The article considers the possibilities of combining the classical approach to the typology of political leadership and post-Jungian archetypal typologies that arose in the late ’80s of the XX century and are still addressed to the issues of the practical effectiveness of building images in demand by society. The images chosen by politicians to communicate with audiences in today’s complex and contradictory media environment are viewed as an object of directed construction, on the one hand, and the other — as invariably meeting the current needs of society and responding to public demand. At the end of the article, the author makes a conclusion about which types of politicians will soon prevail.

Over the past few years, the multi-vector nature of Russian politics, declared as an alternative to a unipolar world, has taken on a more specific dimension. In the political discourse, the images of allies and friends “forgotten” in the 90s are actualized. However, these countries and related events are very weakly reflected in the minds of ordinary Russian citizens. To a certain extent, this situation can be explained by the lack of any systematic information about this region in the Russian media. In this regard, a more detailed study of the image of Africa as a whole and individual countries seems relevant both from a theoretical and an applied political point of view. It is so since today; there is a need to provide the task of expanding the space of interaction between Russia and these countries with adequate information policy. In this context, the study aimed to identify and analyze the main factors of formation and the specifics of the figurative and symbolic representation of the image of Africa and individual African countries, their place in world politics as a whole and relations with Russia in the minds of Russian citizens. The theoretical basis of the study was the political and psychological approach to the study of political ideas of citizens, developed at the Department of Sociology and Psychology of Politics, Faculty of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University. This approach involves not only rational but also unconscious aspects of the perception process. This approach requires the use of a combination of qualitative political and psychological methods that make it possible to identify images and associations that are not fully understood by the respondent.

In the framework of the presented study, the author analyses the question of the role of images of the Soviet past in the formation of the national-state identity of Russians. The purpose of the study is to identify problems and perspectives for the transformation of the national-state identity of citizens of the Russian Federation by forming the image of the past as the main element of collective social memory. The methodological base of the research combines the features of descriptive political-cultural analysis and systematization of published big data of sociological surveys. The author concluded that attempts to destroy the heroic component of the Soviet symbolic heritage and replace it with a narrative associated with the pre-revolutionary period lead to the erosion of the value-symbolic foundations of group favouritism in Russian society, which causes resistance from carriers of Soviet and Russian identity. The synthesis of the symbolic heritage of the Soviet and pre-revolutionary erases based on the recognition of universal values, and historical continuity in the development of the Russian state seems to be the most reasonable option for using images of the past to strengthen the national-state identity of Russians.

The article examines the current issues of the ratio of eastern and western worldviews. The problem of East and West through the prism of consciousness and self-consciousness of modern society is considered. The subject of research is a holistic unity of eastern and western culture. The purpose of the work is to assess the modern perception of the Western and Eastern worldview and culture, and an attempt to reveal the monolithic and expediency of the dialogue of cultures of East and West. The priority tasks are determined by the consideration of the historical understanding of Western and Eastern culture, changes in spiritual and social life in the process of globalization. The study is based on a comparison of the essential concepts “West” and “East”, which characterize the historical coexistence of civilizations. The article substantiates the mutual influence of enlightenment of the East and West on modern society. A comparative analysis of Eastern culture and Western culture. We concluded that in the contemporary cultural context, East and West could not be considered as two separate poles, they can coexist only in a harmonious combination.

The article is devoted to the study of the potential of mass-cultural factors of “soft power” of modern Russian pop music in the post-Soviet countries. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s key goals were to restore and strengthen its political influence in the post-Soviet space, as well as to preserve the socio-cultural space of the “Russian world”. Soft power policies, especially their cultural aspects, are a useful tool for achieving these goals. Today, the sphere of show business and the musical stage are becoming the most accessible and practical tools for promoting the Russian policy of “soft power”. The article examines the prospects of Russian foreign policy influence and the role of the Russian musical variety “soft power”, using the analysis of the popularity of Russian performers in the post-Soviet countries, on the example of Belarus and Kazakhstan.

