Medvedev Yury

Protestant Roots of Modern Statehood (About Impact of the Reformation on Development of the Institution of State)

The concept of state as an institution with monopoly over legitimate physical violence, which dates back to the Modern history, in many respects echoes the ideas of the Reformation and Protestantism. In this sense, one of the most important features of Protestantism is the denial of or a significant decrease in the role of church hierarchy, which had serious political consequences. The idea of an intermediary between God and a man has always been fundamental for Christianity: Christ himself is understood through this role, and the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion — The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity — speaks about it. Protestantism deemed the church hierarchy an unnecessary duplication of the mediating role of Christ by making Scripture the main source of faith, by largely eliminating the mystical component, and by marginalizing the principle of apostolic succession. Disagreement with a free will concept, which prevailed in the Protestant doctrine, also became an essential factor in delegitimizing the church hierarchy.

By clearly separating the state and the church, the Reformation helped to secure the church’s monopoly over salvation of human souls and the state’s monopoly over regulation of secular personal relations. After becoming a solely secular institution, whose legitimacy is predominantly based on rational and legal grounds, the state largely lost its paternalistic functions. It now remains an exclusively external force, whose interaction with its citizens mainly comes down to “selective” acts of coercion.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2018-89-2-69-83

Pages: 69-83

OCCUPATIONAL STATUS AS SUCCESS FACTOR AT REGIONAL ELECTIONS

Studying the elections to the Russian regional legislatures held under the single-member district subsystem of the mixed electoral system, Yu.Medvedev analyzes the dependence of the candidate’s electoral success on his/her occupational status. The article reveals the occupational categories that provide a candidate with the electoral advantage, sheds light on the resources that are necessary to reach that advantage, and evaluates the size of the latter with the help of the statistical tools. The author concludes that the social-occupational structure of the candidates’ corps at the elections to the Russian regional legislatures has already been formed and is unlikely to undergo any substantial changes in the near future.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2010-57-2-75-90