The article deals with the development of industrial policy in the Russian Federation in the coming years. The subject matter is the key challenges for the industrial development of Russia on the time horizon of 2018-2030, the risks and conditions for the Russian industrial policy and for its possible strategic alternatives. The research methodology is based on structuring the factors that shape the state industrial policy and bringing them into line with the existing or prospective elements of the policy. For the prospective industrial policy, I consider the emerging approaches in state authorities and the expert community.

The main results include the following. The global risks of strengthening sanctions are the most important factors to consider during the implementation of industrial policy in Russia. Among the possible strategic policy alternatives, it is expedient to implement an intermediate variant between «the basis of economic development and the key source of budget revenues» and «the means of diversifying the risks of the Russian economy». It involves concentration of resources on building long-term global competitive positions. Achieving this aim in terms of export volume requires constant high growth rates of industrial production – at least 4.2% per year. The industrial policy should be concentrated on several key directions (technological policy, investment, foreign trade, etc.) with a general exportoriented approach. For each of the directions, updating of both strategic planning documents and a set of industrial policy instruments will be required in the next 1-2 years. With the 3-5 years duration period of most investment projects in industrial sector, the roadmap for implementing a new model of industrial policy should be updated by the end of 2018. This timeframe limits or forbids the development and use of tools that require substantial changes in legal regulation.

The current economic regions in Russia were zoned in the 20-30s of the last century by the soviet State Planning Committee. Back then they played an outstanding role in economic development. However, today they do not correspond to the contemporary Russian realities of market economy.

We tried to identify new regions, considering natural, economic, social, geo-ecological conditions. Therefore, the identified regions have a complex geographical nature. We carved out ten such regions: Stolichny, Central, European North, European South, North Caucasian, Uralo-Povolzhsky, West Siberian, North Siberian, South Siberian and Far Eastern.

The authors collected statistical information of land area, population size and density, physical and geographical conditions, natural resources and economic activities for each district. Using the data, they identified for each region the natural population dynamics, the share of the population below the poverty line, the gross regional product, its structure, the supply of arable land, the rank of the geo-ecological tension, the balance of direct foreign investments and a number of other indicators. In particular the discrepancy between the area and the population in each region is shown. All regions are very different. While in European regions the share of the population is much larger than the share of area, in the Asian regions the situation is reversed: a very small proportion live on enormous area.

In the era of globalization, it is important to consider transboundary fluxes of population and environmental pressure. We analyzed the immigration potential and environmental externalities of neighboring countries for the identified regions of Russia. It is shown that Ukraine, Kazakhstan and China represent the greatest environmental danger for Russia.

Efficient geographical zoning is a necessary condition for improving the regional economy, and ultimately ensuring national security of the country.

The article explores a process of gradual consolidation of disparate set of Muslim economies into an increasingly influential, though internally contradictory center of geo-economic and geopolitical gravity in contemporary multipolar world. It uses a theory developed by the authors explaining the patterns of formation and succession of models of global economic development. The article builds upon this theory by testing quantitative and qualitative parameters of the process on a specific geo-economic case.

The contemporary developments within the economic basis of the Muslim pole and the practical requirements of economic analysis reveals the need for categorical correction and refinement of political economy. Two following terms «Muslim economy» and «Islamic economy» must be differentiated. «Muslim economy» is a civilizational form of national economies in Muslim countries and an integral part of the global economy, including both the economic life and welfare of the global Muslim population and the economic potential, sustainability and the ability for self-development of the economies of Muslim states. «Islamic Economy» is an economy that implements in practice the primacy of Shariah norms over conventional market norms, procedures and mechanisms. Both of them constitute important material conditions for sustaining the Muslim civilizational identity

In recent academic literature political, legal and religious aspects of Muslims upholding their identity have been sufficiently researched. In contrast the process of Muslim’s world achieving a new qualitative status of a global economic power center (not to speak about its competition with other old and new powers for a place within a new global economic order), is practically absent from the Russian and international research.

