Autors

The article is devoted to the formation of authoritarian tendencies in Turkey as the radicalization of the ruling Justice and Development Party. The author refers to the conceptions of “democratic retreat” and “the third wave of democratic backsliding” and considers the changes introduced in the functioning of the ruling party as one of the main reasons for the change in the methods of governing by the Turkish political elite. Highlighting two stages in the development of the political regime of R.T. Erdogan – 2002–2011 democratization and 2011 till present – as an authoritarian turn, the article provides explanation for the features of the political course of those times in terms of the structure and transformation of Justice and Development Party’s political discourse. The changes in the properties of the party’s political strategy such as coalition closeness, populist orientation, reliance on reforms and principles of democracy, and the moderate nature of the political style led to the radicalization of the Justice and Development Party. The radicalization of politics was manifested in Turkey’s anti-Western foreign policy, with the predominance of negative political language in relation to political opponents and the deactivation of the principle of “checks and balances” in favor of expanding the powers and role of executive power in the face of president of Turkey R.T. Erdogan in the political system. It is especially worth noting about the influence of “external shock” on the political system. Among such “external shock”, there is a need to highlight the growth of protest moods, corruption scandals related to political environment of R.T. Erdogan, the increase in the influence of opposition parties on the political system and any possibility of limiting power of R.T. Erdogan up to the organization of attempts of military coup. The article concludes that in order to prevent a decrease in the party’s ratings in the face of “external shocks”, the party’s actions were adjusted so that it subsequently led to the creation of conditions for an authoritarian turn.

Keywords: democracy; election; Erdogan; Justice and Development Party; populism; regime; Turkey

The rise to taking over state power after elections of 2014 by majoritarian forces in India has since witnessed weakening of institutions of governance. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has returned to power with an enhanced parliamentary majority in the 2019 elections. The rise of hindutva (Hindu-ness), the Hindu nationalist political philosophy of the formations comprising the BJP and the Sangh parivaar (organizational family of the Sangh) or affiliates of the right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has reshaped the discourse on the “idea of India”. Under the extensive reframing in majoritarian nationalist terms of Indian political verities, it is conceivable that the Indian military, widely regarded as a professional, apolitical and secular force, will also be impacted. There has been little academic scrutiny of the possible influence of majoritarianism on the Indian military. The paper examines impact of the onset of majoritarianism democracy on India’s military by taking a close look at the movement in civil-military relations under the BJP government. There is a shift in civil-military relations from objective civilian control, that enhances professionalism and keeps the military apolitical, to subjective civilian control, wherein the military is co-opted through subscribing to the ideologybased security perspective of the ruling party. This shift poses for the military a risk of losing their a political ethic. Erosion of the apolitical ethic of the military will open up the military’s secular ethic to modification. The conclusions are both relevant for policy and theory. The relevance for policy lies in the need for the Indian state and the military to preserve professionalism by persisting with the objective civilian control model. The theoretical relevance is in discerning limits to the concept of obedience of the military to the civilian political rulers. Where there is a threat from a political ideology or its penetration into the military’s intellectual domain with the potential to dilute the military’s professionalism, the military needs to pushback for the sake of national security.

Keywords: Indian military; military sociology; Hindutva; military professionalism; civilmilitary relations; Indian politics

The article focuses on the analysis of political and philosophical ideas of M.N. Ep- stein, and particularly on his concept of “trans-culture”. The purpose of the article is to explore ways to overcome the crisis of national identity by the principles of “trans-culture” and “critical universality”, developed by philosopher M.N. Epstein. The article examines such topics as criticism of totalitarian culture in the USSR, critique of multiculturalism, Russian regionalism, selfidentity of the Russian Diaspora in the USA, etc. The article is based on the texts of M.N. Epstein and on the interview taken by the author in 2011. The author concludes that the principles of “trans-culture” and “critical universality” developed by Epstein may be considered as a “bridge”, which leads from national-civilizational identity towards building global civil society.

Keywords: national identity crisis; trans-culture; critical universality, critical analysis of multiculturalism, M.N. Epstein.

The paper highlights the problem of the necessity of person’s spiritual self-release in I.A.Ilyin’s anthropological interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy.  Person’s realization of freedom is considered as the summary of self-reflection, choice and practical act.

