The purpose of the article is the development of conceptual approaches to the development of the national program for improvement of university training of foreign students within the policy of “soft power” taking into account current trends in global educational space. The analysis of foreign strategy of internationalization of university education, studying of experience of activity of the international organizations allowed us to reveal the most characteristic approaches to involvement of foreign students into the Russian Federation and also to define the directions of realization of the political and economic actions which are carried out by authorities in the sphere of expansion of export of educational services. We present the main results of our research in the form of the reasonable directions of support of export of educational services at federal, regional and university levels of management of education. The proposed model of a management system of university training of foreign students within the policy of “soft force” reflects interrelation of normative, legal, economic, infrastructure, social, socio-psychological, information and communicative, organizational and methodical instruments of influence and results of the expansion of export of educational services.

The article reveals the actual problem of the methodology for assessing the scientific potential of Russian universities. At the beginning of the article, the author emphasizes the significance of the assessment methodology as an integral part of the concept of public policy of the Russian Federation in the area of managing the scientific potential of higher education. As a methodological and methodical base of research the author uses a set of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, a method of analogies, etc.), and also actively relies on the results of sociological and expert surveys. Special attention should be given to the author’s in-depth analysis of the factors of formation and development of the scientific potential of universities and indicators of the effectiveness of its implementation. As the main results of the study, the author identifies: first, the methodological principles formulated in the article for assessing the scientific potential of higher education; second, a system of indicators for such assessment at different stages of the life cycle of the scientific potential of higher education; third, a fundamental approach to the approbation of the proposed methodology. As perspective directions of research in this area, attention should be paid to the problems of interaction of the state with the university community, various interest groups and experts in the process of forming the agenda of policy in the development of the scientific potential of higher education. The results we obtained can be used in the development of a new concept of the corresponding direction of public policy.

The relevance of the topic discussed in this article is due to the process of reforming the Russian system of higher education and its staff reserve in the conditions of market reforms and changes in the market of educational services. The aim of the work is to study the process of formation of staff reserve in the educational institutions of the Moscow megalopolis on the example of Financial University. Research issues were as follows. 1. To reveal the essence of the staff reserve of the social organization. 2. To determine the factors conditioning the process of formation of staff reserve of an educational organization. 3. To study the peculiar properties of the Financial University as a type of social organization of the educational sphere. 4. To describe empirically the social portrait of the teaching staff of the University and the features of its work with the staff reserve. 5. To conduct the author’s sociological research and analyze its results. Despite a large number of works devoted to the study of the staff reserve, the issues of improving the staff reserve system in the university organization are not sufficiently disclosed. Therefore, the author attempts to consider this process on the example of the Financial University, which occupies an important place in the training of economists and financiers, as well as related professionals. The article I present the results of my research conducted among the teaching staff of the Financial University in 2017 by the method of a questionnaire survey, as well as evaluation of the implementation of the programs of the staffing strategy at the University. The empirical data obtained in the course of the study made it possible to make a certain contribution to the further process of working with the staff reserve with the aim to improve its quality characteristics in the educational organization. The human resource service of the Financial University can use the data obtained by the author in his further work with the staff reserve.

The article is devoted to the problem of the unity of Slavs in the works of the Russian thinkers of Slavophile and conservative directions of the Russian philosophical thought. Slavophiles, as shown in the article, despite the name given to them, did not consider the unity of the Slavs as the defining idea of their art, but it was their ideas that initiated the development of the concept of types of cultures elaborated by N. I. Danilevsky, who made an attempt to approach the problem of the unity of the Slavs from a scientific point of view. We present Danilevsky’s views on the possibility and necessity of political unification of the Slavs as a condition for the formation of the Slavic type of culture. The idea of forming a Slavic type of culture gained its supporters and critics. The most significant arguments against the possibility of formation of the Slavic type of culture were presented in a number of articles by the conservative thinker K. N. Leontief. He believed that cultural unity is impossible due to the fact that the Slavic peoples do not fit into the cultural Byzantine code of Russia, and political unity, although possible, is undesirable, because it will have the devastating consequences for the Russian state. We present in a systematic way Leontief ’s arguments given him in different articles. The authors substantiate the historical correctness of K. N. Leontief in his conclusions about the ephemerality of the Slavic idea.

