The process of formation of the Moscow agglomeration takes a new direction. The first stage began in 2011 when the decision to expand the administrative and territorial boundaries of the capital was made at the Federal level. The second stage (from 2009 in Moscow and from 2011 - in the districts of “New Moscow”) was marked by the transition to digital technologies in the field of urban management: in this process, separate electronic services for interaction between citizens and Moscow authorities were introduced, as well as the creation of infrastructure for wide access to the Internet. In 2018, along with the solution of topical problems of transport and social development, as well as the renovation of the housing stock, the Moscow government announced the start of the project “Smart city”. It is about the management of the city on the basis of information obtained through the widespread use of sensors. Technically, this is quite possible today, as evidenced by the world experience of creating “smart cities” and the successful implementation of electronic public services in the capital and other regions of the country. However, the implementation of “smart cities” projects in Russia has its own specifics. The purpose of this article is to analyze the development of the Metropolitan agglomeration in the context of the state course on the formation of the “digital economy”. The paper discusses the economic and political aspects of the expansion of Moscow borders, identifies the main characteristics of the information and communication environment created in the “smart city”, determines the main directions of the introduction of “smart” technologies in the management of the capital’s economy, gives a forecast on the key problems that may arise in the way of the implementation of projects in the regions of the Russian Federation.

For almost three decades, a new institutional environment peculiar to the capitalist economy has been forming in modern Russia. Nevertheless, a number of market economy structures continue to undergo complex processes of transformation, adaptation to the real economic conditions of our country. In this article, the author analyzes the development of the institution of entrepreneurship, its importance for the formation of an innovative environment, not only from the standpoint of economic cooperation, but also socio-political peculiarities and regional psycho-social infrastructure of Russia as a whole and in the subjects of the Federation. The author assigns a special role in the development of the institution of entrepreneurship in Russia to universities, which are designed to create additional prerequisites for the formation of the business environment as a whole, and in the regions of the country as well. The systemic integrator of the development of the business climate in the region is the government structures, primarily the ministries of regional development, labour and employment, education and science. Leading regional universities are searching for new forms of integration - they are part of the R&D structures of large corporations, create joint research structures with business, and use the potential of the international partnership. Directly in the field of education, universities develop educational programs that contribute to the formation of students, graduate students, students of specialized courses, skills and competencies, economic, legal, psychological, etc. The most successfully implemented models of entrepreneurial universities in our country show a significant increase of the revenues’ share from applied research, the replenishment of the patent portfolio, and the research process involves teachers and a significant number of students.

Speaking of modern Russian modernization, it is necessary to touch upon the aspects of its practical feasibility. Today, the state is trying to make an economic and technological leap. In this regard, there is a need to define the existing realities, which would give an answer to the question: how much is the modernization agenda in Russia implemented? The article deals with the aspects of the state modernization policy in the field of socio-economic changes in the Russian Federation, systematizes the existing ideas about what transformations are necessary for the country to move to the innovative structure of the economy and management. Based on the arguments presented in the article, the author concludes how the policy of global changes concerning the Russian economy and politics looks at the moment.

According to Rosstat, at the beginning of 2017 in Russia, the number of people with disabilities who have reached the age of voting was 11 686 thousand people - almost 11% of the total number of voters in Russia. In order to identify the features of the electoral behaviour of people with disabilities, the author conducted a sociological study by expert interview. The article deals with the problems of people with disabilities, which they face when trying to realize their electoral right, as well as possible ways to optimize the situation. Positive dynamics in this issue is necessary not only for people with disabilities but also for society as a whole, as people with disabilities are a significant electoral force that can influence the results of elections.

The article considers political ontology as a system of social life factors determining political decisions, tasks and programs of state authorities and political parties. The author substantiates the provision that ontological categories of political philosophy reflect both basic phenomena and phenomena of superstructure spheres of society. They as a system cover socio-economic, political relations, as well as manifestations of the social and political psychology of society.

