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The author states that Western countries as pioneers of introducing supremacy of law as fundamental legal principle of modern societies demonstrates rather successful model of its implementation. On the contrary, many countries of non-Western world including Russia experience significant difficulties in implementing the constitutional principles of the supremacy of law. Therefore, the main aim of the article is to answer the following question: “How the supremacy of law is possible today?” In order to achieve this aim the author at first defines and describes the “drivers” of the supremacy of law. They include principles (ideas) of law, power elite and civil society. Then, the author considers the situation of social contract as the primary condition, which allows “drivers” of the supremacy of law to fulfill their historical mission. It is mentioned that not every social contract promotes introduction of the supremacy of law in the society. Supremacy of law is implemented within such social contract where law and rights are its subjects. The legal situation in contemporary Russia is considered; it is mentioned that in the legal field both legal and non-legal tendencies are presented; a proper social contract concerning law and rights of Russian citizens is still to be made.

Keywords: law, supremacy of law, constitution, contradiction, conflict, social contract.

The article isdevoted to critical analysis of the results of research of the status of contemporary American political theory/philosophy, conducted by Matthew J. Moore. The results of the research were presented at the APSA Symposium in 2009.The importance of the research carried out by M. J. Moore, as well as the importance of its goal - defining the place of political theory in political sciences, obtaining information about the level of influence of particular political philosophers on the minds of American political theorists and on the participation of respondents in the activities of public and scientific associations – is underlined.Moore’s commitment to quantitative approach in analyzing scientific outlook of political theorists, as well as subjective method used in rankings contemporary and future political theorists of our time and the near future, is criticized. The authors express their appreciation of a number of critical comments made by Moore’s reviewers during the discussion. At the same time, the research done by Moore, to authors’ opinion, may encourage similar studies in other national communities of political sciences, including Russian political philosophers.

 Keywords: political theory, political philosophy, political theorists, American political science, American Political Science Association, positivism, qualitative methods, qualitative methods.

This article is devoted to the analysis of ancient Greek religion, but rather the theory of the origin of anthropomorphism. In the article the author examines the works of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, F. Shahermayra, F. Betancourt, R. Carpenter, H. Weiss, B. Fagan, etc. The author focuses on the fact that the infamous home anthropomorphism of Greek religion is quite common, and later emerged in this religion around the time of the IX-VI centuries. BC At that point, and the sayings of the great philosophers. Most scientists attribute this to the onset of the Dark Ages, Toe is with the onset of the revolution in the religion of ancient Greece. Former fragmented and confusing, Greek mythology has been systematized and formed the basis of the ideological matrix. Because of this common cultural space created Hellenic world. But the author fails to realize that such gods as Zeus and Poseidon, these were the gods in the spirit of Heraclitus and Parmenides, and just as its internal constitution of the Spartans did not give the Greeks, so does their true religious beliefs they left esoteric for The external world by offering popular and understandable to any person anthropomorphic fake.

 Keywords:philosophy, anthropomorphism theory, the gods, the Greeks, religion, poem, power, Dark ages, a revolution.

 The article analyzes traditional philosophical category of «Other» understood as fundamental principle of modern European concept of self-knowing. According to the philosophical tradition, the understanding of «Other» was conducted within two key areas: one based on the phenomenological tradition (E. Husserl, P. L. Berger, T. Luckmann); and the second belonged to versions of dialogism (J.P. Sartre, M. Buber, J. Lacan etc.). The author characterizes two directions in understanding of «Other» (general and specific), and refers to synthetic position of E. Levinas, which combines (as it follows from the analysis) the phenomenological options and dialogism. Concept of «Other» is particularly treated within postmodern philosophy and is defined in relation to problems of inter-subjectivity, communication and dialogue. At the same time, the emerging of European tradition of «Other» discourse is closely related to the formation of the «identity» concept. The study of «Other» within the identity theory reveals similarities of the problematic fields: self-knowing of individual personality and processes occurred on the level of collective political identity. In both cases, questions of contradictions and self-determination in systems «I – Something Else» and «We – They» appears in the centre of debate. 

Keywords: concept of «Other», phenomenology, dialogism, post-modernism, life-world theory, face-to-face relationships, identity.

