RESEARCH ARTICLES
The article attempts to present a new vision for the strategic development of the Russian Federation. The authors note that the search for strategy should be made on the meta-level analysis in order to take into account either the military and political context of national security or the future interests of Russia. This allows one to reduce uncertainty in the strategic planning process. The author notes that the current military-political strategy of Russia is based on a fairly old idea of deterrence. This strategy is reactive in nature and involves responding to external challenges and threats in the international political environment. Meanwhile, the global political landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, in which a key aspect of national security will be a wide range of connectivity options to further political development of the state and society. Another disadvantage of deterrence strategy is that the threats are not differentiated from national interests and political goals. The author offers his version of the conceptualization of the terminology and the essential differences of different types of threats and assess the consequences of misunderstanding such differences. As for the strategy of deterrence, the authors suggest an alternative strategy of “control”, which aims at the formation of a systemic perspective directions of development of the society. A key element of this strategy is the forging and maintenance of the national human capital, which provides connectivity, adaptability and innovationability of various branches of the governance and dealing with external challenges. “Control” means an intensification strategy of the state policy in the field of science, culture, the promotion of spiritual development and production of advanced innovation.
The article analyzes the prospects of institutional innovation in the european international process. European Union (EU) is going through several crises of political, economic, ideological and intellectual nature. It makes many scholars and researchers as well as policymakers and ordinary people to think about redefining the concept of the «Common European home» for not only European states, but also in a broader sense meaning the post-Soviet space. The authors present an assessment of weak and strong sides of the existing European integrational institutional architecture by using methods of systemic and probabilistic analysis as well as multi-level approach. It inevitably leads to the question about the relationship between the institutions as independent agents and nation states, and the role of intergovernmental cooperation in solving the current EU’s problems. This EU crisis creates opportunities as well as, challenges for Russia which has no possibility to simply fence off from Europe institutionally or ideologically. Europe was, is and will be a part of the Russian national interests – either as a threat or as a factor which contributes to its development and prosperity. Therefore, the authors wonder how the updated concept of European integration can look and, respectively, which impact all these changes can have on Russian foreign policy. Using the historic institutionalism the authors make the conclusion about the existing institutional lock-ins and path-dependent behavior of the EU that does not allow to adapt to the rapidly changing environment. To solve the existing crisis EU needs upgrade the political, economic and intellectual concept of the integration process.
The structural change of international relations system at the end of the Cold war has resulted in US becoming the sole superpower or hyperpower. The US took advantage of this position and strived to build a hegemonic world order based on US military-strategic superiority and soft-power. Implementation of this strategy results in “imperial overstrain” a serious revision of US strategic planning in 2010 and 2015. In the context of the continuing decline in the power of the United States (economic, technological and military) relative to other centers of power, it is nonmilitary political methods and instruments that, together with “soft power” and military pressure, increasingly come to the fore in US realizing global geopolitical aspirations. The new imperative of US strategy is deterrence of Russia and China, which could result only in the crisis of global hegemony and the rise of conflicts in world politics.
The article deals with the origins and stages of the evolution of the concept of “soft power” in the political practice of the key countries in the world. This concept is both theoretical and practical product since it synthesizes and represents the direction of the application by a state its of social and political resources. It is significant to trace the transformation of the views of the author of the term J. Nye on the essential elements and mechanisms of “soft power”. The author examines the concept of “soft power” as an element of the US strategy to maintain its leadership in the world. In this regard, for other countries the use of “soft power” may be less effective for their own political purposes, because the concept is tuned to the specific characteristics of US policy. Moreover, with change in the international environment, Wash-ington modernizes the concept, of “smart power”. The author draws attention to the fact that the conditions for the use of turning it in “soft power” are likely to have been changed for the other states. The author concludes that there is a need to revise the existing theoretical approaches to the image of the state in the international arena and to develop new tools that can take into account the complex cultural, tourism, educational opportunities and achievements of every state.
Food consumption is influenced by a series of issues that affect both individuals, and people and cultures of the different parts of the world. It studies biosocial risks that have dramatic implications: obesity, anorexia and bulimia; malnutrition and hunger, involving more than 800 million people; the waste food, a real paradox of the global world; the land grabbing. These are very different problems because of causes and dynamics, but all of them require a profound change to be affected: a greater awareness of eating behaviour, an educational action on food topics, an intervention of regulatory institutions, local and international, which guarantees a fair market for products and food sovereignty.
