Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-45-76
Yu.G. Korgunyuk
The article presents the results of testing the hypothesis, according to which ballot stuffing in favor of the “party in power”, while causing minor distortions to the structure of electoral cleavages, does not fundamentally change it. The author tested the hypothesis on the data from the 2016 and 2021 elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation held via proportional system rules. He used the following method: in the regions where ballot stuffing was allegedly used in favor of the United Russia party, a certain number of votes were subtracted from the United Russia electoral results in accordance with the difference between the maximum and effective ranges of the electoral cleavage related to the confrontation between of the United Russia and the rest of elections’ participants. The author employed two models to run calculations: in the first model the threshold for deduction was a difference of 50% between the maximum and effective range, in the second model the difference was 5%. For 2016 elections, the first model took away more than 6.1 million votes from the United Russia, the second model subtracted more than 12.5 million votes; for 2021 elections — more than 5 and more than 10 million votes, respectively. Nevertheless, there was no radical change in the structure of electoral cleavages, let alone its elimination. The study showed that although ballot stuffing in favor of the “party in power” artificially overemphasizes the role of the authoritarian-democratic confrontation, sidelining other confrontations, the structure of electoral cleavages per se is largely preserved. Mathematical methods, especially factor analysis, can be efficiently used to detect this structure.
{"title":"Структура размежеваний и искажение электорального пространства","authors":"Yu.G. Korgunyuk","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-45-76","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-45-76","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents the results of testing the hypothesis, according to which ballot stuffing in favor of the “party in power”, while causing minor distortions to the structure of electoral cleavages, does not fundamentally change it. The author tested the hypothesis on the data from the 2016 and 2021 elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation held via proportional system rules. He used the following method: in the regions where ballot stuffing was allegedly used in favor of the United Russia party, a certain number of votes were subtracted from the United Russia electoral results in accordance with the difference between the maximum and effective ranges of the electoral cleavage related to the confrontation between of the United Russia and the rest of elections’ participants. The author employed two models to run calculations: in the first model the threshold for deduction was a difference of 50% between the maximum and effective range, in the second model the difference was 5%. For 2016 elections, the first model took away more than 6.1 million votes from the United Russia, the second model subtracted more than 12.5 million votes; for 2021 elections — more than 5 and more than 10 million votes, respectively. Nevertheless, there was no radical change in the structure of electoral cleavages, let alone its elimination. The study showed that although ballot stuffing in favor of the “party in power” artificially overemphasizes the role of the authoritarian-democratic confrontation, sidelining other confrontations, the structure of electoral cleavages per se is largely preserved. Mathematical methods, especially factor analysis, can be efficiently used to detect this structure.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"21 19","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140409358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-136-163
R.F. Turovsky, E.V. Bragina
The article analyzes the factors of generalized social trust in the modern states. The authors rely on the “up bottom” approach, which as sumes that trust in political institutions has a significant impact on social trust, while also accounting for socio-economic factors. The authors examine the case of Russia separately due to the specifics of political trust in personalist presidential regimes, Russia’s longer exposure to communism, as well as the modern increase in the level of political trust, which radically exceeds the level of social trust. Based on the comparative study of sociological trends and factors of social trust in the country, they document the gradual development of a situation where social trust is inversely correlated with political trust. They tend to explain this phenomenon by the exaggerated importance of the personal and public security agenda, which negatively affects social trust, while simultaneously increases the demand for political trust. Socio-economic factors in Russia play a limited role, but can resume their influence during periods of reduced social tensions. According to the authors’ conclusion, given the current political system, the potential for increase in social trust in the Russian Federation is limited.
{"title":"Factors of Social Trust in Europe and Russia","authors":"R.F. Turovsky, E.V. Bragina","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-136-163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-136-163","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyzes the factors of generalized social trust in the modern states. The authors rely on the “up bottom” approach, which as sumes that trust in political institutions has a significant impact on social trust, while also accounting for socio-economic factors. The authors examine the case of Russia separately due to the specifics of political trust in personalist presidential regimes, Russia’s longer exposure to communism, as well as the modern increase in the level of political trust, which radically exceeds the level of social trust. Based on the comparative study of sociological trends and factors of social trust in the country, they document the gradual development of a situation where social trust is inversely correlated with political trust. They tend to explain this phenomenon by the exaggerated importance of the personal and public security agenda, which negatively affects social trust, while simultaneously increases the demand for political trust. Socio-economic factors in Russia play a limited role, but can resume their influence during periods of reduced social tensions. According to the authors’ conclusion, given the current political system, the potential for increase in social trust in the Russian Federation is limited.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"14 24","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140409289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-98-113
V. А. Usova
Over the past 30 years, the mixed parallel electoral system has become one of the popular types of electoral systems used in elections to national legislatures. Curiously, it received the highest popularity in authoritarian regimes. The article attempts to identify internal political factors that contribute to the introduction of mixed parallel electoral systems under the conditions of electoral authoritarianism. To perform this task, the author uses the binary logistic regression method. In this study, the author makes an assumption that when implementing electoral reform under authoritarianism, the ruling elite is largely guided by the desire to maintain and strengthen its power. The study shows that the mixed parallel electoral system is most likely to be introduced during the period of regime transformation. At the initial stage of the consolidation of an authoritarian regime that allows multi-party competition, the ruling elite faces the challenge of institutionalizing electoral uncertainty. The effectiveness and durability of the political regime depends on how the risks associated with elections are neutralized. The mechanical combination of majoritarian and proportional representation principles opens up an opportunity to utilize the advantages of each of the electoral formulas conditional on the political situation, allowing the existing authorities to gain control over the sweeping majority of seats in parliament even when electoral competition is increasing and the support for the dominant party is falling. According to the author’s conclusion, the use of the mixed parallel system plays an important role in the consolidation of an authoritarian regime. Due to the mechanisms inherent in this system, the ruling elite can efficiently manipulate elections, ensuring the survival and stability of the authoritarian order.
