Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2020. 3.

This article is devoted to the study of the political aspect of Russia’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East. The author draws attention to the global megatrends that, taking on regional specifi city, signifi cantly aff ect the regional system of international relations and, as a consequence, the formulation of Russia’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East. The article identifi es such manifestly significant megatrends as the globalization/regionalization of world politics; the changing role of the West in the international arena; high demographic dynamics; and the increasing importance of the religious factor in public life and public consciousness. Based on an analysis of the infl uence of the these trends on the Middle East region, the author sets out and substantiates a thesis of what can be considered the main political goals of Russia in the Mddle East, to wit: promotion of infl uence in the region by participating in the settlement of Middle East confl icts; assistance in the creation of a regional security system; and the creation of a favorable environment for the realization of economic interests in the region.

This article sets out to solve the scholarly problem of determining the place of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in current international relations and their role and relations with states. The author analyzes the concept of civil society, the starting point in the study of modern NGOs over the past 30 years, and considers by turns (1) the problems of defi ning the concepts of NGOs and civil society; and (2) the formation of these concepts in connection with the transformation of the system of international relations in the early 1990s and the policy of the Western countries in the post-Soviet space. He goes on to conclude that that civil society in the modern Western liberal reading should be considered as a historical phenomenon without any claim to universal signifi cance. The article addresses the current foreign policy practice of the United States and the European Union in working with NGOs, noting that Western states and private foundations are losing their monopoly position in the fi eld of NGOs as other states master this tool and create their own infrastructure for working with it on the domestic and foreign political circuit. The further development of the NGO sphere, the author concludes, will be aff ected by the processes of increasing interstate competition and regionalization.

This article is devoted to the study of mutual perceptions of power in Russia and the other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The purpose of the study is to identify the key features of the image of the power of Russia among residents of the other EAEU countries and the power images of each of these other Union member states among residents of Russia. Toward this end the author highlights the formation of a problematic fi eld of perception of power in the Eurasian space and the adaptation of various theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of its image. The research methodology employed for the article includes focus interviews. To interpret the data, qualitative methods with quantitative elements are used, in particular methods for encoding and scaling answers to open questions. The results of the study make it possible to identify the features of mutual perception of power in the minds of citizens of Russia and countries participating in Eurasian integration, to track the impact of individual political and psychological factors on the formation of images of power, and to record their diff erences among residents of each country separately.

An extensive body of research has been assembled by modern social science on the interaction of state power and big business, yet despite this the relevance of a thorough theoretical review of these relations has not diminished in recent decades. This article analyzes a number of paradigms that defi ne value criteria, worldviews and theoretical and methodological standards aff ecting both scholarly research in this area and the development of state policy and actual politics. These are rational-critical, corporatist and neo-corporatist paradigms, that of the “new state management,” and such critical theories as neo-Marxism and the theory of political networks. When analyzing these paradigms, the author pays special attention to the operationalization of key concepts and the defi nition of basic interpretations, models and concepts of corporate-state interaction. The study of theoretical-methodological approaches contributes to the systematization of the results of research in the study of applied mechanisms of interaction between government and big business. The author concludes that the paradigms cited to a certain extent only coexist and actualize depending on the situation in the world economy, the political relations of individual states or their alliances, cultural characteristics and other factors.

This article addresses problems of modern political demography both in a broad context and through examples of specifi c regions. The authors show how the infl uence of political decisions taken by individual countries and leading to demographic changes have provoked cascades of destructive eff ects with catastrophic long-term consequences for entire countries and regions. An example from documents of the U.S. Department of State illustrates how, under two diff erent administrations — fi rst Obama and then Trump — the attitude in the American establishment changed towards the migration problem in the United States itself. The mechanism of destabilization of the Maghreb zone, as a result of which conditions were created for a mass outmigration, is also developed. In addition, the authors off er a study of the collapse of multiculturalism using the example of the ill-considered policy of European countries in accepting migrants, which led to diffi culties in integrating them into an environment with a diff erent ethno-religious composition and sociocultural characteristics. Further, the authors draw a cautionary conclusion as to the risk of a systematic and strategic catastrophe in the long term for the whole of European society if current policies and approaches in the fi eld of demography and specifi cally migration are maintained. Finally, the article identifi es the most striking factors of migration-as-weapon, the study of which received a powerful impetus after the 2015 migration crisis in Europe. The mechanism of initiating an international crisis through the controlled direction of masses migrating to a number of EU countries to achieve short-term strategic and geopolitical goals is addressed by the authors. The success achieved using major tides of people in the form of a military-political special operation on the international level against a number of state and supranational actors, as well as the scale of the consequences, have made it possible to asses the forced and controlled exfi ltration of signifi cant masses of people as a new non-classical weapon of mass destruction. The article adds a further conclusion, asserting that the lack of control in the fi eld of migration poses serious risks to Russia’s national security.

The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943) is a battle that became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War, World War II and world history. Soviet troops defeated the German armies and allies of Nazi Germany and, seizing the strategic initiative, laid the foundation for the great victory of 1945. The Stalingrad victory, this “Russian military miracle,” has never ceased to amaze the world. The Battle of Stalingrad is an event of planetary, civilizational and geopolitical scale. Recently, however, it has emerged, as has the entire Second World War, at the center of a fi erce ideological information war. Valuations, results and the signifi cance of the Battle of Stalingrad have been falsifi ed. In recent years, a great number of very strange interpretations, symbols and myths about the Second World War have been aimed at the consciousness of our people. There is an obvious geopolitical order behind this, since the discrediting of our victory leads to the discrediting of Russia itself. The focus in this article falls on the current signifi cance of the Battle of Stalingrad.