The authors propose a vision of a new quality of Muslim economies in the global balance of power, in emerging model of the global world order, in financial globalization and global governance – the gradual consolidation of the Muslim world. The article argues that this process is still very far from reaching mature forms. Today it is hardly possible to reliably predict specific configurations of the future self-organization of the «Muslim pole» in the polycentric world and the nature of its influence on specific issues of the global world order. However, the point of no return is already passed, and the painful and contradictory process of development of such a center is unlikely to stop.

The article deals with perspectives for integration within Central Asian region. The existing experience of integration in the region is perceived as an important factor. Currently the discourse of regional integration is gaining ground in Central Asia. It can be seen by the updates in the foreign policy concepts of most of the post-Soviet Central Asian countries. Another driver of the issue is the growing international activity of Uzbekistan which is due to the new President of the republic elected in 2016. The article defines the context of regional development, challenges which the region face, specific traits of political process.

The rationale for integration is linked to economic problems which cannot be solved by each Central Asian country on its own. Construction of any transport and logistical infrastructure in the region as well as tackling security threats determine regional cooperation. Although the researchers give arguments for advantages of integration in the region, Central Asian leaders are still looking for more efficient format of interregional cooperation. This process is not linear with its ups and downs. The article reveals the institutional experience that Central Asia gained over 1990s in search for its own integration project. Today this experience can be treated as an important step to maturity of national governance in the region.

But the reason why there is no implementation of integration initiatives discussed in the region earlier is that the current Central Asian political elites are not favorable to any kind of cooperation that will lead in the future to the formation of supranational bodies in the region. They perceive it as a threat to a stable national development. Another factor is a higher commitment of Central Asian countries to cooperate with non-regional economies rather than within the region. In such context a strategy of “bandwagoning” (as it describes S. Walt) will hamper any regional integration project.

The article analyzes the perspectives of globalization from theoretical premises of international economics and international political economy. For decades globalization has been looking like a non-alternative direction of economic development of the world. But today economists are no longer unanimous about its future. In practice, the ambiguity in views on the development of global processes has manifested itself in the return of national governments to protectionism in foreign economic policy. In theory - in the actualization of new conceptualizations of globalization and its perspectives.

The article compares the axiomatics of monodisciplinary and interdisciplinary economic analysis of globalization. The author shows that the main subject of the discussion here are the changes in the understanding of international economic relations, the role of the state and non-state actors in global processes and the global governance. The comparison of the economic approaches to the study of globalization brings to the forefront the economic nature of the factors that contribute to it and the political nature of the factors that limit it. In modern economic knowledge globalization manifests itself as an irreversible process of growth of cross-border economic interdependence leading to the creation of global supranational political institutions. The key constraint here is the institution of sovereignty: states remain the only subject of global processes that is formally free to ignore international agreements.

The future of globalization also rely on the political realization of its economic prerequisites. The evolution of global processes will directly depend on the search and implementation of foreign policy decisions, which on the one hand represent a political compromise at the international level, and on the other, are the result of a consensus of internal political, economic and other social preconditions for the actions of the subjects of global processes. Globalization is the non-alternative direction of the evolution of international economic relations. The protectionism observed today is an inefficient and temporary, at least in the long run. State regulation of national economies would gradually give way to self-regulation of the world market. Such self-regulation de-politicizes global economic relations, making interstate conflicts impossible and weakening manifestations of nationalism and protectionism.