The article is devoted to the analysis of linguistic practices of changing the meaning of the concept of “patriotism”. It is done in order to manipulate the mass consciousness. Being the core of the value system of society, patriotism is now being actively discredited. In the conditions of aggravation of the political conflict and informational confrontation, discrediting of the Russian language, one way or another, contributes to the destruction of its value for the Russians and the Russian-speaking population beyond the borders of the Russian Federation, the loss of their spiritual ideals and traditions. The discrediting of patriotism is the purposeful activity of certain social actors to harm the sensual-rational image - the value of love and devotion to their homeland, which has a great symbolic significance; undermining its influence on the public consciousness as an ideal, a social reference point. The article reveals the meaning of the conceptual and categorical apparatus for describing social reality. Here we give a definition of terminological confrontation, which is a conflict interaction between various socio-political actors in the linguistic sphere, when one of the parties tries to impose on the other its understanding of certain phenomena, expressed through special linguistic constructions, in order to accept the opponent’s vision of reality and obtain a rational advantage over the opponent. Further, we specified different linguistic-communicative technologies and techniques to discredit the values of patriotism, including: the use of double standards (granting different meanings of the same actions depending on subjective assessment), metaphorization (the understanding of one phenomenon in terms of the other, with a vague resemblance from the first), organisation of language games (a mixture of different tokens), initiation of media-viruses (indirect evocation of associations of sub-consciousness), the undermining of binary oppositions (permutation of pairs of terms in the system of non-linear communications), the simplification (the reduction of values and simplification of the meanings of the words), simulacrization of language (making copies, deprived of the original), the substitution of signifiers (“fastening” of the symbolic values that change the meaning of the utterance).

The article attempts to present the analysis of the socio-political movement (SPM) as a category of political science in the form of an extremely general concept that expresses its most significant properties and relations in the context of global changes in the modern world order. The main question discussed in this paper is not whether the theories applied to the analysis of the SPM are positivist ones, or, on the contrary, they are simplified versions of the interpretation of the essence of the phenomenon, but whether they are relevant and complete enough to cover the most important current and future areas of focus and influence from the socio-political movement, whose role and importance tend to accelerated growth. According to the results of the study, we proposed an experimental model for the analysis of theoretical considerations in the interpretation of the concept of SPM, which includes two approaches to the theory of cognition of the concept. The first is the narrowing and concentration of focus on the single and main attribute of the concept (the term “movement”) and its content. The second is based on the use of knowledge about others elements, also included in the essence and content of the concept - “social” and “political”. The experimental model of the analysis in the theory of concept serves only as an additional tool of theoretical research to the existing models. But it also does not fully reflect the essence, content of the SPM, nor its role and significance, leaving an array of problems and contradictions for future theoretical and practical research.

The article is devoted to the 48th World Economic Forum in Davos. Analyzing the report presented at the forum, the author of the article draws attention to the main global risks and challenges that humanity may face in 2018. Special attention is paid to the positions of the leaders of the leading European countries (Germany, France, and Italy) and developing countries (China and India). The author notes in their speeches the unity on the issue of globalization and concern about the contradictions that have emerged at its present stage. However, the authors of the report prepared by the experts of the Club of Rome do not share the restrained optimism of the Davos participants on the acutest problems of our time. The report of the Club of Rome condemns capitalism, believing that it cannot solve the urgent problems faced by humanity today.

This paper uses trade intensity index and trade complementarity index for statistical analysis of Sino-Russian bilateral trade status, adopting the bilateral trade data from 2006 to 2016, and uses the extended trade gravity model for empirical analysis of influencing factors on bilateral trade flows and trade potential respectively under the circumstances of invariable and improved terms of trade. We find that even if the fluctuations of Sino-Russian bilateral trade volume and growth rate are strong, the intensity and complementarity are both evident and there is a relatively large space for bilateral trade development. Furthermore, it could be effective to develop bilateral trade through improving informal-system at a family degree. We also give some policy suggestions in terms of cooperative mechanism, trade structure, FTA (Free Trade Area) and culture communication, on the basis of former empirical research.

In this article, I analyze the process of formation of the political and economic system of the Republic of Armenia after the collapse of the USSR and before integration into the EAEU, the consequences and further relationship with the Russian Federation. I studied the most developed sectors in the country, namely: production of energy, transport, agriculture and finance; their emergence, problems and current situation. As a result of the analysis, the author came to the conclusion that the improvement of the economic situation in Russia will lead to the stabilization of the economic situation in the entire region, and especially in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. Armenia is a strong player in the agricultural sector, and the improvement of the economic situation in the Union countries will give it access to new multi-million markets.

