Vol 23, No 3 (2021): World Politics and Prospects for Democracy

In the article, the guest editor Piotr Dutkiewicz and editor-in-chief Yuriy M. Pochta introduce the current issue of the journal, interpreting cross-cutting topics such as democratic development and the construction of national identity in the societies of the East and the West. They believe that the most appropriate heuristic explanation for these issues today is the idea that after the end of the Cold War the hopes for the final victory of the liberal democratic project on a global scale ended in disappointment. The end of history never took place, just like the victory of communism did not take place previously. All these years we have been witnessing an imitation of liberalism, the era of which is already over. There is currently a global revolt against the liberal imitation imperative. From this point of view, there is a great interest in articles devoted to Russian-Turkish relations, the place of the Central Asian states in the international rankings of democratic development, the evolution of the political development of the Lebanese Republic, the formation of democratic political regimes in such Eastern European EU member states as Poland and Hungary, the role of parties in the political life of Great Britain and Nigeria, as well as such theoretical and methodological problems of political science as the processes of forming future political leaders, methodology of the study of GR-management and approaches to the study of the political and psychological characteristics of the heads of Russian regions. In general, this issue of the journal pictures the current state of democratic development of Western and non-Western countries in the context of globalization, which is at the stage of transition from American monopolarity to multipolarity, from imitation of the Western liberal-democratic project to the search for its own development projects. The authors believe that from the point of view of Russia and its interests the materials of this issue allow for outlining the prospects for further research on ways to build the most effective relations with world and regional powers, the possibilities of protecting its sovereignty and its geopolitical interests, and the mechanisms for forming the Russian post-Soviet identity at the national and regional levels.

The Black Sea region has a special geopolitical significance for at least two states - Russia and Turkey. In order to identify the key factors that complicate regional cooperation between the two countries, the article considers the main problems of Russian-Turkish cooperation in the Black Sea area under the conditions of post-crisis resumption of bilateral relations after the 2015 incident. Regional contradictions between Moscow and Ankara are largely caused by different positions on such issues as Crimea’s joining to Russia, the regime of the Black Sea Straits as well as the policy of pan-Turkism pursued by Turkey towards the Turkic-speaking peoples of the region in the strive to form a “Turkic world”. In conclusion the authors explain the need to further strengthen versatile bilateral cooperation with Turkey and to pay special attention to security and humanitarian fields.

Since gaining independence, Central Asian states declared their commitment to democratization and development of a market economy, building their political systems based on the uncontested Western liberal-democratic model. Leaving behind the Soviet legacy, the political elites of Central Asian states strive to build an effective strategy for national and state development and to form effective democratic institutions. However, after several decades, the political regimes in the countries of the region have become more authoritarian than democratic. In the process of democratic transition, the countries face serious threats in the form of political instability and socio-economic problems. The renaissance of traditional national features made them an integral element of the political life of the sovereign states. The development of democracy in the states of the region is influenced by informal institutions - tribal relations, regionalism and the clan structure of society. In fact, the introduction of the basic elements of democracy into the political process of Central Asian states is formal or declarative, and the participation of the masses in politics is limited. Using various methods and criteria, international democracy development ratings assess the level of democratic development in transition states. Western countries set their own norms and rules for the democratization of transition countries based on the ratings of political transformation. As a result, international ratings are used as a tool for achieving the interests of Western countries that seek to reformat the political regimes of non-democratic countries, regardless of their socio-cultural characteristics. Each Central Asian state has its own features and dynamics/statics of democratic transit, but they are all united by the personification of power and loyalty to the autocrat rather than to the political institutions. The author attempts to trace the current state of the political systems of Central Asian states, highlighting the positive and negative trends in their democratization.

The article deals with the structural shifts towards multipolarity and global changes such as climate change, Industrial Revolution 4.0 and pandemics as phenomena that will shape the future generation of political leaders. The author works with neoclassical realism as a primary paradigm that enables him to evaluate structural shifts and the quality of political establishment on the unit level. The article entails both qualitative and quantitative methods. The Composite Index of National Capability and the comparison of gathered data falls into the quantitative methods, while analysis of scientific literature is the qualitative research method. The article’s primary aim is to determine the scope of the current challenges for future political leaders. The paper’s central argument formulates the hypothesis that future leaders will be vastly shaped by the shift towards multipolarity in which the balance of power logic drives international affairs. At the same time, the future political thinkers are about to deal with the global emergencies caused by climate crisis, pandemics and Industrial Revolutions 4.0 and 5.0.

This article examines the update of ideological foundations of the largest right-wing radical party in Britain (and in the whole of Europe) - the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The subject of the research is the party’s programmatic text, Manifesto for Brexit and Beyond, a document that is not limited to the discussion of Brexit alone. This document appeared at the end of 2019 and, despite the frequent change of leadership in the party during 2020, remained the ideological foundation of the organization after Brexit. The aim of the article is to analyze how the ideological base of the right-wing British radical party was formed in the socio-political realities of the initial period after the state’s exit from the European Union. The paper presents a discursive analysis of the main ideological document of one of UKIP, as well as identifies the ideological positions of British right-wing radicals at the present stage. Since the research is mainly practice-oriented, the main results are presented the data obtained through discourse analysis using to the method of R. Wodak. The data testify the changes that have been taking place in the discourse of the extreme right in Britain in recent years, as well as the prospects for its evolution in the coming years after Brexit. Studying UKIP’s discourse, the author concludes that it forms depending on the political, social and cultural conditions that prevail in modern British society, as well as on the general European context. The article also shows how a modern right-wing radical party constructs its discourse using the most painful issues for the society within the framework of political struggle.

The rethinking of public policy in response to a rapidly changing world and economic development predetermined the relevance of studying the GR-activities of companies in the 21st century. Due to the fact that business-government relations have an interdisciplinary nature, political scientists need an appropriate methodological toolkit for their thorough study. Most of GR research are narrowly focused, and, as a result, are ineffective, since analyzing GR activities within the framework of one methodological paradigm leaves the consideration of GR as a system and its embeddedness in the political structure “behind the scenes”. In this regard, the results obtained do not provide either researchers or policymakers with comprehensive information on effective policy-making. The purpose of this article is to try to find a systemic methodology, enabling political scientists to display, describe and analyze GR-activities with the end of putting the findings into practice in order to improve the efficiency of these activities. The author examines the main paradigms and metatheories used by political scientists and argues for synthesizing theoretical and methodological approaches into a unified methodological system for GR research. The author comes to the conclusion that changes in research approaches to political GR research and in the thinking of researchers could potentially help improve the quality and effectiveness of preparing and implementing public and corporate decisions.