Keywords: freedom, spiritual self-release, existentialism, concretization of an absolute, person’s self-determination, theology.

The article examines the constitutional law foundations of civil society institutes’ functioning. The author justifies the need for the participation of Russian society in the state management process.

Keywords: civil society, Russian society, democracy, personality, rights and freedoms of man and citizen, legal state.

Constitutional and legal fictions as a phenomenon of modern legal reality are investigated in the article. Legal fiction is a phenomenon, in which fictitious position is declared as an existing one; it acquires binding character due to its reflection in the norms of law, or vice versa, the actual situation is recognized as non-existent. Sectorial features of the constitutional and legal fictions mean that they have a vast sphere of action and affect priority areas of life; in their majority, they differ in a pronounced political and ideological orientation, and are observed in special cases. Such cases include abstract legal concepts, terms, understanding and interpretation of which are ambiguous; situations when constitutional and legal norms do not receive proper specification and development in other normative legal acts; “transformation” of the norms of the Constitution by current legislation or decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, by which the author understands change (sometimes significant) of meaning of its individual provisions without formal invasion into constitutional text. Special attention is paid to the classifications and specific manifestations of fictions in the constitutional law of the Russian Federation. Depending on the level of legal force, fictions can be subdivided into constitutional and sub-constitutional; depending on the content – into material, procedural and mixed; depending on the duration of the existence – into static and dynamic; depending on expression form – into open and hidden (latent); depending on the attitude towards actual circumstances – into positive and negative; depending on institutions of the constitutional law of Russia – into fictions in foundations of the constitutional system, rights and freedoms of human being and citizen, federal structure, institution of the president, parliamentary law, legislative process, and local self-government. As a result, constitutional and legal fictions are defined as normative provisions contained in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and other sources of the constitutional law that recognize condition, which does not exist as existing, and vice versa, and also have industry features. The author underlines the ambiguous role of fictions in the constitutional and legal regulation of social relations, and the need to optimize their use.

Keywords: constitutional fiction; reality of constitutional provisions; fictitiousness of constitutional provisions; legal life; transformation of the Constitution.

The article examines the use of the “historical justice” category as a public justification for political actions. Despite its frequent use in public discourse, the scientific legitimacy of the concept remains questionable, as its formal definition encounters a range of challenges. Firstly, the status of the main subjects of justice – perpetrators and victims – remains uncertain, since the assessment of their activities in the historical perspective may change over time. Secondly, the so-called non-identity problem is essential, as it complicates establishing the continuity between the victims of historical injustice and the modern communities claiming to represent them. The active use of appeals to historical justice rooted in the doctrine of “moral remembrance”, which arose as a result of World War II and consists of three main principles: the duty to remember, the duty to face the past, and the duty to ensure justice for victims. As the composition and number of leading political actors changed, there was a sharp increase in memorial narratives, and the automatic extension of demands for historical justice to these narratives resulted in an increase in memorial conflicts. In modern public space, the discourse of historical justice has become a crucial tool of symbolic struggle, often replacing moral attitudes towards the past with political manipulation. In this regard, it seems necessary to distinguish between historical justice as a political tool and as a category of historical ethics that allows determining and assessment of the relationship between historical facts and modern narratives. 

Keywords: historical justice, moral remembrance, discourse, collective memory, ethics, perpetrator, victim, cancelling

The article attempts a critical philosophical analysis of the ways to reinvent the production of contemporary media culture on the example of two franchises, “The Last of Us” and “Cyberpunk 2077”. Modern media culture is a complex mechanism ensuring the transmission of various messages through the production and subsequent human consumption of media products. Douglas Kellner, following Jean Baudrillard, positions media culture as a spectacle for pleasure. In the digital space, media culture includes a number of mediums, such as video games, movies, music, etc. Since postmodernism is an integral part of modern capitalism, the production of media culture for profit involves the (re)invention of various media texts. Using philosophical vocabulary, the example of the franchises “The Last of Us” and “Cyberpunk 2077” show how such media culture products are created. Simulation, pastichization, and remediation become tools for the production of contemporary media text and thus refer to what has already been produced. The article presents an analysis of video games as a simulative space within the framework of the philosophical categories of Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, and Gilles Deleuze. The author also analyzes the genre component of franchises using the proposed by Fredric Jameson terminology of pastiche, and the developed by David Bolter and Richard Grusin concept of remediation. Within the “The Last of Us” franchise we can see that the transition from one medium to another, from a video game to a film, is an actively used way of copying media text. When such copying occurs, there is a loss of interactivity with the media text, which can negatively affect the consumer experience. In the “Cyberpunk 2077” franchise the same transition not only does not impair the consumer’s interaction with the media text but complements it by connecting the stories of two different mediums with each other. It is concluded that the analyzed franchises, having a similar base of production, diverge in terms of creativity, showcasing the potential approaches through which media culture products can undergo reimagining and reinvention. 