The need for a critical understanding of digitalization in the modern economic structure led to the research relevance. The author’s hypothesis about the predominance of platform capitalism in modern economic relations based on K. Marx’s theory is formulated. The authors believe that the «digital economy» concept does not reflect the essence of the processes in terms of the theory of capitalist development, economic interaction, the dilemma solution of coordination and competition in the economy. Significant indications of the modern economy identification are the platforming and distributing, revealing not technical solutions, but features of economic interaction and priority of management decisions. The distributing is focused on the advantages of the Small Data digital economy, based on the market freedom, market relations and independence of market agents; the platforming characterizes the possibilities of digitalization to reduce transaction costs and monetization of communication relations. The key indication of platform capitalism is the markets design («design of matching markets» by A. Roth) that operate on the basis of digital platforms and provide communication and interaction of market participants. The key elements that modernize the classical understanding of capitalism are identified: 1) the transfer of services to a new sphere – the platform, with the max complete cycle, including payment; 2) the change in the form of hiring workers to provide services – through the platform, including part-time employment; 3) the main source of profit, as well as the object of the operation, becomes information, and then info-communication. An original approach to the identification of platform capitalism as an economic system in which economic agents carry out property ownership on the platforms basis, transferring the organizing process to the contractor, distancing themselves from direct participation in the process and receiving rent from the accumulated by the platform information data and communication solutions is proposed. The possibility of rent from information and channels of its distribution analysis allowed to identify the subject of investment relations – the digital rentier, which receives the main income from investments in the objects of the digital economy – platforms, which have already monetized the usefulness of the presented functionality and data. The authors proved that the limitations of the ability to business control should lead to the fact that the expected return rate from the digital platform’s investments of the rentier should be significantly higher than for the shareholder. The article is debatable, the provisions and conclusions require further research.

The article represents a complex and multifaceted analysis of different aspects related to the Evian and Bermuda conferences and is based on new scientific literature and archival documents. The aspects include such issues as prerequisites for conferences in the documents of the USSR Embassy in Poland as of 1923, historical and legal analysis of the activities and outcomes of conferences from the perspective of international legal regulation of forced population migration, the evolution of F. Roosevelt’s administration policy on the issue of Jewish immigration in the 1930s-1940s, as well as the reaction of the Jewish world to the conferences. In particular, V. Pechatnov analyzes the internal and external factors of American politics, public opinion, the personal role of President Roosevelt, the imperative of waging war against the Axis countries during the conferences. The author comes to the conclusion that Roosevelt administration and the president himself were not ardent advocates of the Holocaust victims, but they were not indifferent witnesses to the tragedy, doing for Jewish immigrants more than the governments of other Western countries. In his turn, D. Ivanov carries out a legal analysis of a number of international agreements on forced migration, adopted by states within the framework of the League of Nations, as well as the reasons for their low effectiveness. The author pays special attention to political events in Europe after Hitler coming to power. The author concludes that the unpreparedness of European states and the United States to accept ethnic Jews from German-occupied countries on their territory became one of the reasons for their mass death. S. Sklyarov proves the thesis that the Evian and Bermuda conferences demonstrated the consistency of the policies of the 32 member countries, which ultimately resulted in European Jews being the victims of Holocaust. As an example of such consistency and its earlier manifestation, which did not take into account the hopelessness of the situation of Jewish refugees, are the events of 1923 in Poland. Researcher A. Krylov presents an alternative point of view on the participation of Jewish organizations in conferences. The author refutes the widespread opinion that the leaders of Jewish organizations were not allowed to participate in the above-mentioned conferences. In fact, the Zionist movement, which took the leading positions in the Jewish communities of the world, ignored these conferences, considering them harmful because of England’s persistent refusal to abolish the White Paper of 1936, which restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. The leaders of the Zionist movement provided assistance only to those refugees who agreed to settle in Palestine.