{"title":"Mixed Parallel Electoral System — Optimal Choice under Authoritarianism? (Cross-National Comparative Study)","authors":"V. А. Usova","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-98-113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-98-113","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past 30 years, the mixed parallel electoral system has become one of the popular types of electoral systems used in elections to national legislatures. Curiously, it received the highest popularity in authoritarian regimes. The article attempts to identify internal political factors that contribute to the introduction of mixed parallel electoral systems under the conditions of electoral authoritarianism. To perform this task, the author uses the binary logistic regression method. In this study, the author makes an assumption that when implementing electoral reform under authoritarianism, the ruling elite is largely guided by the desire to maintain and strengthen its power. The study shows that the mixed parallel electoral system is most likely to be introduced during the period of regime transformation. At the initial stage of the consolidation of an authoritarian regime that allows multi-party competition, the ruling elite faces the challenge of institutionalizing electoral uncertainty. The effectiveness and durability of the political regime depends on how the risks associated with elections are neutralized. The mechanical combination of majoritarian and proportional representation principles opens up an opportunity to utilize the advantages of each of the electoral formulas conditional on the political situation, allowing the existing authorities to gain control over the sweeping majority of seats in parliament even when electoral competition is increasing and the support for the dominant party is falling. According to the author’s conclusion, the use of the mixed parallel system plays an important role in the consolidation of an authoritarian regime. Due to the mechanisms inherent in this system, the ruling elite can efficiently manipulate elections, ensuring the survival and stability of the authoritarian order.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"31 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140410850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-6-28
L.G. Fishman
The article addresses the question of why, despite the seemingly long-standing accumulation of economic and technical conditions sufficient for building, if not communism, then socialism, the left-wing forces are unable to take advantage of this, and yield the initiative to the right-wing, conservative, and even reactionary forces. The author explains this situation by the rationale that the mindset of the left is still dominated by a flat liberal progressivism characterized by cliché ideas about the progressive and the reactionary, but it lacks tools to adequately assess the reasons for the “reactionary” sympathies of the broad masses and to admit that these masses have “grounds for concern” at the very least. As a theoretical basis, the article uses the concept of human prehistory of the classics of Marxism. The author demonstrates that the underlying dichotomy of the alienated and authentic, human and inhuman does not coincide with the dichotomy of “reactionary” and “progressive”. The Modern Age is examined as both an epoch of reaction (in the literal sense of the word, net of ideological connotations) and that of progress. In order to resolve these issues, the author introduces the concept of retropractice, which is supposed to help adequately describe these seemingly “reactionary” and “conservative” sides of Modernity. Retropractices, in contrast to “reaction”, possess an emancipatory and alienation-reducing potential. The flaw of the left is that they fail to comprehensively conceptualize the meaning of retropractices because they view them only as “reaction” and “conservatism” in the usual sense. However, socialism, if realized, will largely turn out to be precisely a set of retropractices.