The author develops possible models of political regimes in situations of compatibility/ incompatibility of rule of law and democracy, while maintaining liberal approach to the rule of law. Не applies the methodology proposed by Tilly Charles, however, he takes into account three indicators for description of possible models of political types (potential of rule of law, potential of state, and potential of democracy), instead of two indicators (potential of state and potential of democracy). Based on the proposed approach the author analyses two types of democratic and four types of undemocratic regimes. As shown in this paper, introduction of an additional indicator allows proper evaluation of the dynamic of political regimes’ change in various countries (compared with Freedom House, etc., methods). The author turns to problems of the rule of law and democracy in Russia and in the independent states that emerged after the disintegration of the USSR. The author, using these three above-mentioned indicators, argues that the conclusions made by today’s political science about the current process of de-democratization of political regime in Russia after 1995 are not compelling. He also argues that the political regime in Russia was not democratically oriented before, as well as after 1995. It remains the regime with inadequate potential of the rule of law. The only thing that changed after the disintegration of the Soviet Union is the type of non-democratic political regime. The author underlines that the main course for development of Russia and post-Soviet countries should be democratic political regimes based on the idea of democratic rule of law. However, the development of Russia and some other countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus and the countries of Central Asia) in this direction has faced with challenges in proper interpretation of democratic rule of law. Among these challenges the author mentions anti-Western sentiment and relativistic approach to human rights and democracy; identification of rule of law with rule by law; instrumentalist approach to law; para-constitutional practices. He ties the progress toward democratic regimes with overcoming these challenges and achieving the situation of compatibility of high potentials of rule of law, state, and democracy.

Keywords: rule of law, democratic rule of law, democracy, rule of law potential, potential of state, potential of democracy, types of political regimes, post-soviet countries.

The article examines in what ways the sociological study of cities can produce scholarship and analytic tools that help us understand the broader social transformations under way today. Urban sociology had this capacity early in the 20th century, when industrialization generated massive changes in cities. The thesis is that today globalization is similarly generating major changes that become visible in cities, most notably global cities. One critical issue here is whether these larger transformations evince sufficiently complex and multivalent urban instances as to allow us to construct such instances as objects of study that takes us beyond the urban moment of a process or condition. The urban moment of a major process can help the empirical study of that process in ways that other phases of such a process might not. At the same time, this urbanization of major processes repositions the city as an object of study. And this is the second question organizing this article: what is it we are actually naming today when we use the construct city?

Keywords: urban sociology, global city, transnational processes, globalization, transnational political geography, political subjectivity, new political actors.

The article analyzes the influence of Saskia Sassen’s urban research on the globalization studies. The author argues that the major advantage of the global city concept can be seen in the methodological shift towards the analysis of global tendencies through the lens of urban practices. Sassen considers globalization as a complicated process, which leads to the restructuring of the global political geography. On the one hand, such a view allows to define the global city as a key site of this geography; on the other hand, it transforms the global city into unique research site for examination of the global trends. The global appears to be placed in the local forms, which constitute a sort of globalization “microenvironment”. In this regard, today’s major cities can be considered not just as a place where global process occur, but also as a place where they are “produced”.

Keywords: urban studies, global city, globalization processes, localities, “microenvironment” of globalization.

The article focuses on problems of studying identity of Russian regions using the example of Chelyabinsk oblast. The authors carry out qualitative sociological research of identity, which provides the basis for the article. While conducting the focus groups in five municipal units of Chelyabinsk oblast, the authors purposed to reveal positive characteristics of the regional identity. The intensity of utterances about different identification characteristics makes possible to define and rate several groups of such characteristics. The article describes the following identifiers in descending order of importance: “nature”, “industry”, “people”, “sport and culture”. Negative identification characteristics are included into separate group. Special attention is attracted to the fact of the significant amount of such identification characteristics, which relate to industry and sport. This is not typical for Russian regions. At the same time, those identifiers, which seem to be traditional for Russia and relate to history and culture, are poorly represented in the identity of Chelyabinsk oblast. It is concluded that the use of methodology for studying regional identity proves to be successful, and the perspectives of the second stage of research oriented on application of the qualitative sociological approaches are estimated as promising. The article provides recommendations for authorities concerning construction of regional identifiers, and evaluates perspectives of the development of regional identity of Chelyabinsk oblast.

Keywords: regional identity, Chelyabinsk oblast, Ural, methodology of identity studying, focus group.

The author refers to the critical reflection of capitalist society. Modernity is the time of global risks and disasters, the cause of which can be found in the model of rational subject. According to the author, there are two ways of overcoming it: to destroy capitalism as such, or (over against) to operate existing subjectivity model, in which individual utility becomes the only acceptable argument. Social capital theory is notable here trough considering society in the mode of benefits derived by individuals from social relations. “Social capital” term, to our opinion, can be the concept framing possible vector of practical action – an attempt to overcome the increasing atomization of society. However, the author finds a number of conceptual vulnerabilities of social capital theory which are connected to the radical anti-capitalist theory criticism. This encourages us to revise and expand social capital theory by a new concept – «public capital». Social capital often implies local (personal) benefits derived from social interactions, but the nature of public capital is in critical rethinking of these "local benefits", which are often becomes a source of global risks.

Keywords: consumer society, public capital, social capital.