One of the crucial problems of political science is the balance between civil society and the state. But we must analyze which factor can change it. Today it becomes technology development. New technologies give advantages to the state and society at the same time. The state gets an opportunity to control citizens: their movements, viewed internet content, purchases. However, society also has new forms of control over the state too. Сitizens are embedded in the decisionmaking system. We see new methods of communication, the phenomenon of citizen journalism. Social networks are becoming transmitters of public sentiment and elements of civil control. The society also forms a requirement of the transformation of capitalism, insisting that business must proceed from the priority of social values but not of profit but.

Globalization, competition, search for new sources of funding have long been a reality not only for business but also for such a socially important sphere as education. Modern universities develop and implement strategies that allow them to become significant players in the global education market, and the governments of many countries, which are also interested in promoting the image of national education and universities, in turn, are developing programs to support these initiatives. The article analyzes the world experience of universities and national systems of higher education in increasing the prestige and competitiveness in the global education market, identifies the main types of strategies, thanks to which many countries were able to achieve breakthrough results in the world educational arena.

This article examines the formation and development of global education and the corresponding global educational policy. Although the concept of citizenship has historically been associated with the rights and responsibilities of those who were bound by a certain territory and, consequently, by a state, citizens of the world understand the need to take responsibility for the well-being of humanity and the planet as a whole. Therefore, the development of world citizens can be considered the ultimate goal of global education and, consequently, global education policy. The research is based on taking into account the methodological foundations of the concepts of global scientists in the field of education regarding the terminology of global education, international education, global competencies and global citizenship. Global education is considered as one of the ways of modern teaching aimed at preparing students for global citizenship in a complex interconnected world, taking into account the formation of global competencies of political, economic, socio-cultural and environmental orientation. The article presents a retrospective analysis of the formation and development of global education, taking into account the state of the geopolitical climate.

The coronavirus pandemic, which shocked the world economy, revealed the weakness of the existing world economic system and led to an intensified struggle between global actors — China and the United States. In such circumstances, information technologies have proved to be a key technology in the fight against coronavirus and a necessary condition for winning the economic and military race. Russia, due to its geopolitical position, has to take a position in this struggle for world domination. If you want to be a winner’s side, it is necessary to carry out long-term planning of the economy, digitize public services. It requires a whole range of measures aimed at developing the domestic IT industry. Finally, the implementation of these measures will have a direct impact on Russia’s geopolitical role in the new world order.

The article considers patriotism and life-meaning priorities of Russian society in the context of the meaning of existence. Using the socio-philosophical tools, the author examines the peculiarities of the state of modern society, the personal and social dimension of the search for the problem of the meaning of existence. The author paid particular attention to the intrapersonal mechanisms of perception of the meaning of life, the specificity of the formation of patriotism. The system of life-meaning priorities — the so-called life-meaning matrix-can contribute to the formation of a meaningful worldview in the younger generation. With the help of the achievements of modern sociology, it will allow for a more detailed study of educational processes for different ages and different regions, considering territorial features. It seems that precisely because of the heterogeneity of assessments and judgments, the digitized version of the life-meaning matrix can become a unifying factor. Based on data obtained from different territories, both General and separate criteria for forming an integral matrix can be developed that can clearly represent life-meaning characteristics and offer certain recommendations of an educational nature. Besides, the analysis of the content of patriotism is an essential condition for the successful development of a patriotic personality. It should correspond to the realities and trends of the modern era.

In conditions of external information pressure and activation of internal extra-systemic forces, conditions are formed for the implementation of the “standing wave” effect, in which the growth of the protest potential reaches its maximum and is actualized under the influence of trigger events. Among such events, a special place belongs to the electoral cycle and the transit of power. The communication and socio-political effects of the impact of digitalization on the processes of political socialization and civil formation of Russian youth have now become pronounced. First, there is a broader, in comparison with the generation of parents, the involvement of young people in civic and political practices. Second, the transfer of civic and political activism to the digital space by young Russians is recorded. Third, a high rate of switching of civic activism of representatives of the younger generation into political formats, online strategies — into real practices, conventional forms of activism — into unconventional forms is registered [1]. Based on this, the authors of the article identified patterns of actualization of the destructive potential of youth civic engagement in modern Russia, taking into account the online factor.

The digital transformation of the economy and society, which is currently taking place all over the world, presents high demands on specialists in all areas of activity in terms of IT skills, cybersecurity and work with personal data. Digital competencies are becoming critically important for management personnel, on which it depends whether an organization will be able to achieve its goals in the new digital environment, whether it will be competitive. In this regard, it seems relevant to study the specifics of digital competencies, their essence and principal components. The purpose of this study is to develop a model of managerial competencies, which includes a digital block. The authors surveyed alumni and expert employers of the President’s Management Training Program (n = 197). As a result of the survey, we identified the most relevant competencies in the opinion of the respondents. Based on these findings, we designed a model with three levels of development and indicators for each of the levels. The presented model of competencies can be useful in the development of educational programs, assessment of candidates for selection to the personnel reserve and other management functions.

