M. V.Kharkevich

Unthinkable Doomsday: Postapocalyptic Nature of Modern Political Realism

The article discusses the relevance of political realism in the times when a total planet catastrophe is possible. According to Ye.Uchaev and M.Kharkevich’s hypothesis, modern political realism is a post-apocalyptic direction of thought, which is based on the belief that a final state of the world has arrived. Therefore, now that human survival is under threat, realism could be rejected due to the denial of the postapocalyptic worldview, which historically made realism possible, rather than external reasons.

The article defines political realism as an approach towards international relations that assumes the inevitability of conflicts between multiple political actors. The authors claim that such an approach requires interpretation of time as infinite. Based on the works of Bruno Latour and Eric Voegelin, Uchaev and Kharkevich show that such a perception of time was formed at the turn of the Middle Ages and the New Age through the self-positioning of Modernity as a post-apocalyptic era, and the state within the Modern era — as a post-apocalyptic subject. The study of the texts of modern political realism confirms the hypothesis about its post-apocalyptic nature. A consistent realist position is found only after the post-apocalyptic self-perception took root in Europe (roughly in the middle of the 17th century) as a result of the triumph of a sovereign state. The realist position is most clearly revealed in the concept of the balance of power of the late 17th—18th centuries. The authors who wrote before or on the eve of this turning point (Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes) in their works turn to the apocalyptic-utopian horizon, where disunity is transformed into political unity. In turn, the threat of the total nuclear war that emerged in the middle of the 20th century becomes an incentive for Hans Morgenthau, John Hertz and Reinhold Niebuhr to overcome realism and develop projects for global political reform. However, according to Uchaev and Kharkevich’s conclusion, overcoming realism will remain incomplete until the problem of the political subject of global reform is resolved.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2023-108-1-40-63

Pages: 40-63

In Search of Refutation of Rodrik’s Impossibility Theorem

The article is devoted to the analysis of the so called impossibility theorem, according to which democracy, state sovereignty and globalization are mutually exclusive and cannot function to the full extent when present simultaneously. This theorem, elaborated in 2011 by Dani Rodrik, a famous economist from Harvard University, poses a fundamental problem about the prospects of the global scalability of political institutions of the nation-state. Is it in principle possible to globalize executive, legislative and judicial branches of power, civil society, and democracy, or is it necessary to limit globalization in order to preserve democracy and nation-state? Rodrik’s conclusions, in essence, make one give up hopes to create global democratic order against the background of global capitalism.

On the basis of the Stanford School of Sociological Institutionalism and the reconstruction of the historical materialism by Jürgen Habermas, the author refutes Rodrik’s theorem. The author’s analysis shows that not only is it possible to build democratic order at the global level, but also that it already exists in the form of the world culture that includes such norms as electoral democracy, nation-state, civil society and other institutions of Modernity. The world culture reproduces fundamental social values, playing the role of social integration for the humanity, while global capitalism provides for its material reproduction, playing the role of system integration. However, since globalization is a more dynamic process than the development of the world culture, between material and ideational universalism arises a gap, which in its turn is fraught with various kinds of political and economic crises.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2021-102-3-22-39

Pages: 22-39