Academia
ON RATIO OF RUSSIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE AND RUSSIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
Keywords: political thought, Political Science, intellectual-philosophical culture, synthesis, self-cognition
The article considers the state of the Russian Political Science and its ability to comprehend the domestic reality. Departing from the analysis of the Russian political thought, Yu.Pivovarov shows that Political Science in Russia stems from a different root. Its main source is Western Political Science that emerged as a tool of the rational self-cognition of the Western society that is not suitable for describing and studying other types of sociality. Since the “substance” of Political Science is almost absent in Russia, the Russian Political Science is busy with someone else’s “agenda” being absolutely insensitive towards real, truly Russian issues. Pivovarov concludes that the majority of the contemporary Russian political scientists are both the product and the element of the new Russian reality and therefore, they are able to only express and describe it for their own consumption.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-6-21
Keywords: misdevelopment, Russian mistake, self-isolation, absolutism, civil society
Fully agreeing with R.Pipes in that Russia is a misdeveloped rather than weakly developed nation, A.Zubov contemplates about the sources that the disease of our society originates from and possible ways of its treatment. He posits that the roots of Russia’s misdevelopment dates back to the historical events, as deeply as 15th century, when after having exiled the Greek metropolitan Isidore and declared independence from Constantinople, the Russian Church automatically isolated itself from the rest of the Christian world. According to the author, the second “Russian mistake” that flows from the first one is having transformed the East Russian political system from the Medieval civil monarchy into the East tyranny. Pointing out several attempts throughout the Russian history to overcome national development distortions, Zubov suggests that today we might have a real chance to wander off the beaten path. According to his conclusion, this might be possible if the ruling elite will start to participate in the process of democratization and legal egalitarization of the society realizing that its own survival depends on this.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-22-33
PERCEPTIONS, IMAGES AND VALUES OF DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY
Keywords: democracy, mass consciousness, images, values, perceptions
Based on the data from the politico-psychological research that has been conducted under the leadership of the author since 1993, the article analyses changes that images of the authorities on the whole and related perceptions of democracy have undergone in recent years. Having caught the clarification of positions in the society, E.Shestopal also draws attention to the nonlinear character of those transformations that the mass cognition was going through in the Post-Soviet time. She thinks that classical theories of democracy do not fit for the explanation of processes taking place in the Russian politics and social consciousness of the Russian citizens. The structure of perceptions of democracy is much more complicated and multifaceted than the widespread split within the consciousness into the authoritarian and the democratic. Analyzing political values, one has to take into account at least three dimensions: statism vs. anti-statism, freedom vs. equality, ethnocentrism vs. cosmopolitism.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-34-47
Keywords: social evolution, artefacts, socio-cultural system, filter, political regime, Eltsin, Putin
In this article the author describes the analytical toolkit for determining whether a particular time period is natural continuation of the previous one or should be interpreted as a qualitatively new one. Having applied the suggested tools on the example of Eltsin and Putin’s stages of the country’s development, G.Satarov comes to the conclusion that due to the drastic growth in numbers of the borrowed negative properties, blocking of positive tendencies, and existence of independent filters that are responsible for such selection, Putin’s stage should be viewed as a rather autonomous time period in the Russian history.
Paradigms of social development
POLITICO-LEGAL REGULATION OF TNCS’ ACTIVITY: CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND CONTRADICTIONS
Keywords: TNC, state sovereignty, international system, politico-legal regulation, exclusive territoriality, denationalization, deterritorialization
Nowadays the search for technological solutions that would allow taking extraterritorial activity of the corporate sector under control is moving to the forefront of politico-legal regulation. The historically elaborated mechanisms that used to rather successfully maintain socially acceptable forms of corporate behavior are losing their efficiency, and states and social communities appear to be armless before the increasing power of transnational corporations. The article presents the analysis of politico-legal reasons for the growing deficit of modern states’ authority regarding TNCs with the main one being the contradiction between the principles of exclusive territoriality and state sovereignty, on the one side, and tendencies of deterritorialization and denationalization of economic activity, on the other side. The author also evaluates chances for the creation of compensatory mechanisms that will be able to overcome problems generated by the territorial logic of powers of authority distribution.
Russian polity
“PALACE”: HOW RUSSIAN STATE “REORGANIZED” (II)
Keywords: “Palace state”, the people, social disposition, supreme authority, adaptive mechanism, redistribution
The article is devoted to proving a hypothesis that the specificity of the modern Russian state is best reflected in the metaphor of palace employed by V.O.Klyuchevsky for characterizing the Russian state that was formed after Peter I’s death. According to I.Glebova, a “Palace” represents a rather independent form of government that emerged as a response to new conditions and old state traditions rather than deviation from the “right” state (the soviet “nationwide” or western rule of law) or its perversion/ “worsening” that can be improved if someone is willing to do so. The second part of the article published in this issue (for the beginning see Politeia, 2011, ¹ 2) demonstrates that the main stabilizer of the “palace” order is a mass Post-Soviet human type – a direct and the closest inheritor of the Soviet person with his/her experience, values and norms, strategies of self-defense and social promotion, illusions, complexes and phobias.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-70-91
Keywords: state, elections, parties, administrative market, power agent, administrative favor, loyalty, power vertical
The closer the elections to the State Duma, the more the researchers talk about parties rankings, level of confidence in them, their social base, about whom this gubernator or that lends support to etc. Having analyzed the specificity of the electoral process organization in Russia, L.Blyakher doubts the relativity of these discussions. He concludes that the situation that the country faces on the eve of 2011 electoral marathon is qualitatively different from the previous electoral cycles. The author demonstrates that out of three most important factors that used to determine elections predictability (gubernators’ authority and their administrative resource; popularity – whether true or “inflated” – of “the national leader” and the belief that “the party of power” will win anyway), at least one factor does not exist anymore and the other two are also rather ambiguous, which makes “the party of power” extremely unstable.