The structural change of international relations system at the end of the Cold war has resulted in US becoming the sole superpower or hyperpower. The US took advantage of this position and strived to build a hegemonic world order based on US military-strategic superiority and soft-power. Implementation of this strategy results in “imperial overstrain” a serious revision of US strategic planning in 2010 and 2015. In the context of the continuing decline in the power of the United States (economic, technological and military) relative to other centers of power, it is nonmilitary political methods and instruments that, together with “soft power” and military pressure, increasingly come to the fore in US realizing global geopolitical aspirations. The new imperative of US strategy is deterrence of Russia and China, which could result only in the crisis of global hegemony and the rise of conflicts in world politics.
Israel’s strategy of the “periphery Doctrine” served as a way to enhance security and economic ties and reduce isolation. Following the deterioration of the regional situation Israel had begun to consolidate new relations with peripheral nations. The post-Arab Spring regional order has largely transformed the Central Asia-Israel potential partnership. New regional order has jeopardized Israel’s geostrategic balance, and so that country is looking to deepen alliances in the Muslim world. Central Asian states can fill that role. The basis for this partnership is the understanding by the involved parties that they share certain security and economic interests that can provide benefits. The relationships between Israel and Central Asian countries are long-established and cordial in the political, economic and strategic realms, and based on shared views of world order and intense person-to-person relations. All of the Central Asian governments cultivated their secular traditions and stepped up their anti-Islamic stance for fear of the development of domestic, Islamic-oriented opposition. Islam has no specific legal status in any of the five states in the region, and the fight against alleged Islamic extremism has become a mainstay of domestic and foreign policies. This article surveys the constellation of bilateral ties that has formed between Israel and the Muslim states of Central Asia and draws a comparison to Israel’s previous relations with peripheral countries Turkey and Iran. Person-to-person relations between Israel and Central Asia are probably Tel-Aviv’s leading means of influence in the region. Israeli investments have strengthened the political partnership.
The article is devoted to political and cultural heritage of Sogdians (“merchants outside empires”). This is the Central Asian people, who lived in a period from around the 6th century BC. until the middle of the Middle Ages, and then were dispersed in the vastness of Khorasan region. Throughout its history the Sogdians played the role of the most important trade intermediaries on some segments of the Silk Road, many researchers today consider “Silk Road” and “Sogdian Trade Network” as synonyms notions. Sogdians were unique in their inclination not only to develop new products, but also to proliferate their own reinterpretation of new, mostly imported ideas. This is especially evident in their relations with the Chinese, including the period of the Tang dynasty (618-907), i.e., “Golden age” in the history of China. The article for the first time in Russian research literature represents Sogdians as a people who managed to influence the Eurasian cultural dynamics by introducing the principle of deterritorialization into relations with close and far neighbors. Most modern historians in Central Asia tend to ignore the contribution to “their” history from “strangers”, neither mediators, nor neighbors. The appeal to the intellectual heritage of Sogdians as a people who promoted the transformation of the region into a crossroads of cultures would open the possibility of developing intellectual pluralism in each of the Central Asian countries today and would allow accelerating the creative modernization of the region as a whole.
The article studies the perception of Modernism by the Catholic Church as a movement within the clerical structure and philosophy that existed during the 19-20th centuries in the framework of general skepticism and rejection of tradition, prioritization of individualism, formal equality, faith in inevitability of social, scientific and technological progress, rationalization and professionalization. A distinctive feature of this movement is the participation of the priests themselves, especially in France and Italy. The object of research is the Catholic political doctrine during the pontificate of Pius X. Modernist movement in Catholicism, in opinion of many scientists had a decisive impact on the reform direction during the Second Vatican Council, but on closer study of the discourse that took place in the late 19th - early 20th centuries, it becomes obvious that this is not true. The focus of the article is the political doctrine of Catholicism - the issue of state political structure, its relationship with church institutions, status of the individual in societyc. In this regard, the modernists gave priority to necessity of secularization and complete separation of secular and spiritual power. In the article different scientifical methods, ave used such as dialectical, logical, comparative, systematic. The main conclusion of the author is that modernism should be regarded as an unsuccessful attempt to reform the Catholic Church that could have lead to its another schism, rather than a route towards the Second Vatican Council. The desire to change the structure, methods of church mission, its hierarchy and a number of other formal elements – was implemented by church itself for multiple times before. However, revision of the foundations of Christian ethics and its ontology, including its political doctrine, ran into resistance of the Holy See, causing, in essence, a rhetorical question - whether scientific and technical progress should necessarily lead to the progress of ethics.
