Celebrating 100th Issue of Politeia
That this number of Politeia is special, we noticed by chance, unexpectedly for ourselves. Such is the specificity of the magazine work — "the wheels must turn", one issue has not even been completed yet, and the next one is already being prepared... So it is now — presenting the urbi et orbi hundredth number, we are working on the one hundred and first and thinking about the one hundred and second.
This time, however, the magic of the round numbers took its toll. It seemed to us that a hundred numbers is a sufficient reason to think about what has already been done, and what to do next, and, most importantly, what is the meaning of all this activity. How to avoid the relentless "routine of charisma" that overtakes almost everyone who subordinates their vocation and profession to the monotonous rhythm of"technical reproducibility"? What if it's already happened?
Of course, we ourselves could not answer this difficult question and turned to the friends of the magazine, which, fortunately, and not coincidentally, makes up the color, cream of the cream of Russian political science. We asked them: why does Politiya magazine exist in our world at all? what place does it occupy in the domestic intellectual landscape? how could they describe the face of "Politiya"? The friends replied; their observations made up the first column of the hundredth issue.
Pages: 6-7
Celebrating 100th Issue of Politeia: On Journal's Past and Future
Keywords: Politeia, Political Science, Russian professional community of political scientists
This work represents the views of the prominent Russian political scientists about the past and the future of Politeia. O.Gaman-Golutvina identifies several dimensions that together, from her point of view, define the face of Politeia and allow the journal to fulfill the mission of a development institution. A.Melville pays attention to the continuity and dynamics in the development of the journal and outlines a number of promising directions for its future. According to B.Makarenko, the main distinguishing feature of Politeia is that it has always been a community rather than just a journal. M.Ilyin draws attention to the meaning of the word πολιτεία, which became the title of the journal, suggesting that it is this title that turned into a compass that allowed the journal to simultaneously focus on political philosophy and sociology of politics. R.Turovsky views Politeia as a mirror of the contemporary Russian politics and its evolution rather than just one of the leading Political Science journals in Russia. According to A.Akhremenko, the key feature of Politeia that sets it apart from other journals is a sense of balance, an equilibrium at the intersection of methods, problems and meanings. F.Aleskerov talks about Politeia’s platform for publishing works on mathematical modeling in politics as one of the journal’s advantages and delineates several thematic blocks within this area, which, in his opinion, should appear on the pages of the journal. O.Malinova draws attention to Salmin Award, established in 2005 in memory of A.Salmin, the journal’s founder, considering this award one of the traditions that contributes to the development of the Russian professional community of political scientists.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-8-26
Pages: 8-26
Political theories
Miracle as Theological Paradigm of Sovereign Power
Keywords: miracle, sovereign power, law, state of emergency, decision, will, providential governance
The article justifies the approach to the essence of sovereign power from the point of view of the Western Christian theological paradigm. In this regard, the author considers the “miraculous” aspect of the power of the sovereign, derived from the idea of the absolute power of God, whose volitional decision is capable of limiting/suspending the operation of natural laws in the manifested form of a miracle. In the most general sense, a miracle is understood as a divine act that is extraordinary (exceptional) in nature, an act that interrupts the usual phenomenological series, proclaims the will of God and has the property of “salvation”. Thus, the theological concept of a miracle turns out to be a paradigm of secular sovereign power, based on the exclusive right to decide on a state of emergency. The concept of sovereignty, which includes the notion of the absoluteness and indivisibility of the supreme power, has a theological origin, since absolute power can only be an attribute of an absolute being, that is, God. The secularization and politicization of theological concepts build sovereign power on the basis of the equality between the sovereign and God, giving the state ruler the place that God occupied in the universe. The personified image of the sovereign represents a logically necessary completion of the hierarchical system of power. The transformation of the monarchic principle of sovereign power into the people’s democratic one leads to the formation of an administrative-bureaucratic state, where the criterion of sovereignty is not legitimacy, but the effectiveness of managerial actions, which involves the permanent use of emergency measures. The “salvation” of God’s miraculous actions finds its manifestation in the “salvific” purpose of emergency measures aimed at ensuring public safety by preventing fictitious threats. The totalization of the threat establishes a mode of functioning of the sovereign power, which within an exception to the law (“a miracle”) becomes equal to the law.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-27-43
Pages: 27-43
Process and Relation: Origins of the Autonomist Theory of Individuation
Keywords: individuation, individual, autonomism, political philosophy, Gilbert Simondon, Lev Vygotsky, Paolo Virno
Any political theory is built on the foundation of a certain ontology, an integral part of which is the problem of an individual. For a long time, the ontological primacy in the European thought was attached to the concept of an individual that was understood as a complete and selfsufficient unit. However, today one can talk about the growing popularity of the approach that views an individual as a relative reality in a state of continuous formation i.e., the process of individuation. This approach is developed by the Italian intellectuals, whose general ideological view is known as autonomism (P.Virno, M.Lazzarato, A.Negri etc.). The article examines the origins of the theory of individuation and its political implications within the autono mist thought.