The legitimacy of power is difficult to assess and predict, so the author of the article sets himself the task of formulating an operational model for describing the legitimacy of power and suggests using a discursive approach to the analysis of political processes. The use of discursive methods allows using not only sociological surveys but also to find cheaper and more effective methods of analysing opinions and ideas. The development of such a model will open the way to the formation of a tool for assessing the level of legitimacy of power and forecasting crises of legitimacy in a particular state. Turning to the discursive dimension of the description of legitimacy allows us to designate specific variables and to describe and evaluate them. As the main methodological concept, the author suggests using idealised cognitive models in the terminology of J. Lakoff (frames, figurative-schematic structures, metaphors and metonyms). Further, based on the traditions of studying the legitimacy of power in political and social science, as well as applying a discursive approach, the author formulates an operational model of legitimation consisting of three main elements: institutional order, leaders and elites, historical and cultural traditions. The formulation of the primary hypothesis is based on the assumption that the coincidence of the models of legitimation of power formulated by political leaders and perceived by the population will contribute to increased support for the authorities. The ability to approach the formation of tools for assessing and predicting crises of legitimacy can be useful both for describing and forecasting domestic policy and for evaluating the political risks of investments and cooperation with other countries.

The article describes the conceptual principles underlying the optimal regulation of migration processes. Taking into account world experience, which finds expression in sociological, political science theories, theories of international relations and theories of public administration, the author identifies the most general characteristics of the migration policy system that is characteristic of developed states. Their observance allows states to effectively address the most pressing issues regarding the regulation of relations between migrants and the host community.

The Humanities, throughout the formation of the cultural experience of humankind, depended on the environment in which they developed, and on the concepts of reality that prevailed in this environment. Modern Humanities are in a state of uncertainty as concerns its roles, including those associated with the rapid evolution of the contemporary information society. The purpose of this article is to overcome this uncertainty. The author presents the main stages of interaction evolution and the ontology of humanitarian knowledge in the digital society in the last two decades. The article is a partial representation of the results of intercollegiate research conducted in 2019 at the Faculty of Free Arts and Sciences of Saint Petersburg State University: “Narratives of public communications in modern Russia”. The process of studying the ontology of humanitarian knowledge in the digital environment is a continuous one because reality is changing dynamically. Researchers are in a dual position: it is possible to study and generalise the observed results during the period of transition from post-industrial society to the modern concept of reality; to model the future conceptual sphere as a set of entities and categories that are in event interaction as a communicative environment with predetermined parameters. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the social reality of modern society has already formed its interdisciplinary specificity, which is subject to ontological understanding.

The article unveils the political role of Alexander Nevsky in the formation of a new (at the time) state structure of a church-controlled Russian government, which was formed as a result of numerous victories of “defence-conciliatory” political forces over “defence-marshalling” camp. This circumstance has led to subsequent subdual of Ancient Rus’ to an Emperor of the Horde. It was effectively deciding the character of the following discrediting of Duchy-Nobilities system of feudal governing as well as the traditions of councils of “Veche” in favour of self-owning merger in which the key role belonged to one ruler. Its church-controlled nature of such institution dictated the leadership of ecclesiastic powers, led by a Metropolitan Bishop, as well as a strict orientation to Church Law and its values and objectives in the normative, cultural, and ideological subsystems of the state government.

The political reality described by non-linearity of processes and significant influence of informal mechanisms of interaction of decision-making subjects-political elites and leaders. One of the most promising areas that open up new opportunities for studying political problems is the synthesis of “traditional” methodology of political analysis and methods of artificial intelligence. The purpose of this work is to build a methodological model in the form of a “decision tree” and use it to analyze the process of making personnel decisions concerning the heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation. Chronological limits: 2000–2020 years. It is necessary to solve the following tasks to achieve such a goal. 1. Study the main trends and priorities of the Federal centre’s personnel policy in relation to regional heads in the period under review. 2. Identification of key factors affecting the political positions of the leaders of regions of the Russian Federation based on the analysis of data on the performance parameters of the regional executive power. 3. Generalization of data on personnel decisions made in 2000–2018 and the construction of a “decision tree” that provides grounds for predicting future personnel decisions following the selected algorithm. The article substantiates the adequacy of using the decision tree for analyzing and predicting political decisions on the example of the personnel policy of federal government structures in relation to the regions of the Russian Federation. Based on the results of the work, 13 formal and informal criteria for assessing the stability of political positions of governors with varying degrees of probability of their use in the process of making personnel decisions were formulated. The author proposes to use these criteria as attributes for training the decision tree. Due to the significant amount of data, the paper presents a fragment of the decision tree that clearly illustrates the possibility of using the C 4.5 algorithm to solve political problems.

