Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2020. 1.

This article examines the increasing infl uence of real practices of civic activism in online communities on the specifi cs of incorporating civic activists’ projects into the political agenda. The institutionalization of network civic activism in recent years 8 has made it possible to implement network practices into political reality, moving them to a new level of infl uence thanks to the construction of numerous inclusive horizontal connections. The fact is that global changes in the post-information society have contributed to a steady “deliverance” from communications monopolies, creating a delicate balance of state interests and the interests of society and the individual. The fi rst part of the article shows that current network communities are not a shapeless mass but clearly structured by horizontal non-hierarchical ties. The information and communication abundance of today allows actors to eff ectively apply individual and collective actions in implementing political and non-political activities. According to the author, civic activity is capable of forming important vectors of socio-political development; grass-roots mobilization of citizens is a coordinating tool of civil society and is contributing to the slow transformation of the political system in Russia.

This article off ers a review of the reports presented at the round table “Political Globalistics: Research Directions in a Context of Global Uncertainty” convened by Lomonosov Moscow State University’s Political Science Department as part of the III Congress of the Russian Society of Political Scientists (Moscow, September 10–12, 2018). Among a number of key issues considered by the participants, special attention was paid to current problems of the development of globalistics as an interdisciplinary fi eld of scholarship; the transformation of the subject area of globalistics; and new challenges facing the academic community and the role of interdisciplinary knowledge in their resolution.

This article examines the process of political transformation of social movements, the vectors and means of their evolution and the factors that determine the procedures of their changes. In historical perspective, it was the process of development of social movements that ensured the progressive development of society, its transition to a higher level of social development. The study of the problem of transformation of social movements allows us to address the questions of ensuring sustainable social development, of the role of the masses and the leadership in politics, and to determine the vector of further development of the system of social relations. The author examines the issues of internal and external determinants of the development of social movements, as well as potential forms of their further transformation. The article also examines global trends in social development and answers the question of what impact they have on the process of transformation of social movements.

This article examines aspects of the interaction between transnational elites and civil society in the modern world. The author focuses in the main on the infl uence 20 of transnational elites on organizations of the “third sector,” political parties and their leadership, and on the media. The articles sets out the principal content borne by the concepts “transnational elites” and “civil society.” The analysis shows that transnational elites tend to turn a well-developed “third sector” into an eff ective counterbalance to the national state. Thus they actively fi nance and support its activities, since the opposition of the “third sector” and the national state weakens them as the main competitors of transnational elites on the world stage. According to the author, political practice of the second half of the 20th century and the fi rst decades of the 21st shows that transnational elites have managed to bring their proteges to political leadership in a number of countries, thus increasing their infl uence on the adoption of many political decisions. In order to achieve their own goals, these elites use and indeed monopolize the media in various countries of the world community as a powerful means of infl uencing public opinion, in the process violating one of the fundamental principles of democracy: equal access to the media for all citizens.

The article discusses the possibilities of coexistence of democracy and technocracy in technocratic mechanisms of power formation, functioning in democratic and fl awed-democratic political systems and allowing to overcome the existing shortcomings of the democratic way of recruiting the political elite, while preserving such democratic components as election and competition. The main weaknesses in recruiting elites in modern democracies are the risk of coming to power populists, “random” or media personalities, who do not have a suffi cient level of competence and professionalism but are capable of destabilizing the political system; as well as the infl uence of party or personal interests of individual politicians on the adoption of state decisions. The article analyzes such mechanisms of power formation as functional constituencies that simultaneously corresponding to technocratic and democratic criteria, their features of functioning in various political systems and cultures, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

The purpose of the article is to consider the theoretical problems of coexistence and interaction of the culture of the titular ethnic group and the cultures of ethnic minorities in the national state. To this purpose the author analyzes the phenomenon of the national state in a historical aspect, uses sociological data, and also analyzes international treaties, analyzes various points of view of scientists. It is stated that the common civil (political) culture in the national state (national culture) has a supra-ethnic character and does not express the interests of any particular ethnic group, including the titular one, at the same time it replaces ethnic cultures, calling into question their full development. A number of arguments are presented in support of the existence and domination of the national culture. It is argued that the national state inevitably protects certain concepts of the good, but this should not lead to anyone’s discrimination. The author concludes that the presence of a national morally colored policy can paradoxically be combined with liberalism, in particular, if such a policy is objectively necessary for ensuring rights and freedoms. As for ethnic cultures, the author sees the fair rules of their interaction in ensuring that each of them, through deliberative procedures, can infl uence the changing national identity.