “nationality policy” and “ethnopolitics.” Based on an analysis of the fi eld and the subject of ethnopolitics, the author concludes that giving ethnic groups the status of full-fl edged political subjects leads to the dismantling of the civil and political unity of the nationality group. The article’s fi nal section discusses some examples of the typological approach to the models of ethnopolitics. The author demonstrates the lack of validity of a dichotomy of traditionalist and modernist projections of ethnopolitics, as well as the need to adjust the concept of “ethnic regimes.”

This article deals with the policy of national-territorial division of the Central Asian republics pursued by the Bolsheviks. The analysis of these events is very important, yet assessments of them have been ambiguous from the standpoint of political situations arising in the current period. Border confl icts related to the structure of settlement of various nationalities in Central Asia have occurred very frequently. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the motives and objectives of the political initiative that divided the territory and peoples of the Soviet east. The author also treats the question of the development of a national idea by the Bolsheviks within the new multinational nation during the fi rst stages of the consolidation of the Soviet power. In a situation involving the coexistence of diff erent nationalities in one state, there is a need for a common strategy to create favorable living conditions for the entire population. During the Soviet period, the aim of the Party was to build a homogeneous classless Communist society. The justifi cation of party leaders was reduced to this model. The delimitation of the republics could partially solve this problem.

This article analyzes Soviet and Japanese ideas of the phenomenon of buff er statehood. Russia (and later the USSR) and Japan were the main players in the international arena of northeast Asia in the fi rst half of the 20th century, and it is these countries which built up a chain of buff er states that were designed, on the one hand, to ensure their presence in the region and, on the other hand, to protect them from potential military threats. For Soviet Russia, the Far Eastern Republic, which existed in 1920–1922 with capitals in Verkhneudinsk (currently Ulan-Ude) and Chita, acted as an eff ective tool that successfully served these ends in the majority of the territory of the modern Far Eastern Federal District. For Japan, attempts to form a buff er state in the territory of Siberia remained at the planning level, while the policy for the occupied regions of northeast China proved to be more successful. The occupation of Manchuria and the creation of the “ideal state” of Manchukuo, the formation of buff er autonomies in 1935–1937 on the territory of northern and eastern China, and consolidation of the buff er states n 1940 into the alternative “Republic of China” allowed the Japanese to work out in practice a model of military and economic presence which was then extended to other Asian regions that were in their zone of occupation.

This article presents an analysis of the interaction and cooperation of diff erent states in the Arctic region. The author examines the relationship between polar changes and the increase in geopolitical and geo-economic importance of the Arctic and, as a consequence, the increased interest in the region. Particular attention is paid to the fact that the clash of interests of diff erent states is a clash of diff erent environmental, economic and geopolitical approaches. The latter leads to complications in the search for common interests and the construction of models for their coordination in order to develop mutually benefi cial cooperation and minimize the risks of confl ict situations in this part of the world. The methodological basis of the research consists of analysis and synthesis, description and explanation, the dialectical approach, systematic and comparative analysis, and forecasting. The main conclusion of the study is that climate change and energy resources in the region are leading to increased geopolitical, economic and environmental activity, and as a consequence, closer cooperation in the economic, political and environmental spheres is likely to continue in the future to support the domestic economy and the local environment.

This article analyzes the dynamics of the development of Catholic political doctrine. The author considers the features of its periodization and proposes to classify the key periods of the formation of the political doctrine of the Catholic Church based on its substantive evolution. Describing the specifi cs of each stage, the author demonstrates that the development of Catholic political doctrine is a consistent process of elaborating and codifying the position of the Catholic Church regarding key issues of socio-political and economic organization.

The article deals with the main features of the development of state and church relations in modern Russia, discussions about the current model of state and church relations in our country. It is concluded that modern society has worked out a balance in the communication of secular and spiritual power, based on dialogue and cooperation, which is the most important guarantee of social and political stability and the provision of proper conditions for state building. It is emphasized that the established model of state and church relations in modern Russia is cooperative, within which the state and the church are treated as equal partners.

The dying away of the world of the Modern in today’s Western countries and the triumph in them of postmodern principles are in fact the main source of the weakness of European civilization., generating advancing trends of Countermodernism and archaism. This variant of European civilization is demonstrating genuine powerlessness in the protection of its basic values. But that does not mean that this historical tendency should be abandoned in favor of other mythical paths of development that run counter to the Countermodern and barbarization. It only means that it is necessary to look for and off er a diff erent version of Modernism — an altermodern or a supermodern — that is able to bring new life to European civilization, fi ll it with a new reading and feeling of basic European values that can give progress a new impetus, making it strong enough to withstand not only the forceful but also the semantic challenge of the forces that have adopted post-terorism today.