An analysis of the various aspects of one of the most significant disasters of the 20th century — the collapse of the USSR for many decades will be of interest to researchers of different scientific fields and schools. Representatives of almost all branches of humanitarian knowledge — historians, sociologists, political scientists, and merely indifferent people whose fate was directly affected by this epoch-making event, seek to comprehend the history of the death of the USSR, to understand the essence of destructive processes, to find answers to the question about the premises, causes, mechanisms and consequences of the collapse of the first socialist state in the world. By now, there are a large number of journalistic materials not burdened by the source research or analytical assessment. Scientific research, as a rule, belongs to the pen of historians, however, even here the analysis of the causes of the death of the largest state on the world stage is primarily affected by the subjective factor, ideological bias, and the involvement of the authors of the works in political events. In an attempt to answer the question, many contradictory theories have been put forward, including conspiracy theories explaining the “secret springs” of the death of the Soviet Union. However, such a multifaceted political event, caused by a wide range of reasons, which marked the beginning of a new round of Russian history and the foundation of our days, is practically not explored from the standpoint of economic analysis, competition, and the struggle for the sales market action. The author does not set as his task a comprehensive study of such a multifaceted problem — the problem of the death of the USSR. The article presents an attempt to identify the economic component and recall the tragic consequences of the death of the Soviet Union. The work substantiates the point of view according to which the problem of the dialectics of the collapse of a state of conscience needs a comprehensive, impartial and versatile study that can help find answers to today’s problematic questions.

The Deal of a Century is a new approach to resolving Palestinian-Israeli conflicts proposed by Donald Trump. The world community has not accepted this approach. Immediately after its announcement, the plan was criticized by several journalists, experts, and politicians almost in every country of the world. And this criticism is in some cases justified — Deal of a Century is indeed cynical and risky. If it is realized Israel comes under severe pressure, even from those countries with which it was able to normalize relations. Besides, we can see a real uprising of the Palestinian population, deprived of its land, holy sites and citizenship. However, one cannot but admit that the traditional methods of resolving the PalestinianIsraeli settlement (based on the principle of compromise) led the process to a standstill. They do not work — simply because the Palestinian side does not need a realistic compromise. And perhaps in this situation, the policy of forcing a compromise pursued, by Donald Trump, is the only possible way to achieve peace in the Holy Land. Maybe not immediately, possibly through a temporary surge of violence. But a horrible end is always better than a horror without the end.

This article considers the possibility of forming financially competent behaviour in the conditions of increased risks caused by current shock economic circumstances, as well as requirements for ensuring personal material security. The financial security of citizens depends directly on their daily decisions. An incorrect choice of a financial service provider, inattentive reading of contract terms, and lack of financial discipline can lead to a difficult financial situation. The increasing complexity of the financial market, the emergence of entirely new products and services, their digitalization, the development of the digital field of interaction of financial market participants, and, at the same time, the formation of new types of fraud, are a kind of signal for vigilance on the part of the population. It increases not only financial but also digital and legal literacy, awareness of all aspects and “rules of the game” in the financial market, when interacting with financial institutions.

The article describes the results of our study of the term “cultural consumption” and its influence on the process of formation of students’ social status. In this article, we present data from sociological researches and the data of our study about tendencies of cultural consumption. The most important conclusion is that the level of students’ cultural consumption is high, but consumption is demonstrative. This distinguishing feature of youth society must be studied in detail.

The author of the article analyses the key indicators of social development in Russian Federation, gives a comparative analysis of the indicators of the last years in the following directions: subsistence minimum, dynamics of wages plans and pensions, dynamics of real incomes of the population in relation to the living wage, poverty level, unemployment rate and others. The article provides official statistics of the social progress indicators and the potential for its further growth, as well as the share of state expenditures on social policy in the total spending of the federal budget. One of the most important indicators that make possible to compare the citizens quality of life is the level of the living wage in the country. This value is directly related to the cost of the consumer basket, the composition of which is determined at the government level. The living wage, in turn, affects the volume of social benefits received by the least protected categories of the population.

This article discusses the principles of construction and prospects for the development of digital public administration in modern Russia, the goals and objectives pursued by public authorities in realizing this digital transformation of their performing functions, planned results and assessing the impact on the socio-economic development of the state. The urgency of the problem of developing mechanisms of digital public administration in Russia is due to the need to optimize and improve the quality of public administration through the implementation of new forms of interaction between citizens and government at various levels and on a wide range of issues. Possible options and directions for the implementation of new digital solutions in the system of regional and municipal government, including in the system of interagency cooperation and the formation of personnel reserves, are described.