In preparing the article, the authors set a goal to conduct a study of the validity of published by B. N. Mironov arguments that in the conditions of the first world war, the decline in the living standards of the population of the Russian Empire was insignificant, the socio-economic situation at the turn of 1916– 1917 of XX century was stable, and the insolvency of the “tops” on the eve of February 1917 has been greatly exaggerated, and the grounds to overthrow the monarchy, which contributed to the movement of Russia forward, in February 1917 was absent. The authors used political, historical, legal, formal legal, structural, functional and analytical methods. The authors are forced to cite in the article a significant statistical and factual material and the opinions of not opponents, but supporters of the sovereign, about the rapid growth in the autumn of 1916 and in the beginning of 1917 of the crisis and chaos in almost all spheres of life of society, as in recent years, through the efforts of the monarchists and incompetent in this issue journalists and publicists formed point of view, according to which the situation in Russia was wealthy, the grounds for revolution did not exist, and the collapse of the Empire — the alleged “machinations of enemies”. The authors present the conclusions allowing us to assert that in 1916 and January-February 1917 the mass discontent of the population with the government increased. The reason for the collapse of the monarchy was the inability of the government to solve the problems f acing the country.

In this article, the author presents the results of political and psychological research the influence of the emergence and transformation processes of ideological and semantic constructs in social networks on the Internet users’ perception the events of reality. The focus problem of the research was the mechanisms of perception and processing of information coming from the Internet into the individual consciousness of active users. The author investigated the virtual social and political visions arising in the minds of Internet users, the degree of their coincidence, polarization and confrontation with the visions formed as a result of objective experience. The author identifies socially constructive and as well as destructive practices in the online communication in the social networks of the Russian Internet considering their distortion potential for the individual consciousness. According to the results of the research, the author concluded that the semantic constructs in the minds of consumers of online content are actualized at the moment of emotional heat but they retain their significance only for a short period. Being online, individuals consider their actions as a real activity but when they are offline, they return to established patterns of behaviour. At the same time, the social and political visions that arise and change during online communication can conflict with the visions formed as a result of real experience. This situation leads to distortion of visions, to stimulation of emotional splashes, which can lead to real behaviour in offline space, including destructive forms of behaviour.

The paper presents an analysis of the conditions and characteristics that affect the actions and decisions of political actors in a revolutionary situation. I considered the most important theoretical concepts that reveal the causes of revolutions, and possible ways out of the crisis. The author answers the question of whether political actors, on the basis of available information and ideas about rationality, can make optimal decisions that can exit the revolutionary situation without a sharp change in the political regime. To find solutions that cannot prevent or mitigate the consequences of the revolution, I used in the work the theoretical tools of the neo-institutional concept of veto players, and consider the concepts of policy stability — the main dependent variable in analysis, the configuration of veto players — the intermediate theoretical concept explaining this stability and the political Institute — the main independent variable. Within the framework of the proposed concept, the focus is on the rules of the game and actors, which allows blocking the adoption of a decision. As a result, there are three strategic directions that formal individual veto players can choose in a revolutionary situation. The author comes to the conclusion that the optimal solution should be sought in the deliberate creation of political instability with the help of changes in the political status quo. The main condition for non-violent exit from the revolutionary situation is the desire to develop and use political instability in a constructive way, namely: to initiate a significant change in the political status quo, reduce the influence of formal veto players on a negative agenda, rebuild the institutional structure, taking into account informal practices and public support.

In the article, the author consider a systemic, largely informal, state approach to solving the problem of preserving and developing the ethno-linguistic identity of autochthonous minorities implemented by federal, regional and local authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in close cooperation with public organizations. It is based on a strong legislative base, not only directly but also indirectly (for example, through electoral legislation or legal regulation of political parties activities) regulating this sphere, and including a wide range of ratified international legal enactments. This approach is characterized by the coordinated activity of the responsible state’s structures of all levels, as well as the maximum involvement of civil society. The peculiarity of the language policy in this area is the official recognition of the group of individuals speaking Low German, which is the regional language of the northern lands of Germany, as not an ethnic language but a language of linguistic minority, providing also a comprehensive state assistance. Numerous research and educational projects aimed at preserving the originality of autochthonous minorities, including documenting, functional development and popularization of the languages of these groups, are supported at all state levels. The analysis of the mechanisms and instruments of the state ethnolinguistic policy of FRG concerning the officially recognized national minorities, Lusatian Serbs (Sorbs), Frisian and Danish ethnic groups, German Gipsies Sinti and Roma, and the linguistic minorities speaking Low German, creates an opportunity to draw a conclusion about their efficiency. The positive experience of FRG can be used in such multi-ethnic state as the Russian Federation, for the preservation and development of the ethno-linguistic selfconsciousnesses of minority communities.