The first part of the article examines the ways of representing an individual in the ontologies of B.Spinoza and G.Simondon. The author demonstrates that the procedural and relational understanding of an individual proposed by these philosophers contributes to bridging the gap between the collective and the individual not only in politics, but also in thinking. An individual is a consequence of the concretization of the general and retains a connection with it.
The second part analyzes the psychological and linguistic aspects of individuation, elaborated in L.Vygotsky’s psychology and M.Bakhtin’s philosophy of dialogue. Individuation is interpreted as a movement from the social to the individual, carried out with the help of various tools, primarily by the means of the language. The author evaluates the reception of these thinkers’ ideas in the context of autonomism.
The author concludes that the autonomist concept of individuation is a synthetic theory that brings together the general aspects of the consi dered above schools of thought into a single perspective. In fact, the concept is a large-scale revision of the ontological and anthropological foundations of thinking about politics. Its goal is to destroy the idea of a “sovereign individual”, which was born within the liberal tradition, and, as a consequence, to liberate the sphere of the collective from the control of capital.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-44-59
Pages: 44-59
R. Yu.Belkovich, S. V.Vinogradov
Rescuing Rawlsian Justice: Are Fraternity and Difference Principle Compatible?
Keywords: social justice, John Rawls, difference principle, luck egalitarianism, inequality, fraternity
The revival of the academic interest in the problem of fair distribution of resources in the society, which is one of the key issues for the political thought today, is largely associated with the name of John Rawls and his Theory of Justice. The article is devoted to the analysis of Rawls’s arguments in support of the difference principle as one of the principles of social justice. According to Rawls (whose arguments later formed the foundation for a separate direction in the political-philosophical thought known as luck egalitarianism), due to the random nature of the original distribution of talents, inequality in human wellbeing cannot be justified by an appeal to a merit. However, because strict equality in distribution might reduce productivity of the owners of talent, achieving the best outcome for all requires such inequalities that incentivize the more talented to work as efficiently as possible for the benefit of the less talented. This compromise drew criticism from ardent egalitarians, among which Gerald Cohen articulated objections to the difference principle most clearly and compared the claims of the most talented for material rewards with extortion.
Having considered possible justifications for the need for incentives, based on Rawls’s argument in the Theory of Justice, the authors conclude that these justifications do not solve the problem that Cohen revealed. Appealing to human nature merely translates the dispute into the methodological realm: should the theory of justice proceed from reality, or should it be guided by the ideal? In turn, the inevitability of a conflict of private interests does not fit well with Rawls’s ideal of fraternity as an integral part of a just social order. According to their conclusion, in order to resolve the internal contradiction in Rawls’s theory, it is necessary to abandon either the postulates of luck egalitarianism or difference principle. However, both of these options directly contradict Rawls’s intellectual constructs and undermine the basic foundations of his concept.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-60-74
Pages: 60-74
Russian regions
L. E.Bliakher, A. V.Kovalevsky
Keywords: Khabarovsk, private sector, social space, local community, solidarity, routine resistance, politicization
The article examines the forms of routine resistance of the community that was established within the space of the Soviet private sector in the cities located in the eastern part of Russia. Despite active regular construction, these spaces still make up a significant part of cities. However, in contrast to the Soviet period, when living there was perceived as forced and temporary, today this form of residence is a conscious choice. The former private sector witnesses the emergence of the community, whose existence is based on values, social and communicative practices, and forms of economic activity that are noticeably different from the official ones. This community “produces space” that is appropriate to its lifestyle. For the official authorities (at the state and city levels), this space turns out to be “empty”, representing “promising areas of development”. Its population remains invisible to these authorities. This creates a latent conflict that gives rise to the forms of re sistance described in the article. With all the variety of such forms, there is one main thing that unites them — people’s desire to distance from the state and the city it regulates.
The authors find out that another group of city dwellers with a much higher socio-economic status — residents of urban mansion districts — share the same aspiration. According to the authors, this desire can be explained by the fact that a resident of a Russian city has few opportunities to find soli da rity community within the existing urban structures and therefore builds his/her life “outside the city wall”, creating analogs of the pre-modern Euro pean municipalities. The remaining “urban” part of the city is increasingly turning into a feudal lord’s castle that from time to time sends troops to punish the “rebels”.