In this article, within the framework of the study of the election’s PR-campaigns of the Russian parliamentary parties to the State Duma of the VII convocation, the authors conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the presence of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in the Russian-language media during the campaign period. Representatives of the LDPR party during the campaign and after it focused on the significant role of the media in achieving a successful result for the party in the election, including comparison with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). The authors compare own results of the analysis with the results of voting in the regions and with the most frequent mention of the party in the media. Further, we determined the degree of their correlation with the results of the voting, as well as with the activity in the media during this period of the Communist party and its results in the elections of the lower chamber of the Russian State Duma in 2016. Having analyzed the representation of the LDPR in the media during the campaign period, the authors concluded that it did not differ in interesting and non-standard information narratives. The tonality of reports about the party was not more positive than the tonality of materials about the Communist party. The results of the study, obtained with the help of the monitoring system “Medialogy”, have shown that the overall frequency of the party’s mentioning and the activity of the party in generating messages about it in the media have had no connection with the results of the vote. This confirms the opinion of experts that the results of voting in the election to the State Duma largely depended on the activity of the field campaigns of the parties and the so-called elite agreements - the mutual agreement on candidates when nominating in single-member districts.

The most significant event of the twentieth century, of course, should be considered the Great October Socialist Revolution. Considering this historic event 100 years later, we unwittingly sum up some results and assess the consequences of what happened. For the first time in world history, a new type of state was created with public ownership of the means of production, a state that expresses the interests of the bulk of the population. At present, the experience of coups and revolutions is being generalized, improved, takes new forms in the form of colour revolutions, the Arab spring, etc. After the coup of March 2, 1917, the country established a bourgeois-democratic system. Tsarism ceased to exist from a legal point of view. The Romanovs were no longer a Royal family but became citizens of Russia. Established a Provisional government failed to retain power in their hands, it successfully took advantage of the Bolshevik party. In order to prevent such shocks in Russia again, it is necessary to know and learn from this historical experience.

The article discusses the relationship between the efficiency of activity of state authorities of subjects of the Russian Federation and execution of regional budgets, a significant portion of which is formed at the expense of state credits. In recent years, the level of the debt burden of regional budgets has increased, the main source of credit for which were private banks. However, the need to implement the “May decrees” of Vladimir Putin has set the Federal centre the task of finding a universal and, at the same time, an effective mechanism for replenishing regional budgets, which were budget loans. By February 2018, the regional support program had fulfilled its main target function at the expense of budget loans, allowing the subjects of the Russian Federation to execute “May decrees”. Accordingly, after the presidential elections of 2018, the regions lost the opportunity to credit themselves in the previous volumes at the expense of the federal budget. Therefore, the primary task of the federal authorities is to develop new mechanisms for an increase of efficiency of activity of regional authorities of the Russian Federation, one of which can become the monitoring and assessment of the quality of management of regional finance. It will allow identification of the weaknesses of the regions in the implementation of the budget process and the formation of their financial base.

The article is devoted to the study of the Crimean political elite in the context of the entry of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a subject of the Russian Federation. I considered the main elite groups operating on the Peninsula since the 1990s of the 20th century, their relationship with the Ukrainian authorities, as well as the transformation and renewal of the ruling groups in connection with the reintegration of the Republic of Crimea. It is noted that there is no obvious split among the ruling elite on the Peninsula, no groups are created according to political views. However, there is a marked difference in the origin of the members of the regional elite. The author comes to the conclusion that there is a complex of objective and subjective difficulties of staff transformation of the Crimean elites. In particular, I considered the problem of relations between the Crimean political elite and the Federal government and the struggle for key positions in the region. The main conflict of interaction is the weak orientation of the new elite in the specifics of the Peninsula’s life, the mentality of the inhabitants and its history. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of highly qualified personnel. As a result, the Peninsula is experiencing, to some extent, a shortage of personnel what provokes the federal authorities to attract managers from the mainland.

Modern urban space is a hybrid combination of real and virtual spaces. They not only coexist in parallel but actively interact, forming a new type of the urban reality - Mixed Reality. The task of design is the development of a cultural code that facilitates the transition from different spaces and preserves the continuity of existence in them, including business as well. Corporate logos and symbols should be designed with the new task in mind. In the article, I showed this by the example of rebranding a small enterprise producing soft toys. I propose promotion of the company’s products in two ways. The first way - by creating accounts in social networks. The second way - by using the so-called “third places” (cafes, shops, clubs, exhibitions). The overall goal is synchronization of the two paths, which will lead to increased opportunities in both urban spaces.