The article presents an analysis of the concept of “virtual reality”, shows the connection of this concept with the concept of reality, and provides an overview of their historical complex. The idea of virtuality and its relation to reality was developed in ancient, oriental, scholastic philosophy and has become widespread in the last few decades. Virtual reality is viewed as a representative technology in which the conditions, circumstances and context of the production of reality can be relatively obvious. However, in comparison with “traditional” sociocultural systems, its construction is simplified. We also revealed the influence of the virtualization of today’s society on the processes taking place in the framework of intercultural communication. Virtual communities are replacing traditional ones and transforming existing cultural identities. Individuals become technological, homogenized entities that do not function in time or space. The relevance of the article is due to the need to identify the differences between virtual reality and reality. During the analysis, we revealed that virtual reality in different conditions could be an integral part, type, aspect of virtual reality. Its characteristics are indistinguishable, superimposed on each other, which affects the cultural identity of the individual and, as a result, on intercultural communication.

The article considers approaches to the definition of sanctions by Russian and foreign authors. A large number of differing approaches suggests that there is still no consensus in political and legal science on how to define sanctions. The article also considers various approaches to the relationship between the concepts of “sanctions” and “restrictive measures”, as well as their analogues. There is also a divergence of approaches regarding this topic. The author comes to the conclusion that when analyzing political risks, such a separation of terms is counterproductive, agreeing with researchers who believe that there is no essential difference between the sanctions of international organizations and the measures of individual states.

The article considers the changes in the language policy of the neighbouring countries aimed at strengthening national interests and reducing the importance of the Russian language. The authors analyze several post-Soviet countries with different levels of integration of the Russian language under the influence of both political and economic factors. The purpose of the article is to determine the significance of the Russian language in the language policy of neighbouring countries. To determine the official position of state authorities on the dissemination of the Russian language in neighbouring countries, we studied the specifics of the policy in the Republic of Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Baltic States. The methodology of the research we based on general scientific methods of cognition: induction, deduction, and comparative analysis, which are supported by a graphical method of data visualization. The materials presented in the article allow us to conclude the change in the language.

The growth of academic mobility creates additional opportunities for promoting a positive image of Russia in the world through the secondary political socialization of international students. We carried out a pilot study of the socio-political attitudes of international students at Financial University. It was based on the thesis that the level of student loyalty in relation to the political course of modern Russia directly depends on the degree of their awareness of the activities of the authorities of the Russian Federation. The monitoring showed that the desire of international students to integrate into Russian society is due not only to the idea of Russia’s place in the modern political arena but also to the assessment of the role of our country in world history and culture.

The article examines the historical and political aspects of working with international students in terms of their adaptation to Russian reality and the formation of a stable positive attitude towards the Russian Federation as one of the leaders of world politics, economics and education. At the same time, the specificity of the emphasis in the political socialisation of students of various cultural and world outlook profiles analysed by the author. Finally, the author offered options for finding compromise, consolidating principles.

This article discusses the formation of career strategies of medical professionals, as well as factors that influence their formation. Based on the data of a sociological survey conducted in Moscow in 2019 during the implementation of the project “Development of the capital’s healthcare personnel potential”, the following factors were considered: socio-demographic; professional qualification; psychological (psycho-emotional). All three groups of selected factors, if analysed separately, are inseparable in practice, and do not act simultaneously. But they can often strengthen or level each other, manifesting themselves to different degrees (depending on the individual qualities of an individual employee, on the conditions and place of residence/work, on the starting position of the beginning of educational and working life, etc.). We identified the three most common models of career paths preferred by medical personnel.

The authors see the relevance of presented work in the change in preferred forms of employment in the context of the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic around the world. Indeed, due to the loss of a “standard” place of work or the increasing role of self-preserving behaviour, many today have switched to non-standard types of employment — freelancing and “remote work”. The purpose of this article is to examine the prospects for the development of freelancing after the pandemic. During the research, we used the methods of formal logic: analysis and synthesis, as well as sociological methods: the method of content analysis and Internet polling. Based on the results of the study, the authors concluded the existence of objective and subjective factors associated with global and country lockdowns, which had a somewhat contradictory effect on the activities of freelancers.