As long as a feudal lord has an understanding that he really needs townspeople, and they have the opportunity to “escape” from the raid, the situation seems stable. When the raids become too frequent, and it is impossible to escape from them, the population will attack. At the moment, judging by the attitude of the group studied in the article to the rallies in defense of S.Furgal, ex-governor of Khabarovsk region, the authorities still have room for maneuver. However, for how long this situation will last remains to be seen.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-75-105
Pages: 75-105
Keywords: the right to the city, marginality, space, urban network node, “pirate” interface, urban political regime
The article analyzes the images of the Irkutsk city center in the memories of the representatives of two marginal groups — street children and venders, who lived and worked there from 1999 to 2006, as well as its mo dern images in the public statements of the urban elites. The aim of the study is to identify the functions that the city center performed during the years of deep social transformations and to reveal why today one wants to forget about it as soon as possible.
The author argues that the places mentioned by the respondents and the actions performed in those places largely shaped the current ideas about the period of social chaos in the “post-Soviet” city — a period of uncertainty, violence and fear. Today, these places and functions are mostly memories, which are gradually being replaced by the simplified and emotionally rich myths about the past that are being broadcast by the urban political regimes. The latter displace marginal groups from the center and change the places they previously occupied, simultaneously altering the collective memory associated with these places.
The article puts forward and justifies a hypothesis that starting from the mid-1990s and almost until the end of the 2000s these territories were used by the majority of citizens as an extra-institutional interface necessary for connecting to the city resource node. This function has become the primary cause of fierce conflicts, during which numerous enforcers tried to establish a monopoly on the collection of rents from the human and resource flows concentrated there. The image of the center as a deviant place was constructed simultaneously by the urban regimes and marginal groups: the former used it as a weapon in the struggle for the “right to the city,” the latter associated it with the collective trauma they had experienced.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-106-136
Pages: 106-136
Cathedra
Transition from Austrian to American Model of Judicial Review in the European Court of Justice
Keywords: judicial review, models of judicial review, European Court of Justice, legal order, reform of the constitutional court
Legal scholars distinguish between two main models of judi cial review — the American model and Austrian (European) one. In the American model, the scope of discretion and the relative role of the constitutional court in the political system are noticeably higher than in the Aust rian one. The author traces the history of the origin of these two models, explains the differences between them and raises the question of whether the boundaries between these two ideal types are too rigid or whether a gradual transition from the Austrian model to the American one (without formal constitutional reform) is possible. The author provides the answer drawing on the real case of such transition that occurred in the European Court of Justice in the 1960s. This case is unique precisely because the change in the system of the judicial review was the result of the gradual “migration” from one model to the other, rather than the result of an outside reform. Similar to Baron Munchausen, who pulled himself out of the swamp by his own hair, the European Court of Justice was able to independently, through its own decisions, alter the order of the judicial review in the European Union, bringing it closer to the American model.
In the final part of the article, the author places this transition into a broader historical context, demonstrating that the success of the construction of a new European legal order was not predetermined and consisted of the decisions taken by the judges in each specific case. However, any national constitutional court finds itself in a similar situation after a change of the political regime. As a rule of thumb, new constitutional courts are created according to the Austrian model and are institutionally similar to the legislative branch of government, but in order to make judicial review efficient, they need to transform into the American model, becoming more similar to the courts of general jurisdiction. In this respect, the experience of the European Court of Justice can be extremely useful for them.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-137-153
Pages: 137-153
Concept of Competitive Authoritarianism and Its Criticism in Scientific Literature
Keywords: elections, democratization, competitive authoritarianism, international ties, political regime
The concept of competitive authoritarianism by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way has become one of the compelling responses to the decline of the transition paradigm that used to hold optimistic expectations about democratization of political regimes that combined elements of democracy and authoritarianism. According to Levitsky and Way’s logic, the presence of an authoritarian component does not allow one to characterize such mixed regimes as democratic, and in this sense, competitive authoritarianism is still authoritarianism. At the same time, it differs from other forms of authoritarian regimes due to the non-illusory ability of the opposition to compete for the executive power.