Information technologies (IT) have played a crucial role in the development of human civilization for more than half a century. The USSR was rightfully one of the most developed countries in the world in the field of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, which is confirmed by several original hardware and software solutions created by Russian scientists. At the same time, progress in the field of information technology has stimulated the development of industry, primarily Military-industrial complex. Russia, having inherited the Soviet scientific potential, must solve an equally important task-to diversify its sector and enter the “civil” market. In this regard, the region of the Middle East seems to be an excellent platform for testing marketing technologies by domestic manufacturers, especially in those countries that cannot purchase American products for political reasons.

This research considered the content of the “Political science library” social media community for the 2019 year. Authors identified domination topics at the discourse of a network community, tried to share the most popular posts and books. We classified it using hashtags at social media groups. Authors used the elements of discourse analysis (the methodology for analyzing M. Skriven’s arguments). As a result of the analysis, we found that most of the books related to political history, political philosophy and political regimes and democracy. We can conclude that such content is useful and interesting for people if accounted for the number of community subscribers and a large number of posts with books on the history and philosophy of politics. At the same time, books which related to the most applied fields of political science appeared less often. The study proved that communities such as the “Political science library” are not only agents of political science knowledge, but also contribute to the development of networked communities of researchers and anyone interested in political science.

Many countries with multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism structure of the population, face today the problem of interethnic negativism. It aroused as a result of globalisation change. Besides, it causes an increase in social tension and leads to an increase in inter-ethnic and inter-ethnic conflicts. The article presents the data of sociological surveys in the Russian Federation and the results of studies in foreign countries, confirming the relevance and depth of the problem of ethnic and cultural contradictions. The authors consider the causes of inter-ethnic negativity and intolerance. The paper examines various approaches to the integration of the multi-ethnic population, the assimilation model and the model of recognition of differences-multiculturalism, and their shortcomings. The authors suggest developing a new model able to weaken ethnic negativity and form a culture of interethnic communication.

Today, the importance of information systems, which have become an integral part of human life, has increased many times. During this process, information attacks moved from the category of auxiliary tools to the category of main ones. Now skilful management of information flows determines not only the specifics but sometimes the outcome/result of wars. At the present stage, States are constantly waging wars among themselves in the information space. Each state represents its ideology and image of the future. The confrontation is going on simultaneously between all States, and no side can win a priori. In the course of such an endless confrontation, the problem of maintaining resource stability becomes particularly urgent . The purpose of this work is to highlight the basic principles of the state’s information policy.

In a developed country, the development of science should not lag behind technological progress. The only implementation of the most modern technologies can ensure the implementation of the most effective management in all areas of society, reducing bureaucratisation processes, accelerating the process of providing services to the population, and generally reducing the human factor on those aspects that are possible and necessary to shift to digital systems.

The role of the political elite of the region in interaction with the Federal centre, especially for the national republics that are part of our country, is a determining factor in the development of any region of the Russian Federation. The political elite of the region is a social group that influences the process of territorial administration and decision-making in the region. The article considers the transformation of the political elite of the Republic of Dagestan in 2017–2020. The analysis of the regional elite of the Republic of Dagestan was carried out based on a resource-actor approach. As a result of the study conducted by the author, new political actors who play a decisive role in the socio-political development of the republic were identified.

The worldwide spread of the coronavirus caused a worsening of the economic situation, as well as an aggravation of existing socio-economic problems. At the same time, the inability of supranational structures to respond to the current situation cast doubt on the prospects of a globalized world. So, modern realities lead to the fact that each state will have to seek a way out of the economic crisis on its own, this applies to both large players and members of supranational associations as European Union. Therefore, the main task of states is to formulate a national plan to adapt to the current situation, minimize costs and losses, and also take specific measures to reach pre-coronavirus indicators. Given the scale of the Russian Federation and the differentiated level of development of the Russian regions, it seems effective to work out regional levers to stimulate economic activity. In this case, the author proposes the development of the regional banking sector, the purpose of which is to stimulate regional financial and economic activity, including creating conditions for business.

Currently, in the Russian Federation, there is an increase in the social and political activity of youth, the importance of increasing the quality coverage of youth with state youth policy is growing. In this context, volunteering takes on a unique role as an effective toolkit for involving youth in the system of state youth policy, as well as solving state-oriented tasks. This article discusses the prospects for the development of volunteering in the Russian Federation for involving young people in solving state-oriented tasks, including in conditions of emergency mobilization using the example of a coronavirus pandemic.