The process of forming a student’s professional subjectivity is of great importance in the modern labour market. The role of the university in this process is crucial. A student acquires at the university hard and soft skills necessary in his professional activity. The article devotes considerable attention to the analysis of the place and role of research activities in the self-determination and formation of the professional subjectivity of Russian students. To analyse this problem, in 2020 a team of the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation conducted a sociological study using focus group and mass quantitative polling methods. The focus group we recruited from undergraduate students. The text provides valuable information on the results of the analysis of scientific research and literary sources on the identification of research capacity methodologies and materials on professional subjectivity. The main approaches to studying this phenomenon are detailed: economic, legal, sociological, cultural and psychological. It concludes with general recommendations to stimulate the research capacity of students.

In this article, the authors studied and analyses the information support for the implementation of national projects. It includes the frequency of mentioning (context, in a positive or negative way) of supervisors, leaders and administrators of national projects in articles with the presence of the topic of national projects. Also, we analysed the results of sociological research for the awareness of the population about the existence of national projects, in principle, and about individual projects, in particular. Based on the analysis of the media field, the authors concluded the quality of promotion and explanation of the goals and primary results of national projects for the public audience.

The article presents the influence of the United States of America and the Soviet Union on the formation of political leadership types in the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and united Germany in 1990. The presented material briefly describes the typologies of political leadership presented in the political science discourse (typology of traditional, rational-legal and charismatic leade r Max Weber, typology of leader — ‘bannerman’, leader-‘merchant’, leader — ‘servant’ and leader — ‘fireman’ Margaret Hermann, typology ‘patriarch’, ‘tyrant’ and ‘ideal’ leader Cecil Jibb), that is possible in the future to relate the identified types to the political leaders of Germany — Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Willie Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl and GDR — Walter Ulbricht and Eric Honecker. The economic, military, ideological and political influences of the two super-Powers of the «cold war» period are revealed based on the nodal events of the political history of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.

This paper analyses the strategies of language behaviour, differences in the didactic approach, and the role in the formation of intercultural communicative competence of native and non-native speakers. The authors examine the subject from the point of view of a native Russian teacher, a Maltese teacher who is a native English speaker only to some extent, and a Russian teacher of English as a foreign language, who is a non-native English speaker. According to the authors, both native and non-native speakers have their advantages and disadvantages. To compete with a native speaker, a non-native speaker must have the highest level of proficiency in the language being taught, and both native and non-native speakers must have appropriate professional training and have the necessary competencies.

The article presents the study of the features of political and institutional changes in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. In the article, the author considers a political institution as an organisation with a specific structure and functions, as well as the “rules of the game” — formal and “informal” relationships between actors, and institutionalization is the process of organisational formation and normative consolidation of relations associated with the process of management, the conquest of power, political participation. Foreign and Russian researchers noted that in the 1990s, President B. Yeltsin established the foundations for the country’s democratic development. Nevertheless, the consequence of democratic reforms was the emergence of problems that threaten the economic stability and integrity of Russia. The author defines the main political and institutional changes aimed at strengthening the central government, changing the nature of relations between federal and regional authorities, executive and legislative branches. The article reflects the changes in the Federation Council, the purpose of which was to reduce the influence of regional elites on political processes. The author outlines the main reasons for the creation of the party of power, ways to strengthen the positions of “United Russia” at the federal and regional levels. In general, the author determines the stage of political institutionalisation in Russia in the early 2000s as the “design of the power vertical”.

The stories “The Sisters” and “Araby” are the part of Dubliners, both put at the beginning of the compilation, which can be considered as a presentation of the whole life cycle. This article develops what childhood and adolescence mean to Joyce and how he presents it in these two texts, the theme of the transition from childhood to adulthood being central. This transition period is considered as adolescence when children lose their merits, which only can happen if the child will receive a “psychologically traumatic blow”. This essay also considers the motif of a “spiritual paralysis” — a collective image of human vices, which all Dublin citizens are cursed with. Though Joyce describes this city as a mythic kingdom, he is still writing about current social problems, which refers not only to Dublin but also to the whole of Ireland. This article develops the most remarkable symbols, endowed with polysemy, through which the relationship of children and adolescents with the world is revealed. Furthermore, the author discussed the language of both stories, as it has features of children’s speech in it, which presents the lack of complete understanding of the world.

The concept of creating a “smart city” in the Arctic is an exceptional incentive for the development of new territories and the socio-economic development of Russia. The Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation is implementing a “smart city” project (which is aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Russian cities and is also necessary for the formation of an effective management system) within the framework of the national program “Digital Economy”. The authorities of the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions, as well as the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, have already included in their development program measures to implement the national “smart city” project in their regions. One of the objectives of this study is to systematise and substantiate the problems that the regions face when implementing this project.