The article attempts to answer the question if there is a geopolitical school in Chile. It revews the origins of political thought in Chile as well as first geopoliticians of the new independent republic, such as B. O’Higgins. It analyzes the key events of the two periods in the history of Chile’s foreign policy of the nineteenth century – the period of regional and continental power politics. The Pacific War (1879-1883) of the continental period allowed Chileans to expand their «living space» and approved Chile as a key power in South Pacific. The author studies the formation of various foreign policy concepts in 19-20 centuries, such as the South American version of the «balance of power», whose author was D. Portales; Chilean legalism, whose main supporter was A. Bello; Pacific strategy of R.K. Montalva, subsequently modified by A. Pinochet. An important element that influenced the formation and development of Chilean geopolitics in the twentieth century is the German factor, in particular, German school of geopolitics. The ideas of Social Darwinists, tested and subsequently modified, in accordance with the Chilean specifics, by scientists, militaries and politicians, played an important role in shaping Chile’s foreign policy. It supported, for example, the Chilean interests in Antarctica. The southern continent is a strategical point of the foreign policy and a part of the concept of «tricontinental state», which was promoted in the middle of 20 century.
The economic crisis of 2008-2010 caused extensive discussion among leading economists, financial experts, politicians about the need to reform the global financial system with capitals in New York and London. Today international financial centres are the key elements of the global financial system, which lined up mechanisms to attract and manage capital flows around the world. At the same time, in the academic literature and studies of leading financial organizations, there isn’t an established definition of “international financial center”. IFC is regarded as a place of concentration of banks and financial companies’ offices, and as a platform for national businesses access to the global capital market and as a global city with the special conditions of doing business. The article provides an overview of approach to the definition of “international financial centre” in the foreign and domestic academic literature. Considerable attention is paid to the approach of defining IFC as a function of the global city in terms of urban studies, sociology and geography. Research on key features of the IFC is based on the analysis of GFCI methodology, which is compiled by Z / Yen Group Limited. The author concludes that more attention in defining IFC should be given to its role as a global city, rather then its financial intermediary function, taking into account the growing role of such factors of competitiveness as business and city environment, human capital.
The article reviews the current state of global energy security studies and proposes solutions for theoretical problems presented in those studies. For this purpose the global energy security has been defined as the state of international affairs free from crises, provoked by unilateral actions by states toward national energy security. Based on the analysis of global energy security as global public good and applying the international regimes theory, the author explores the substance of global energy security and approaches for its provision. The interdependence of countries in provision of their national energy security calls for a state of international relations on energy security issues, which prevents serious international conflicts and crises on issues of production, trade, transit, and consumption of energy and allows to avoid escalation of international competition for energy resources. Provision of global energy security is instrumental in creating of such state of international relations. Within this approach, pProvision of global energy security thus becomes a key factor contributing to provision of national energy security for a wide range of countries. In this framework, it exhibits main characteristics of a global public good that are non-rivalry and nonexcludability for members of global political and economic system. Global energy security is a final global public good, while international global energy security regimes, defined as sets of rules, procedures, and practices for resolving international conflicts and crises on national energy security issues, are intermediate global public goods. In the author’s opinion, formation of these regimes (both universal and regional) and possible ways to increase their efficiency are the most promising spheres of research in the field of energy security studies.
The article describes key aspects of global energy issues, with an emphasis on energy security. The Russian Federation is to face three inter-related challenges: provide energy security, stimulate economic growth and protect the environment, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that will reduce the level of air pollution and contribute to the global improvement of the atmosphere. The author analyzes the status and prospects of world energy markets and the forecast of their development for the period up to 2050. As the main trend the development of smalldistributed generation is highlighted, primarily in developing countries. The article justifies the importance of energy efficiency increase in Russia. In our country per unit of GDP consumes two times more energy than the member countries of the IEA, but a noticeable improvement has not yet been achieved. Meanwhile, aging, and often obsolete infrastructure in the electricity and district heat is in urgent need of investment. Attracting investment in the modernization and improvement of energy efficiency can be provided with the following key measures: reducing the dependence of fuel and energy complex on equipment imports; the research of renewable energy sources (RES); development of the most cost-effective oil and gas reserves and the change in export strategy.