The concept of competitive authoritarianism has been widely used in the study of political regimes, but the resulting important need for a deeper understanding of its assumptions has given rise to a number of critical evaluations among the researchers. The main criticism of the opponents regards the operationalization of the concept of “competitive authoritarianism”, the historical limitations of its usage, as well as Levitsky and Way’s idea that competitive authoritarian regimes are predetermined to democratize if they maintain broad and close ties with the West that are regarded as some kind of frozen objective reality. The article attempts to bring together the critical arguments that have been expressed in the research literature against the concept of competitive authoritarianism, and thereby contribute to a more balanced reception of this concept in the domestic scientific discourse. According to the author’s conclusion, the main flaws of the concept are related to the interpretation of the reasons for the vulnerability/stability of competitive authoritarian regimes. The focus on the role of the West and the regime’s ability to control the political process ignores a number of other significant factors, including the ability of the opposition to counter the current government with some real alternative, which is especially important in the Russian context, where the absence of such an alternative is one of the key reasons for the exceptional stability of the authoritarian regime.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-154-169
Pages: 154-169
Scientific Heritage
100-year Anniversary of Charles Merriam’s Manifesto of Scientific Political Science
Keywords: Charles Merriam, Chicago School of Political Studies, empirical methods, interdisciplinarity, political expertise
The article presents an outline of the biography and the main phases of the scientific, political and teaching activities of Charles E. Merriam (1874—1953), setting the stage for the publication of the Russian translation of his work The Present State of the Study of Politics (1921). The author examines Merriam’s contribution to the development of Political Science in the United States, primarily his New Science of Politics program, aimed at achieving a new quality of political research and teaching discipline, which should not be confined to the narrow framework of purely theoretical reflection. According to Merriam, only the update of methodological tools (in particular, widely borrowing methods from natural sciences, especially biology), productive interaction with other branches of knowledge and a general reorientation to systematic expert support of public administration can ensure the transformation of Political Science into a truly scientific discipline.
The article analyzes the role of Merriam in the formation of the Chicago School of Political Studies, his participation in providing expertise to the public administration, including F.D.Roosevelt’s New Deal. The article demonstrates that, being a product of its time, the canonical text of Merriam has not lost its relevance today, stimulating a new understanding of the criteria for the scientific nature of political knowledge and touching on a number of issues that are still acute for modern political scientists.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-170-182
Pages: 170-182
The Present State of the Study of Politics
The original outline of this article included a general overview and critique of the leading trends in the study of politics over the past 30 to 40 years. It was intended to compare the methods and results of different types of political thought-to consider in turn the historical school, the law school, researchers in the field of comparative analysis of forms of government, philosophers themselves, the approach of economists, the contribution of geographers and ethnologists, the work of statisticians, and finally to turn to psychological, sociological and biological interpretations of the political process.
It would be an interesting and perhaps useful task to compare the subject and method of such thinkers as Jellinek, Gierke, Dugi, Dicey and Pound, the philosophies of Sorel and Dewey, Ritchie and Russell, Nietzsche and Tolstoy, to look at the methods of Durkheim and Simmel, Ward, Giddings and Small, Cooley and Ross, and to discuss the innovations found in the works of Wallace and Cole.
It might be useful to expand the analysis to include important features of the environment in which these ideas flourished, and the many close connections between them. One could also discuss the impact of social and industrial development, class movements and class struggle or group conflicts in a broader sense, consider the impact of urbanism and industrialism, capitalism, socialism and syndicalism, militarism, pacifism, feminism, nationalism. It would be useful, perhaps, to present a critique of the methods and results described and to specifically assess the significance of logical, psychological, sociological, legal, philosophical and historical methodologies and the contribution of each of them to the study of the political.
This task, however, was dropped and postponed for the next time, as it became apparent that no such review could be compressed to reasonable volumes. In order to achieve our common goal, it would seem that a different type of analysis would be more productive, aimed at reconstructing the methods of political research and obtaining more extensive results in both the theoretical and practical fields.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-183-192
Pages: 183-192
O. V.Gaman-Golutvina, G. V.Golosov, P. V.Panov, A. Yu.Sungurov, A. F.Filippov
On the Relevance of The Present State of the Study of Politics (Round Table)
Keywords: Charles Merriam, behavioral approach, interdisciplinarity, quantitative methods, public policy, Political Science community, political expertise
The authors view the main issues raised in Charles Merriam’s article The Present State of the Study of Politics in the context of the current trends in the development of political knowledge in Russia and worldwide. Merriam proposed a new view of Political Science as a scientific discipline with its own research goals related to the empirical study of the political behavior of people. Merriam’s approach to determining the status of Political Science within the framework of social knowledge assumed delineating its own problem field and identifying those factors that determine events taking place in this field. Merriam emphasized the relativity of both the autonomy of politics and the significance of the impacts that are exerted upon politics.
Professional organization and coordination of political studies (one of Merriam’s key initiatives) at the beginning of the 21st century are associated with the competition between hierarchical and network models of interaction between representatives of the Political Science community. Moreover, the current state of discipline in Russia is largely determined by the specifics of its institutionalization. Unlike the United States, where the evolution of Political Science took place under the decisive influence of formalized knowledge, the Russian Political Science is still influenced by some of the approaches inherent in the old-fashioned institutionalism. The movement of Political Science in the direction of interdisciplinary synthesis, which received its impetus from the scientific and organizational activities of Merriam, was not linear. The current methodological configuration of the discipline is most adequately expressed in the concept of “multiparadigmality”, which does not solve the problem of b ringing together conflicting methodologies.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-100-1-193-209
Pages: 193-209