The relevance of the study of the readiness of Russians to investment behaviour is due to the need to attract funds of citizens in the economy. At the same time, the development of digital technologies, in particular, the emergence of crypto-currencies entails a certain risk, both for the investors themselves and for the economy as a whole. We conducted a theoretical analysis of domestic and foreign studies on this problem and an empirical study in which participated 356 respondents. To this end, the authors used the following methods: questioning, semantic differential, psychodiagnostic tests: “Short Portrait Big Five Questionnaire (BF‑10)” and the questionnaire “Personal decision-making factors”. As a result, we found that the investment behaviour of Russians is weak: the majority of respondents are not ready to invest in traditional financial instruments, or, especially, in crypto-currencies. The image of bitcoin as a complex socially determined system of impressions and relations is characterized by a low level of understanding and significantly more negative attitude as compared to the US dollar. The positive attitude of respondents to bitcoin is associated with greater openness to new experience and less emotional instability and does not depend on the willingness to risk. The attitude of the US dollar practically does not depend on personality traits and is related only to the goodwill. The results obtained are consistent with each other and with the results of other researchers.

The experience gained in advanced industrial countries in setting long-term goals for the development of industry and its stimulation is of particular interest for our country, taking into account the challenges facing the Russian Federation today — that is the creation of a competitive, sustainable, structurally balanced industry, especially its manufacturing sector. This served as the basis for the critical analysis of the experience of advanced industrial countries in stimulating industrial development and identifying the problems they faced, as well as the possibility of using foreign practice in the development and implementation of the course for industrial development in Russia. We conducted our study on the basis of the experience of countries consistently occupying the first line of the international ratings as concerns the state and prospects of industry development. Today, the United States, Germany and Japan are making considerable efforts to stimulate this sector, especially in the manufacturing industry. We used international statistical sources and databases of international organizations, UN, the World Bank, etc. General scientific methods, as well as specific economic tools of comparative studies, were used to work with them. On this basis, we drew conclusions about the feasibility of applying a variety of means and methods of stimulation of the industrial development abroad, during the development and implementation of domestic industrial policy. These include, among others: compliance with the principles of integrated and balanced impact on the sector, taking into account its links with the entire socio-economic system; taking into account the time constraints of the effects of stimulation of certain areas of industry, the peculiarities of the society’s perception of the expediency and effectiveness of such impact, and some others. All this would significantly improve the effectiveness of the national policy for the development of domestic industry.

Mexico is one of the most influential regional powers, whose authority is unshakable in Central America and the Caribbean. Active and visible was the participation of this state in the development of the United Nations and the UN Security Council, as a system of balance of political weight of the great powers. In this article, the author proves that traditions and continuity, which always have priority in the foreign policy of Mexico, ensure the stability of its activity within the UN. The significance of this study is due to the analysis of scientific works of foreign scientists devoted to the study of certain problems, various aspects of Mexico’s participation in the UN system. The author describes Mexico’s membership in the UN Security Council and the main results achieved during the period of its activity in this political body. Further, I considered the current position of Mexico on the modernization of the UN Security Council, which includes a number of issues. The conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq and the war in Syria demonstrate that Mexico has consistently defended its position on the absolute protection of the principles of non-intervention and transparency. The permanence of the position taken and the respect for international law can be seen in a number of areas of Mexico’s participation in the work of the United Nations, thus confirming that the country will not be subject to immediate interests in any changes in the political environment.

The interest of various researchers in political elites is due to their role in society — they manage the processes in the most important areas of social development. In the context of the development of Russian society, the issue of recruiting regional political elites to the Federal level is not the last one. In this regard, it is raised the issue of integration of the Federal and regional levels of government in the face of political elites, and also the isolation of the Federal Center from the leadership of Russian subjects. In this article, I discuss the features of regional systems of recruitment of political elites in terms of their openness or closeness to new staff and interaction with the Federal authorities. Also, I consider the main mechanisms of promotion of regional leaders at the Federal level. As a result, it is concluded that the Federal authorities are not interested in creating mechanisms for recruiting regional political elites to the Federal level, so there are relatively few formal mechanisms, innovations are situational, while the promotion of representatives of regional elites through personal channels are few. It is noted that the Federal authorities are taking measures not to form channels of promotion of regional leaders, but to create new levers of influence and centres of power to control the situation at the regional level, bypassing local elites. In addition, I emphasize the closeness of regional elites, slow renewal of their composition and the predominance of the principle of personal loyalty as the main condition for recruiting new personnel.