No 4 (2014)

The article provides analysis of geopolitical situation around Ukraine in 2013-2014. The author demonstrates that confrontation between the US and Russia contains not only threats and challenges to the national security of Russia but also new possibilities and prospects to boost the political role of Russia in the world politics.

The article investigates the electoral statistics of Ukrainian Presidential Elections 25 May 2014. Conventional division of Ukraine into three parts - the eastern, central and western - shows significant differences both political preferences and voting activity. The correlation between these two indicators exclude the possibility of a study by the Sobyanin-Soukhovolsky criterium. However, in separate parts of Ukraine there is more uniformity. Distribution of election commissions on turnout for Ukraine as a whole and for most regions indicates the absence of “ballot stuffing”.

The paper research the current conceptual parameters study peculiarities of social and political transformations, new meaning to the concept of “modernization”, the variability of its models, updating the value component. The emphasis is on forms of expression and interpretation of the religious factor in the contemporary conditions in Russia.

The article analyze the results of the work of XXIII World Congress of International Political Science Association «Challenges of Contemporary Governance», held in Canada, Montreal 20 to 25 July 2014. The author describes the key problems and thesis, which were presented during the Montreal’s Congress: challenges of contemporary governance, globalization and governance, public police, quality of governance, federalization. The author analyzes the role of Russian political scientists it the congress work.

The author responds to the challenges of the multipolar world. Serious geopolitical changes of the last years put on the agenda not only relevant aspects of territorial delimitation of subjects of international law, but also the development of criteria of efficiency/inefficiency of state structures and governance models.

The Middle East Region is at the forefront of contemporary world politics. During the XX th century, it was the region of tension and instability, because of conflicting interests of the Great Powers, which frequently led to their intervention into states’ internal conflicts, which, in turn, created hotbeds of terrorist activity. This article deals with the phenomenon of the most successful modern terrorist organization called «Islamic State» in the context of violence escalating in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. Analysis of preconditions for creating the «Islamic State», its ideological roots, as well as the focus on its main political purpose provides further identify factors of its fast influence growth in the region.