Political Theories
POLITICAL NATION AND CHOICE OF VALUES: GENERAL PROVISIONS, RUSSIAN CASE (II)
In the second part of his study the author applies the theoretical generalizations on the role of values in the process of the development of political nation elaborated in the first part (see Politeia, 2009, ¹ 2) to the modern Russian realities. The author supposes that due to our political class disinclination towards subordination of the political action to the dictate of moral good and inability of most of the “political-cultural synthesis” potential subjects to actualize the corresponding potencies the Russian Orthodox Church comes to be the only possible autonomous counteragent (not the servile satellite) to the ruling group in creating the central value system of the Russian polity. The beginning of this process initiated by the Church might be followed by other public forces involvement since it fosters the formulation of their blurred subjectness. The key choice in the nation-building process will be determination of the value-motivated and inherently logical position towards the Soviet legacy with the Church again being the only one capable of such task.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-5-39
POPULISM: STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTIC OF POLITICS OR “FLAWED IDEOLOGY”?
Based on the analysis of the key components of populism through the lens of ideologies functioning the author convincingly proves that the researchers who denies populism the right to be called ideology due to its ambiguity and lack of the key features simply do not notice that it is such ambiguity (to be more precise, fragmentariness) that is its main characteristic. According to G.Musikhin, the inability of populism to exist as an independent complex ideology that makes it use not only specific recommendations, but also the conceptual core of other ideologies by no means implies that populism is not recognizable as a special ideological movement with its own framework characteristics. Therefore, conducting research on the ideological reality we should not confine ourselves to revealing populist features in the activity of one party or political leader or another. It is much more important to determine whether a political actor we are interested in employs populist techniques, but stays in the framework of some complex ideology, or we are dealing with the ideology of populism “sticking” like a virus to the conceptual core of such ideology.
Antithesis
PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY OF POWER IN THE FIRST CIRCLE BY A.I.SOLZHENITSYN
The problem of compatibility of virtue and politics, moral and power, individual and political ethics has occupied people for many centuries. The moral principles of a person’s behavior in the space of power are of no less interest. E.Potapchuk in her search for what power is, how it is related to freedom, how it influences an individual and vice versa, refers to the literary-philosophical experience of comprehending power that is presented in the novel “The First Circle” by A.I.Solzhenitsyn. She considers that the specificity of the approach towards power in this comprehensive and multifaceted novel is that power is viewed as being closely tied to an individual’s choice of value orientations and therefore, the way of existence. Including an individual into the field of social being, power implies his ability of a free choice, an act of disobedience. Otherwise, even being on the top of the power pyramid, a person will be only a slave of a ruler, system or some idea.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-54-60
THE LONG-RUN FORECAST: IN SEARCH OF THE RUSSIAN AND WORLD FUTURE
The article is devoted to the substantiation of the necessity of fundamental change of the Russian political science problematic focus. Stating that the Russian political science is at a bifurcation point now, V.Martyanov talks about several possible directions of its development. The first one is to be satisfied with the status of “normal” (in comparison to the already existing “universal” patterns) science and by doing so throw itself to playing secondary role and being dependent in its choice of values and goals. The second way is to go into shell interpreting universal as national. The third one is tied to the belief that our political as being specific might become interesting for the rest of the world and therefore, universal, might produce values and goals if not now, then in the future. Martyanov thinks that Russia can no doubt take upon the role of being a generator of new principles of the global Modernity, but only in that case if it offers decisions not as much for itself, but for the humanity as a whole.
Paradigms of Social Development
CORRUPTION RISKS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION
In this article the author makes an attempt to reveal the grave reasons for increasing corruption risks during globalization. According to the author’s hypothesis, corruption is something that is much more complicated than just a bureaucrat’s abuse, and the scale of its spread hinges upon the wider social, political and administrative context. Having analyzed the ongoing processes from this standpoint, N.Pankevich elucidates that globalization results in the state structures subordination to the ethics of market relations with the world politico-economical system no longer being the market of competing corporations and turning into the market of competing bureaucracies that are contesting for the attraction of investments. The mergence of the state management and market mechanisms leads to the emergence of a special system within which business and power exchange their resources without public control. The author concludes that the main prerequisite for reaching security against corruption is a clear institutional separation of market and state.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-75-85
On the basis of the hypothesis that the economic problems in modern Russia are rooted in the specific characteristics of the existing property institution that in their turn are determined by the special features of its political regime, A.Maryin-Ostrovsky offers and substantiates a methodological approach that allows to follow the connection between political and economic spheres. The analysis he conducted demonstrates that although the Russian political regime possesses a rather strong potential for exerting influence over the institutional environment setting up social and economic parameters of the country’s development, this potential is being realized through the interaction between different actors rather than through a specific state policy. According to the author’s conclusion, today Russia has the bureaucratic regime with one dominating actor, but the dynamic of the institutional changes observed throughout the last years is not strictly determined and can be substantially altered if the dominating actor rejects the strategy of single-handed institutional changes and signals its readiness for the public dialogue with the society and business.