This article outlines and assesses the contribution made by the Commonwealth of Australia to the Evian Conference of July 1938. The attitude of the Australian government, it will be shown, was ambivalent from the start, with the Commonwealth not even prepared to attend unless Britain also attended. Having then made the commitment to send a representative to Evian, the Australian government chose a man who was neither an immigration expert nor a man with any foreign affairs expertise. Thomas (later Sir Thomas) White, the Australian Minister for Trade and Customs, was a senior minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but the experience required for the task of representing Australia at a gathering such as Evian was simply beyond him. The legalistic and unsympathetic stance he adopted led to despair for many of the Jewish delegates at Evian. Upon elected to the chairmanship of one of the two subcommittees set up at the conference, White employed his position to treat the Jewish delegates with utter contempt. His record at the conference, lauded by many of the officials who were present, was one of the least humanitarian of any that can be attributed to Australian statesmen—hardly a ringing endorsement of Australia’s record at this crucial gathering in which the Commonwealth sought, at an early stage, to express itself as an autonomous nation on the international stage.

The author addresses the problem of the role and place of archives in the process of political identity formation, including in the field of “politics of memory.” The article draws attention to the fact that the prevailing notions about archives imply a static understanding of the role and functioning of archives. Instead, the author challenges those assumptions and suggests examining the archives as part of a wide network of institutions of public diplomacy, which forge and nurture mutual understanding and cooperation in the humanitarian sphere. To confirm the stated thesis, the article refers to the joint activities and activities of Russian archives in the framework of Russian-Czech relations, examines in detail the questions of historical memory and complex historical issues in the history of Russian-Czech relations. The article analyzes the current state of the archives on Soviet-Czech relations, the trends in the declassification of archival materials. Particular attention is given to the reflection of bilateral relations in archival documents in 1918, 1938 and 1968. The author concludes that the declassification of documents on problematic issues of bilateral relations does not lead to an automatic improvement of mutual understanding, since the parties may have conflicting interpretations of the same documents.

The reference to history in the context of Russia’s foreign policy is considered as an appeal to the quasi-transcendence, whereby an ideal dimension is added to the practical (political, economic) aspects of international relations. It is noted that only in the 2010s Russian diplomacy began to pay special attention to such «symbolic games», designed to provide the moral basis for foreign policy through reference to the historical role that Russia plays on the international arena. This, in turn, leads to the dominance of performative practices, rather than to the building of dialogue spaces. In practice, the politicization of historical memory is conducted in two ways: inclusion in foreign policy discourse and by various symbolic practices of addressing to the common past during official visits. The author suggests distinguishing actual memory places and symbolic gestures aimed at their actualization. Russian-Bulgarian relations are characterized by asymmetry in the spaces of shared memory, memory places are mainly localized in Bulgaria. We outline main practices of turning places of memory into the common spaces of memory, but interpretations of these symbolic gestures in Russia and Bulgaria are structured by different national historical narratives. The memory of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 and the liberation of Bulgaria during the WWII are assigned greater importance in Bulgaria than in Russia. This asymmetry leads to the fact that a significant work of the Bulgarian authorities, Bulgarian and Russian public organizations on the arrangement of places of memory and setting up new memorials is invisible in Russia, while Russian foreign policy discourse is dominated by the emphasis on negative aspects (for example, actions of individual vandals to destroy the monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia). This deprives the ongoing work in the field of symbolic support and at the same time forms a myth of «Bulgarian ingratitude». The most striking example is the scandal during the 140-year celebration of the liberation of Bulgaria in March 2018, which is based on a different understanding of how the achievements of the Imperial period should be interpreted today.

The presented research is devoted to the mapping of Russia and Russians in the Polish historical cinema in the XX – early XXI centuries. The aim of the work is to assess the positioning of Russia and the Russians in Polish historical films. The study is intended to enrich the concept of the essence of the politics of memory of Poland and the content of the historical memory of its citizens. Article materials can be used for professional needs by diplomats, journalists, representatives of international public organizations, experts in the field of patriotic education and organization of work with young people. During the collection and processing of the identified array of information, methods such as traditional analysis and expert interviews were used. The conducted researches showed that when creating images of Russia and its inhabitants in the Polish historical cinema, the tendency of negative positioning, determined by the political conjuncture and cultural stereotypes, dominated. For the formation of appropriate images, manipulative practices based on appealing to the sphere of emotions and using symbols with archetypal implication were used. The films of the period before 1939 and the post-Soviet era are related not only to the content, but also the technological side: in both cases, the creators used strategies to create images of someone else’s and phantom enemies, demonization and dehumanization. These techniques were used to reflect not only the Soviet period of Russian history, but also the pre-revolutionary era. Accordingly, not only the Soviet regime, but Russia, acting as the historical, eternal enemy of Poland, was positioned in a negative way.

