Russian Polity
Will the proportion be correct?
The author draws the results of the 10-year functioning of today’s electoral system, evaluates its pluses and minuses that were brought to light during the four electoral campaigns. The work pays considerable attention to the analysis of consequences of a possible transit from the mixed electoral system (both majoritarian and proportional) to a clearly proportional one. According to B.Makarenko, should this transit be executed mechanically, without amending the legal system, it would lead to a catastrophic fall in quality of citizens’ interests representation in the State Duma. During the 2003 elections, for instance, almost half of the deputees were ‘invisible’ for the voter (a bulletin usually includes just several leading names from the party lists), and one third of them received their mandates through a mechanical distribution of votes.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-16-11
Pages: 6-11
Electoral systems and parties: choice of elections
The article states that authority institutions based on democratic principles have existed in Russia for about fifteen years. But the country still cannot create an electoral system that would conform with the logic of such principles. The author explains the reasons of the failure to form a viable system of changing the ruling political parties. The work provides as well some considerations on the discussion on prospects of a new electoral system change.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-12-24
Pages: 12-24
Evolution of organized forms of political parties and modern representative democracy
The article analyzes the evolution of political parties throughout one and a half centuries of their existence, and examines how this process was reflected in academic literature. The author pays considerable attention to the development of organized forms of political parties in Russia. In this connection he addresses both our country’s historical and modern experience. Having consecutively studied major political parties, the author concludes that none of them really needs mass structures of a classical type. According to Y.Korgunyuk, the massive number of party members and the ability to influence political life have long ago ceased to be the same thing.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-25-69
Pages: 25-69
Local self-government
Local self-government: historical perspective
The author provides a detailed study of the history of local self-government formation in a post-soviet Russia. He determines the year 1990, when the law “On general aspects of local self-government and local economy in the USSR” entered into force, as a starting year of that period. According to I.Babichev, despite all difficulties, the institute of local self-government in 1990-1993 was being quite successfully established. Contrary to that, the 1995 federal law provided subjects of Federation with a considerable part of legal regulation of self-government and by doing so created bases for its own non-performance on a due level. That alone was one of the factors that conditioned the inevitability of elaboration of its new version.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-70-87
Pages: 70-87
Elena Ivanova, Sergey Miroshnikov
The authors compare federal laws “On general principles of local self-government organization in the Russian Federation”, adopted in 1995 and 2003, giving a more detailed examination of particularities of the new law. Along with that, the authors hold that the quality of implementation of the new law at the early stage will be largely determined by the quality of transitory provisions that enter into force two years before the law itself. It is particularly stated that the provisions of the law place a considerable focus on direct forms of population’s participation in solving the problems of local self-government. E.Ivanova and S.Miroshnikov do not tend to consider the 2003 law either perfect or final. Its practical implementation will inevitably lead to amendments and supplements, and ultimately – to the elaboration of a new version.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-88-105
Pages: 88-105
A range of questions connected with territorial organization of local self-government is placed in the center of the author’s study. The article analyzes various versions of territorial structure of local self-government established in different subjects of the Russian Federation. I.Faseev evaluates them in terms of a problem of small towns, rural territories, large cities and megacities. The author stands for the correlation between the provisions of the new version of a law on local self-government. According to the article, the return of local self-government on the level of rural settlements, townships and small towns will serve the social and economic development of Russia.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-106-123
Pages: 106-123
Politics and religion
Political parties of Russia and Russian Orthodox Church
According to the author, Russian Orthodox Church is faced with the problem of adaptation to a secular character of Russian politics. Having rejected participation in electoral campaigns and support of any ideology, the Church had accepted secularity of party activity long before it was inscribed in the 1995 law on parties prohibiting confessionalism in party life.
As for the parties, just few of them try to adjust party ideology to traditional religious values. Common projects of action just start to be elaborated on the basis of common public positions of parties and religious organizations. The author believes that there is no party today with clear vision of what policy towards religious associations they are to stand for.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-124-148
Pages: 124-148
Cathedra
What is political philosophy? Article two
The series of three articles is aimed to give an idea about the most important problems of political philosophy and the most interesting approaches to their resolution formulated in the course of the centuries-old history of the political thought. The work is based on the problem principle and is not supposed to be a consistent presentation of political theories and doctrines. The content of the subject of political philosophy is reviewed through the series of interrelated issues, the attempts to interpret which actually makes the treasury of world political philosophical ideas. The author reviews the arguments used for the defense of this or that idea and so called through-and-through ideas, which have been present in the political philosophy since the antiquity till our times.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-149-169
Pages: 149-169
The article studies the history of formation and development of the International Association of Political Science, its goals and structure. A special attention is given to the association’s world congresses convened every three years. The author analyzes scientific problems discussed on the congresses and during their sessions, as well as the participation Russian political scientists. The article gives a more detailed coverage of the latest XIX Congress of the International Association of Political Science that took place in Durban (South Africa) in 2003.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-170-185
Pages: 170-185
Laboratory
Terrorism, individualist and community behaviour
The article analyzes terrorism in the light of two behavioral paradigms – that of an individualist and collectivist (community) behaviour. It shows that if there is a terrorist threat on all levels of society’s functioning, a delay and even cancellation of main political freedoms can become an alternative to community behaviour. Such result appears due to a veto-group paradox – a symmetrical version of a community paradox. Besides, the article provides different definitions of terrorism, studies the typology of terrorist groups, reason for support of such groups by states, composition of terrorist groups, role of ideology, vulnerability of modern systems of life support. An Appendix contains a formal analysis of a veto-group paradox.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-186-197
Pages: 186-197
Electoral geostructures in western democracies: attempt of systemic comparative analysis
The author examines regional elections outcomes in different countries of the world, compares and analyzes them. He uses in his research electoral materials on 24 (!) countries (19 countries – members of the European Union, as well as Norway, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). That gives R.Turovsky an opportunity to see the objective laws of voting both for left-wing and conservative political forces. Analyzing the combination of geocultural and social and economic factors also permits to identify typical voting models.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-198-232
Pages: 198-232
Book review
The review gives a very positive evaluation of two well-known Russian political scientists’ new work on the results of the fifteen-year reform period. V.Lyubin thinks that although the new trends do not promise any great prospects, the authors do not use an alarmist tonality. During a weighed analysis A.Galkin and Y.Krasin examine the initial basis of reforms (the potential we had in the beginning of ‘perestroika’), existing alternatives, and, finally, prospects of Russian society’s development. The authors hold that the society will most probably transform according to a special model of ‘pulsating’ development, where reformist outbursts will be alternated by pauses, retreats and even recurrences of the past.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-233-239
Pages: 233-239
The author of the review emphasizes the multifaceted character of the book and its large geographical coverage. At the same time E.Bazhanov analyzes problems of world politics mainly through the prism of Russia’s interests. A special attention is paid to the analysis of processes of globalization and formation of modern world’s multipolar structure. The author reasonably justifies the delusiveness of the attempts to constitute a global American hegemony (“Pax Americana”).
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-240-242
Pages: 240-242
Chronicle
Russian political parties: winter-summer 2004
The ‘Politeia’s traditional section provides a chronicle of Russian political parties’ life from December 2003 to May 2004. As usual, the chronicle is supplemented by the analysis of political forces’ position in the country during this period. The author pays particular attention to the phenomenon of pseudo-party system, which, he believes, has been formed in the country since the latest parliamentary elections.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-32-243-278
Pages: 243-278