Russian Polity
PSEUDODOMINANT PARTY SYSTEM AND RUSSIAN VOTERS’ PREFERENCES
Having studied the electoral cleavages during the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation held on the basis of the proportional system, Yu.Korgunyuk proves the flaw of both apologetic and hypercritical approaches to the establishment of the pseudodominant party system in Russia. His analysis of the territorial differences in the support for the political forces shows that this system is “hand-made” and its formation is a result of the administrative expansion into the sphere of public politics. In its turn, the research on the shifts in the Russian voters’ preferences indicates that this system is based not only on the administrative resource rather adequately reflecting the majority sentiments of the population and skillfully fitting into the latter when there is any new shift in the conjuncture.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-103-142
Igor Zadorin, Dmitry Zaytsev, Vladimir Rimskiy
CIVIL SOCIETY IN RUSSIA IN THE NEAREST FUTURE: THE RESULTS OF THE EXPERT RESEARCH STUDY
The article summarizes the conclusions of the experimental project “The short-term scenario forecast of civil society development in Russia” conducted from February till April, 2009 by the ZIRCON Research Group together with the Economic Strategy Institute. The research study carried out within the paradigm of the exploratory forecast on the basis of the expert survey method shed light on the high differentiation among the experts’ opinions on the Russian civil society state and its prospects. There were neither conforming nor even prevailing opinions on hardly any parameters characterizing the development of civil society. Evaluating such ambiguity and controversy of the “expert consciousness” as being reflective of the subject in question itself, the authors come to conclusion that today the Russian civil society is at a bifurcation point, after which its development with the same degree of probability might take several paths that are fundamentally different.
Scientific Legacy
RELEVANCY OF THOMAS HOBBES’S PHILOSOPHY (II)
In the last 100–150 years not only has the uniform understanding of Hobbes failed to prevail, but moreover, the stable tendency of permanently rethinking his doctrine has emerged. Today this tendency is only becoming stronger. A.Philippov thinks that the never-ceasing interest in Hobbes can be primarily explained by the fact we are still occupied with the same problems that occupied the mind of the philosopher who lived several centuries ago. In the second part of his article published in this issue (for the first part see Politeia, 2009, ¹ 2) Philippov demonstrates that most questions arising while one is reading Hobbes are left without answers in the works by Hobbes himself. Reading his works thoroughly we come across a rather curios phenomenon. The whole construction erected by Hobbes is sort of vibrating, but doing it latently. On the surface one can see clear, easily understandable constructions thought out as triumph of coherence and inexorable logic, but going deeper one will find not so much inconsistency as exactly a field of questions left without answers. According to the author’s conclusion, the dynamic unstable world described by Hobbes is different from what it seems to be. It fascinates an observer and demands new research studies.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-158-172
LIBERALISM AND DEMOCRACY OF JOHN STUART MILL
The article describes the key aspects of John Stuart Mill’s political theory. Putting emphasis on those sides of the theory that are weakly reflected in the historiography and revealing significant differences of the liberal democracy elaborated by Mill from the one established nowadays, M.Momot is trying to prove that such discrepancies are by no means caused by the lack of “foresight” by Mill who created his model as nothing else but an alternative to a range of attitudes that afterwards have turned into the prevalent ones. Momot supposes that it is predominance of these very attitudes and ignoration of Mill’s warnings against “rampant” democracy and liberalism that at least part of the problems that liberal democracy has been facing in the last years is rooted in.
Cathedra
Denis Nezhdanov, Olga Rusakova
The article is devoted to the analysis of the heuristic potential of the metaphor “political market” in researching and describing modern political realities. Having considered general theoretical-methodological issues of structuring the metaphorical field of the scientific knowledge as well as unraveling the metaphor “political market” and having described methodological aspects of the metaphorical modeling of the party design, D.Nezhdanov and O.Rusakova demonstrates the backbone character of this metaphor, its ability to enrich political science with new meaningful notions and categories.