Russian regions
NATIONALITY “SIBERIAN”: REGIONAL IDENTITY AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM OF 19th CENTURY
Keywords: Siberia, socio-cultural identity, regionalism, regional self-consciousness
The article is devoted to the analysis of the historical experience and prospects of constructing regional Siberian identity. The author focuses his attention on the peculiar social movement that originated in the second half of the 19th century and was known as the “Siberian regionalism”. Having conducted the detailed analysis of regionalists’ theoretical constructions and real activity, A.Remnev shows that the factors that prevented the transition of the “Siberian issue” into the stage of political separatism were for the most part of a temporary character. He draws the conclusion that regional identity of Siberians is still open for elaboration, and economic dependence, social and cultural abjection of Siberia, incompletion of integration processes under the conditions of inequality of territories might turn into the ground for protest and separatist sentiments.
Social Consciousness
Victor Martyanov, Leonid Fishman
ADVENT OF CAPITALISM: MORAL COLLAPSE OR MODERNIZATION OF MORAL?
Keywords: moral collapse, ethics, capitalism, world-system, Christianity, justification of political moral
In the article the authors explore the ratio of capitalism and ethics. They demonstrate that the moral collapse connected to the emergence and development of the capitalist world-system was in reality a mere appearance of increasingly growing sphere that was dominated by the principles of capitalist moral at the axiological level. The authors suppose that the moral collapse manifested itself in the permanent failure of efforts to rationally underpin ethical norms rather than in the total defeat of any moral or at least altruistic one. Having examined in details different attempts of moral compensation for capitalism from early to late Modern Age, V.Martyanov and L.Fishman conclude that even the most successful tries led to only temporary effects.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-129-142
MODERN SOCIALIST UTOPIA: FROM CRITICAL ANALYSIS TOWARDS MOBILIZATION THROUGH NEGATION
Keywords: utopia, capitalism, neo-Marxism, critical reflection, negation, post-Fordism
In the article the author looks into the theoretical prospects of socialist utopia rebirth as the so called horizon line that is impossible to cross, but easy to see as if it were reachable. The author shows that post-Fordism capitalizing and alienating nonmaterial labor has become a real problem for the radical negation in the framework of neo-Marxist utopia since under such conditions any social alternative is in danger of becoming a part of the capitalist reality. Such disciplinary power of the modern capitalist logic generates rejection of the political action as it is rather than a protest. In this situation radical Marxist utopia comes down to the affective negation that cannot become a subject to reflection. Its creators and proponents do not want to find themselves in the capitalist present, aspiring in their expectations into the future that will not grow out of the modern capitalism and will never be capitalism in principle.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-143-155
Gubernatorial Readings
Keywords: strategy, modernization, investments, emerging markets, Tyumen region
The material published here is a report on the Fourth Gubernatorial Readings held in Tyumen, June 7, 2011, under the framework of the joint project conducted by the journal Politeia and the administration of Tyumen region with the topic of readings being methodology of elaborating state, regional and corporate strategies and a lecturer being professor V.L.Kvint, a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Research Director of the Center for Strategic Research at Moscow State University (MSU), Head of the Finance Strategy Department at Moscow School of Economics at MSU, a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.
Cathedra
NIKOLAUS CUSANUS AND HIS VOTING SYSTEM
Keywords: Nicolaus Cusanus, collective decision, voting procedure
The author in this article describes a voting procedure that was offered in the 15th century by Nicolaus Cusanus, the greatest German philosopher, theologist and church activist. Having examined this procedure, V.Volsky shows that it was Nicolaus Cusanus who in reality invented the method of determining a winner in the elections within small groups traditionally associated with the name of the French academic Jean-Charles de Borda.
Book Review
Keywords: Manichaeism, Gnosticism, mentality, matrix of consciousness, culturology
Pointing out that the book under review can and should become one of the most important milestones in the eternal history of the national self-cognition – at least because it pretends to cut this “dull” infinity and finally solve the puzzle of the “mysterious Russian soul” – L.Polyakov concentrates his attention on the uncontrollable associations that it spurs. The author comes to the conclusion that methodology declared by the authors carries several contradictions that are still unresolved, which turns the book into the almost independent “third” player throwing doubts on something that seemed to have been fully comprehended.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-176-183
Angelina Vashchuk, Anatoly Savchenko
Keywords: Russia, history, cyclical development, bifurcation point, track, pass
According to the opinion of A.Vashchuk and A.Savchenko, the key word for understanding the book under review is “discussion” since its author illuminates core problems and possible directions of finding ways to solve them rather than provides evaluations and gives receipts. If this book draws enough attention and provokes broad discussion, the controversial nature of many of its statements will become one of the main factors of success. The worst scenario for the book is the situation if it attracts only a small number of experts. In this case the book only has chances to be dismantled into separate fragments for future criticism, and “the wood” would not be seen for “the trees”.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-184-189
Keywords: late capitalism; crisis; social formation; neoliberalism
Stating that although during the four decades that the Russian reader was waiting for the book by J.Habermas a lot of things in the world have changed, V.Zharkov still believes the book is relevant today. According to his evaluation, the 2008 world financial crisis again refreshed the research method employed in the book, and some predictions made by the author look much more realistic nowadays than in the 1970-s when they were written.