The present paper aims to offer a conceptual exploration of the Presidential-Congressional relations in the US foreign policy decision-making. The US foreign policy decision-making arguably takes place within a functional synthesization of compromised bureaucratic rationality on the one hand, and the ideological, partisan and institutional interests and tendencies of individuals in possession of power on the other. In such a setting, the argument being put forth is that the Presidency is generally situated and equipped reasonably the best to deal with foreign affairs while the gamut of the Congressional authority in foreign policy varies based on the type of decisions made, playing a key role in distribution of resources to achieve particular objectives. In other words, the process of US foreign policy decision-making occasionally lacks the essential structural efficiency to prevent the executive branch from circumventing the Constitution. An executive branch operating in secrecy without legislative accountability is undoubtedly dangerous; therefore, a host of specialized means and preventive measures are required to be taken and practiced in order to avoid such danger and help keep US political structure in checks and balances. Attempt is made to contextualize this argument within a) the domain of decision-making theoretical models presented by G. Allison, and then b) rather practical discussions on requirements of foreign policy proposed by L. Hamilton followed by, c) a brief overview on actual developments affecting power relations in US foreign policy after the Cold War.

The article is about the history of US involvement in the Korean War (1950–1953) in the middle of summer 1950. This problem is considered as a prototype of Washington’s general approach to the organization of diplomatic support for its intervention in local conflicts. Research is based on published and unpublished documents of the diplomatic departments of the USSR and the USA, declassified CIA materials and memoirs of direct participants of the events.

A convenient instrument for legitimizing US interference in the conflict was the UN Security Council. Washington’s actions were justified by its resolutions adopted thanks to a boycott of the UN SC by the Soviet representative. At the same time, the history of local conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries show that the US can use other rather weak excuses for military interventions.

Along with legitimization of intervention, in the early days of the Korean War, American diplomacy worked on localization of the conflict, isolation of the theater of war, formed an UN based international coalition to participate in war, neutralized Washington’s political opponents in the international arena, and coordinated assistance to Republic of Korea. The US State Department and intelligence agencies usually perform these functions in support of armed interventions in conflicts in various regions of the world today.

The content of Washington’s reaction to the situation in Korea illustrates another important feature of US foreign policy, which still remains relevant today – the rejection of any deals with violators of the US-established world order, even in the initially unfavorable military and political conditions. Washington did not refuse to negotiate a truce, but even in the conditions of catastrophic defeats of the South Korean army, a peace dialogue could be started only after the restoration of the status quo.

Book review: A. Torkunov, N. Noonan, T. Shakleina: Russia and the United States in the evolving world order. Moscow MGIMO-University 2018. 414 p.

The title of this English-language book «Russia and the United States in the evolving world order» makes a reader think about the expert discussion on the «new», «transforming», «evolving» world order, and even as some researchers propose «disorder». The authors try to answer, perhaps, the most important question of the current international relations: what the world will look like tomorrow.

Book Review. Identity. Personality, Society, Politics. Encyclopedic Edition. Ed. by I.S. Semenenko. Moscow: Ves Mir Publishers, 2017. 992 p. (In Russian).

The Encyclopedic Edition represents a seminal volume devoted to the research of the present-day scientific discourse on the problems of identity and the practical application of this category to explanation of social reality. The authors view the problems of identity from various perspectives, focusing on the conceptual meaning, main types and dimensions, methodological approaches and research methods, portraits of scholars studying identity at different times. Dozens of leading scholars from academic institutions and university centers of Russia contributed to the publication.