Kostogryzov Pavel
This article presented by late Oleg. B. Podvintsev explores the concept of failed states through different stages if its development, with particular attention being paid to the intrinsic characteristics of a state system which is prone to erosion. Nevertheless, the idea of failed states has been broadly discussed in Western academic literature, the author acknowledges that it still remains understudied in Russian academic discourse, so he is inclined to consider those curious transformations that have been occurring with the term failed state in Russian context. Apart from evaluating numerous Russian equivalents to the term failed state, this article dives into semantic analysis of those connotations each of these equivalents bring into Russian public and academic discourse. The article concludes with the idea that manipulating with references to a former colony or a former part of the bigger state as a failed one, might compensate for certain traumas of those bigger states who experienced a collapse of their imperial well-being. In other words, recognizing the fact that the countries separated from ‘the Empire’ started to go downhill after this separation, might cause a feeling of satisfaction in minds of those who share an imperial system of values.
Keywords: failed states; weak states; failed countries; geopolitics; discourse analysis; collapse of the Empire; Westphalian system
Startsev Yaroslav
The article presents a typology of modalities of thinking based on data from experimental psychology and comparative anthropology, followed by an application of this typology to the problem of diverse interpretations of political phenomena and the resulting forms of political action. A comparative characterization of five modalities of thinking – rational, magical, aesthetic, ethical, and instrumental – is provided, identifying the structuring rules that govern the perception of reality, the formation of judgment, and the acquisition of new knowledge. Each set of such rules is analyzed as an independent logic, with political thinking and associated political action being interpreted as a consecutive realization of these logics, contingent upon the chosen modality. Typical strategies of political behavior linked to each modality are identified, along with the psychological triggers that stimulate the activation of rational, magical, ethical, aesthetic, or instrumental thinking and behavior.
Keywords: political thinking; political action; political theory; typology of thinking; irrationality in politics
Fishman Leonid
The article considers the following question: in the course of human and social evolution, does public morality2 increasingly tend to give way to private morality combined with legal norms serving as social regulators? It is shown that such a tendency would be a consequence of the dominant (neo)liberal paradigm, which, since oriented towards the implicit idea of the “end of history”, excludes the possibility of social change outside of capitalism and liberalism.
Keywords: public morality; private morality; liberalism; capitalism; social change; political struggle
Martyanov Victor
The article proceeds from the thesis that current transformations affecting the capitalist world system will require a correction of the mechanisms used to maintain the political order of contemporary societies. The exhaustion of the market model of development, which remains oriented towards continuous growth, reveals the contours of a future society without economic growth. Due to technological automation and robotisation, such a society will find itself replete with “surplus population”, at the same time becoming transformed into a society without mass labour, but with increasingly dangerous classes (precariat, unemployed, diverse minorities). The emergence of resource limits affecting free markets leads to an increase in protectionism and nationalism, resulting in the tendency to replace market competition mechanisms with the forceful politically-led redistribution of markets and resource flows. However, this coincides with a crisis of the welfare state, under which conditions a depletion of the resource base is accompanied by the growth of rent-dependent groups. In the resultant rentier political order, market communications give way to hierarchical distributive exchange models in which, due to the progressive structuring not by market-led class formation, but rather by the access of citizens and social groups to resources distributed in the form of rents; as a result, rent-seeking behaviour becomes dominant. In this context, social behaviour associated with the search for rents having a guaranteed status starts to become a more advantageous strategy than risky entrepreneurial activity or the pursuit of advantageous positions within a shrinking labour market. The drift towards the rentier democracy model can be attributed to increasing willingness of states to bypass the market and participate in the direct redistribution of resources. The chief feature of this development lies in the fact that the classes competing for access to resources are no longer primarily economic but statist; in other words, the distribution of resources is increasingly shifting from the market to the state. In this context, competition becomes primarily structured not according to the criterion of market value, but in terms of its utility to the state. According to the emerging rentier democracy model, a social group achieves success by elevating its status in the hierarchy as a means of increasing its access to resources. However, in resolving the accumulated structural contradictions to form new influential social groups, the transformation into a rentier society creates burgeoning antagonisms between the new rentier-estate social core and increasingly peripheralised market-oriented groups, which continue to be focused on progress.
Keywords: contemporaneity; market; rent-seeking behaviour; rentier society; democracy; social structure; stratification; estates; centre-periphery; global future
Rudenko Victor
The article analyses forms of citizen participation in public decision-making that are alternative to traditional institutions of citizen participation (public discussions of draft laws by citizens, public hearings, citizen participation in the work of public councils formed by government bodies, etc.). The author argues that the main drawback of traditional forms of civil participation consists in a lack of mechanisms for ensuring independent and competent public discussion of the most significant public problems. Therefore, in his opinion, such institutions tend to be more aligned with the politics of special interests, i.e., expressing the aspirations of elite groups, rather than civil society as a whole. The presented argument is structured according to the theory of deliberative democracy and the related concept of aleatory democracy. Potential forms of civil participation in the exercise of public power based on the institution of drawing lots (various forms of mini-publics) are explored. It is shown that the modelling of these forms is closely related to the evolution of jury trials – and in particular to the introduction in the United States during the late 1960s of the ideal of a fair cross-section of society in the formation of jury composition. The latest forms of aleatory democracy are considered. The advantages and disadvantages of these forms are considered together with the experience of their practical implementation. Forms of aleatory democracy are shown to have potential in terms of contributing to rational communication between civil society and the state, as well as local government bodies. The future development of these forms may thus contribute to overcoming the crisis of modern liberal democracy.
Keywords: aleatory democracy; deliberative democracy; jury trial; mini-publics; planning cells; citizens’ juries; consensus conferences; deliberative polls; citizens’ assemblies; citizen’s core jury; citizens’ parliament; cross-sectional ideal; cross-sectional jury
Davydov Dmitry
The article critically evaluates theories and concepts related to the decline of capitalism and emergence of post-capitalist social relations. The prevalent assumption that capitalism is experiencing a deep crisis raises the question concerning what kind of socioeconomic system might replace it. For this reason, it becomes necessary to critique the various attempts of theorists to keep capitalism alive by ascribing new “modifications” (late, too late, techno, hyper, glam, digital, communicative, “cool”, surveillance, platform, etc.) to it. The rise of the immaterial economy implies a radical transformation of production relations structured according to the principles of accumulation and appropriation. As creativity, which cannot be mechanically controlled or accounted for, comes to replace labour, individual and exceptional goods take over from mass production; meanwhile, private ownership of material goods is challenged by the social nature of knowledge, artistic values, and new engineering ideas. At the same time, social theory appears to be increasingly acknowledging the futility of idealising the new economy or considering it as “ripening fruits” of a communist future. In joining the debate on this issue, the author notes a number of fundamental obstacles that call the prospect of a non-antagonistic society into question. In the first place, this concerns the limitation of two centrally important non-material economy resources: attention and individual personality. The growing roles played by creativity and attention in the non-material economy entail an increasingly intense competitive struggle for influence and self-realisation. At the same time, there are no obvious means by which to eradicate asymmetrical power relations and individualism, which have deeper historical roots than capitalism. As in earlier times, there is no single locus for the concentration of power, exploitation and appropriation. Here we refer not so much to Internet platforms or mass media as individual people, who increasingly become super-rich and super-influential thanks to their nontrivial personal qualities, prodigious
Keywords: capitalism; postcapitalism; platform capitalism; communism; socialism; creative economy; attention economy; Marxism; postmarxism; neofeudalism; class struggle; class antagonism; socioeconomic inequality