The article discusses current state of Russian electric power industry and the main problems of its development in the future of global energy revolution, which will lead to a significant increase in share of renewable energy in global production and consumption of energy and use of industrial energy storage, and will make it possible to change the structure of the industry and significantly reduce electricity prices. Traditional energy generation displacement by renewables associated with emergence of new, more cost effective technologies. Producers of “disruptive technologies” receive advantages over importers of innovations, which are especially noticeable during the formation of the new technological wave. Considering possibilities of effective development of Russian power industry, it is important to take into account the realities, including high level of depreciation of equipment, lack of capital and technologies. Currently, in the field of technology in the power industry innovative economies of Japan, USA, UK, Canada, as well as dynamically developing economy of China are leading. The high level of patent activity in these countries is caused by presence of infrastructure which promotes the commercialization of new technologies and free access to investment capital. In Russia technological exports in power sector occurs mainly due to foreign projects of Rosatom. Operation of foreign-made equipment which accounts for a significant proportion of fixed assets and problems with the development and introduction of competitive technologies are complicated by the lack of investment in domestic market. For maintenance of imported equipment Russian companies have to buy spare parts abroad and to enter into service contracts with foreign suppliers. High depreciation of fixed assets also determines the need for new investment inflows into the sector. Thus the existing dependence on foreign investors is supposed to increase. In the short term the lack of domestic technologies that can compete on the world market will require consideration of opportunities of more effective attracting FDI and technological partnerships with foreign investors.
Almost all countries in the world actively regulate both import and export of agricultural products, however this process is very conflictгфд because of acute contradictions on the market. They are associated with the changing conditions of production, increase of attention of the world community to the food securitysituation, change of the used resources efficiency level, competition enhancement. Both internal and external components of agricultural producers support are important for Russia. That means the regulation should be aimed at meeting the needs of the domestic market and at increasing competitiveness of Russian products abroad. The development of the Russian export strategy for agricultural products is currently very important. This problem is closely related to the general subject of the agricultural productiondevelopment, but it has an explicit specific character. Inthiscontextexperienceofforeigncountriesisinteresting. Almost all tools of export regulation existing in the world practice are used in the foreign practice of export regulation of agricultural raw materials and food. Stimulation measures prevail in regards to the coverage of commodity items, number of episodes involving the use of agricultural export regulationmeasures, effectiveness of impact to the national agricultural sector. Holistic strategies of agricultural export development are not a widespread phenomenon abroad at the present stage of the world economy development. Their existence is typical for countries with a high level of food self-sufficiency. Special programs where export component is a harmonically built-in element are now more widely spread. Export development programs of the developed countries include a range of measures to maintain the target income level of producers and to maintain procurement and consumer prices. Export policy of the developing countries has a subordinated importance and is considered as one of the levels to develop national agriculture through the use of advantages of international division of labor.
Civil aircraft industry market is а complex multistage system of manufacturers and consumers, which affects countries all over the world. The globalization and world economic growth caused inevitable merger of national markets into one system where the key role belongs to few corporations. In the article the author analyze peculiarities of civil aircraft industry global market shaping. Main reasons of aircraft industry centers appearance are considered through socio political and economic development of the industry. Factors that caused national specialization of manufacturing countries are examined along with peculiarities of Boeing leadership. The main stages of the industry development are described starting from the beginning of the 20th century up to the present day. The author highlights specific characters of European manufacturers development and their merger into one multinational conglomerate. Besides, modern market status is examined through benchmark study of the main competitors. Main tendencies of the industry are segmentation and new aviation industry clusters appearance. Key actors of regional aviation are described, which are Embraer and Bombardier. Reasons of their appearance and development are analyzed. Main pretenders for the aviation industry global market entrance are outlined.
BOOK REVIEWS
The review analyses whe ther the work fits into the overall context of foreign policy and European studies in particular Spain. The conclusion is that the study is based on a wide range of sources and is the result of years of work by the author. A distinctive feature of this publication is its current importance, which is manifested, for example, in the analysis of contemporary processes of formation of Spain’s foreign policy in the context of the global financial and economic crisis. The author provides a consistent analysis of the main directions of Spain’s foreign policy as well as basic levels of foreign policy decisions - making.
In the analyzed publication the author presents the various aspects of the development of scientific school at MGIMO-University. The author made a special emphasis on the “human” dimension on the disclosure of personal features of the heroes of memories, who were somehow connected with the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The details that can only be accessed by a direct participant in the events and that allow the reader to plunge into the social context of what was happening are of great significance. The review concludes that the undoubted literary merits of the product complement the deeper content of the book.
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