Vol 20, No 1 (2018)

The article examines the main geopolitical aspects of the reunification of the Crimea with Russia from the point of view of the policies of the Russian Federation and Western countries in the Black Sea region and specifically in the field of energy security and cooperation. Russia’s desire to consolidate its positions as an influential center of the emerging polycentric world requires it to build constructive and meaningful relations primarily with partner countries in the region of the Middle East, the Caspian-Black Sea region, and also in Asia within the BRICS taking into account the “Chinese factor” in the 21st century. The establishment of cooperation in the bipolar world is a prerequisite for preserving peace and prospects for the socioeconomic development of all countries of the regions mentioned and one of the main strategic priorities of Russia’s foreign policy. An important place in this regard is occupied by the problems of ensuring energy security and cooperation in the Black Sea region.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in the Middle East’s region. The author examines the evolution and transformation of this policy in the context of the Syrian crisis. The theoretical basis of the study was the theory of realistic school, the theory of “balance of power”, the concept of “balance of threats” by Stephen Walt and “securitization” of the Copenhagen school. The author comes to the following conclusions: Russian foreign policy in the Middle East after the collapse of the Soviet Union has gone through several stages of development from almost complete suspension in solving regional problems to an active role not only as a player, but also as a mediator of many regional processes, and above all the Syrian crisis. The article also attempts to forecast the situation in the Middle East from the point of view of opportunities and challenges for Russia.

The article analyses the role, place and forms of African countries’ participation in the new China’s strategy “One Belt and One Road”. The author describes the existing partnership between China and African countries and their future interaction within the New Silk Road. China’s initiative pays special attention to identification of positive and negative sides of China-Africa cooperation.

The article analyses the reasons for the electoral success of the “Alternative for Germany” party at the federal and state levels in 2016-2017. Looking at the ideological spectrum of German political parties through the research lens of a two-dimensional coordinate system that, alongside the traditional ideological dimension includes the value axis, the author points out the fact that the problem of the refugees, which appeals to the values of the nation, perplexed German parties, as the choice of a particular strategy in regard to the refugees involved high risks of losing a significant number of votes. As a result, those parties, which managed to clearly articulate their system of values, above all the “Alternative”, benefited from this situation. The author states that the rise of the “Alternative” was caused by the “value vacuum” in the party life in Germany stemming from the progressive “open-door” refugee policy introduced by Chancellor Merkel in order to resolve the European refugee crisis. Much consideration is given to the reasons that led the CDU to adopt such an unusual strategy for a predominantly centrist party. In conclusion the author suggests that, in spite of its electoral success, political influence of the “Alternative” will be seriously limited by the unwillingness on the part of other parties to establish contacts and build inter-party ties with an inexperienced political player, which is prone to neglect the achievements of German democracy and does not fit into the framework of modern political mainstream. From the other hand, the tightening of the immigration policy weakens the protest potential of German voters.

The presented work is devoted to the study of the practice of using computer games as a tool of the memory policy. The relevance of this study determines both the growth of the importance of video games as a means of forming ideas about the events of the past, and a low degree of study of this topic. As the goal of the author's research, the research is to identify the prospects for using computer games as an instrument for implementing the memory policy within the framework of the case of the events of the Great Patriotic War. The empirical base of the work was formed due to the generalization of the content of such video games as “Call of Duty 1”, “Call of Duty 14: WWII”, “Company of Heroes 2” and “Commandos 3: Destination Berlin”. The methodological base of the research is formed due to the involvement of elements of descriptive political analysis, the theory of operant conditioning B.F. Skinner and the concept of social identity H. Tajfel and J. Turner. The author comes to the conclusion that familiarization of users with the designated games contributes to the consolidation in the minds of users of negative stereotypes regarding the participation of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. The process of integration of negative images is carried out using the methods of operant conditioning. The integration of the system of negative images into the mass consciousness of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space makes it difficult to preserve the remnants of Soviet political symbols and elements constructed on their basis identity. The author puts forward the hypothesis that in the case of complete desovietization of the public policy space in the states that emerged as a result of the collapse of the USSR, the task of revising the history of the Great Patriotic War will be greatly facilitated, and with the subsequent departure from the life of the last eyewitnesses of the relevant events, achieving this goal will be only a matter of time. Presumably, these risks can be eliminated by harmonious integration of the legacy of the Soviet political and historical myth into the model of the memory policy developed in Russia and other post-Soviet states.

The article reveals the meaning and components of the concept of «national idea» in the Japanese understanding, the relationship between the national idea and the state’s foreign policy iplementation process, as well as the peculiarities of the Japanese political system. Domestic and external factors that had a significant impact on the process of forming the political culture of Japan, which at first glance has certain contradictions but which through the synthesis of social and political elements of the external world and its traditions made it possible to become a modern industrialized democratic state, are also researched.