Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2022. 3.

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.

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.

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.

“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 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.

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 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.