Keywords: media culture, critical analysis, pastiche, simulation, simulacrum, remediation, cyberpunk, horror, zombie

The paper offers doctrinal analysis of the effectiveness of implementation models of the constitution, taking into account the existing constitutional theory and practice. The author defines the concept of the «implementation model of the constitution», marks out the criteria for definition of the models and suggests five implementation models of the constitution: model of formal implementation, model of mediated implementation, model of limited implementation, model of direct implementation, model of living implementation. The author formulates advantages and peculiarities of each model and considers those models and their continuous development as part of constitutional process. In addition, the article analyzes factors, which define the choice of particular model in concrete legal relationship and the reasons for the normative fixing of the model of direct implementation of constitution. The author concludes that direct action of the constitution as integral principle of the implementation of constitution resulted from its substantial qualities has attributive value.

Keywords: constitution, implementation of constitution, implementation model, direct action, constitutionalism.

The article is devoted to the contents of the right of ownership. The author in detail analyzes theoretical opinions about elements of the right of ownership and proposes a new theoretical model of the right of ownership. 

Keywords: property, right of ownership, individual right, legal relation, theoretical model of the right of ownership.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted not only public health, economics, and politics, but also has had profound psychological effects, which in turn affect all spheres of life of individual states and the international community as a whole. To explore this impact, the article uses a model of epidemic psychology developed by British medical sociologist Philip Strong at the turn of the 1990s. Based on the history of epidemics, he identified patterns of changes in society during outbreaks of previously unknown infectious diseases. In his opinion, at least three types of psycho-social epidemics are spreading in parallel with a disease, developing according to their own laws, and affecting both individuals and society as a whole. The first of these is an epidemic of fear, the second is an epidemic of explanation and moralization and the third isan epidemic of action or proposed action.They not only present a threat to public order but also can powerfully influence the size, timing, and shape of the social and political response in many other areas affected by the epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many vulnerabilities in people’s response to a sudden outbreak of a new disease, which poses a serious threat to security at both the national and global levels. Understanding the causes of such a response and identifying patterns of development of epidemics/pandemics play an important role in the fight against them. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to verify the relevance of Strong’s model for the analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic. This purpose dictatesthe structure of the study, which outlines the British scientist’s key concepts and applies his model to the situation with COVID-19 in general and in the field of politics. Since COVID-19 is the first pandemic in the era of social media, special attention is paid to the information epidemic (infodemic). The final part of the article highlights some of the effects of epidemic psychology in the context of humanity’s predicted entry into an “era of pandemics”. Promising directions for further research on the issue are outlined. 

Keywords: epidemic psychology, model, epidemic of fear, epidemic of explanation and moralization, epidemic of action, panic, moral entrepreneurs, stigmatization, COVID-19 pandemic

The article considers the diverse integration projects in modern Russia. Special attention is given to the integration of regions in Russia and to the formation of Perm's Region.

Keywords: integration, political integration, integration of regions in Russia.

The author defines the classification criteria for direct governor elections in Russia, determines the types of elections based on their competitiveness and prediction and analyzes the impact of participation of power structures agents(«siloviki») on competitiveness and prediction of elections.

Keywords: direct governor elections in Russia, competitiveness and prediction of election, power structures agents («siloviki»), loyalty and opposition to federal power, role of power structures in regional politics, professionalism of administrative personnel.

The aim of the article is to analyze theories of electoral cycles, to determinate electoral cycles in Russia and to demonstrate the influence of elections upon political development in Russia.

Keywords: electoral cycle, typology of elections, political development.