{"title":"No Disrespect to the “Reactionary”","authors":"L.G. Fishman","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-6-28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-6-28","url":null,"abstract":"The article addresses the question of why, despite the seemingly long-standing accumulation of economic and technical conditions sufficient for building, if not communism, then socialism, the left-wing forces are unable to take advantage of this, and yield the initiative to the right-wing, conservative, and even reactionary forces. The author explains this situation by the rationale that the mindset of the left is still dominated by a flat liberal progressivism characterized by cliché ideas about the progressive and the reactionary, but it lacks tools to adequately assess the reasons for the “reactionary” sympathies of the broad masses and to admit that these masses have “grounds for concern” at the very least. As a theoretical basis, the article uses the concept of human prehistory of the classics of Marxism. The author demonstrates that the underlying dichotomy of the alienated and authentic, human and inhuman does not coincide with the dichotomy of “reactionary” and “progressive”. The Modern Age is examined as both an epoch of reaction (in the literal sense of the word, net of ideological connotations) and that of progress. In order to resolve these issues, the author introduces the concept of retropractice, which is supposed to help adequately describe these seemingly “reactionary” and “conservative” sides of Modernity. Retropractices, in contrast to “reaction”, possess an emancipatory and alienation-reducing potential. The flaw of the left is that they fail to comprehensively conceptualize the meaning of retropractices because they view them only as “reaction” and “conservatism” in the usual sense. However, socialism, if realized, will largely turn out to be precisely a set of retropractices.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"38 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140411710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-77-97
A.V. Semenov, E.Yu. Minaeva
The article examines the connection between protests and elections in an authoritarian context. Using the concept of mobilization momentum, the authors attempt to find out whether intensive and massive collective actions on the eve of elections can affect electoral mobilization and support for the “party in power”, and if so, in what direction. Based on the modern literature on this topic, the authors identify two alternative models of the possible electoral effect of the mobilization momentum. According to the first model, by breaking through the information blockade and signaling to citizens about the widespread dissatisfaction with the authorities’ policies, intense mass protests contribute to an increase in voters’ turnout and a decrease in support for pro-government forces. According to the second model, such protests may easily increase the electoral performance of the “party in power,” since they often lead to the mobilization of an electorate that is loyal to the ruling circles. The authors test these hypotheses against the evidence from the 2011— 2016 parliamentary electoral cycle in Russia using methods of standard multiple linear regression, difference-in-differences and synthetic control. The results are mixed. It appears that the mobilization momentum has a weak electoral effect or even a positive effect on the performance of the “party in power,” but its influence may depend on threshold values: in the most protesting cities, support for the United Russia turns out to be lower than it would be in the absence of the mobilization momentum. At the same time, the findings convincingly demonstrate that the evidence and data from the Russian context, combined with modern methods of analysis, opens up an excellent opportunity for research at the intersection of the spheres of political participation and electoral politics.
{"title":"Mobilization Momentum and Electoral Results of “Party in Power”","authors":"A.V. Semenov, E.Yu. Minaeva","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-77-97","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-77-97","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the connection between protests and elections in an authoritarian context. Using the concept of mobilization momentum, the authors attempt to find out whether intensive and massive collective actions on the eve of elections can affect electoral mobilization and support for the “party in power”, and if so, in what direction. Based on the modern literature on this topic, the authors identify two alternative models of the possible electoral effect of the mobilization momentum. According to the first model, by breaking through the information blockade and signaling to citizens about the widespread dissatisfaction with the authorities’ policies, intense mass protests contribute to an increase in voters’ turnout and a decrease in support for pro-government forces. According to the second model, such protests may easily increase the electoral performance of the “party in power,” since they often lead to the mobilization of an electorate that is loyal to the ruling circles. The authors test these hypotheses against the evidence from the 2011— 2016 parliamentary electoral cycle in Russia using methods of standard multiple linear regression, difference-in-differences and synthetic control. The results are mixed. It appears that the mobilization momentum has a weak electoral effect or even a positive effect on the performance of the “party in power,” but its influence may depend on threshold values: in the most protesting cities, support for the United Russia turns out to be lower than it would be in the absence of the mobilization momentum. At the same time, the findings convincingly demonstrate that the evidence and data from the Russian context, combined with modern methods of analysis, opens up an excellent opportunity for research at the intersection of the spheres of political participation and electoral politics.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140414577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-164-186
V.E. Belenkov
Although the relationship between state coercive measures and protests has long been studied in Political Science, there are a number of gaps in the modern research studies about the impact of repressions on street protest activity. A serious flaw in these studies is their focus on the influence of repressions on the existing protest campaigns, with little attention to their long-term implications. The impact of repressions on the scale of protest and number of protesters, as well as the role of the Internet as a factor mediating the impact of state sanctions on protests, is understudied. The article attempts to bridge these gaps. The author has first examined theoretical arguments in support of three possible forms of correlation between the severity of repressions and street protest activity — negative, positive, and parabolic (n-shaped), after which he tests relevant hypotheses on a sample of country cases that share the same trigger for protest — suspicions of electoral fraud. To test these hypotheses, the author utilized data on the maximum strength of repressions against civil society organizations, participants in protests and authors of anti-government messages on the Internet in the pre-electoral years, as well as data on protests in the first week following the elections. The study confirmed the influence of repressions on future protest activity. At the same time, the relationship between the severity of repressions and the number of protest participants in the long term has a quadratic n-shaped form: at low and high levels of repression, the number of protesters is minimal, at medium — it is maximal. As for the impact of the Internet, it was not detected on data on repression in the offline environment, but it was revealed on data on the strength of sanctions for political activity on the Web: if the share of Internet users in a country is low, repressions decrease the number of protest participants; if it is high, repressions of medium strength correspond to the maximum number of protesters.
尽管政治学界长期以来一直在研究国家强制措施与抗议活动之间的关系，但关于镇压对街头抗议活动的影响的现代研究却存在许多空白。这些研究的一个严重缺陷是只关注镇压对现有抗议活动的影响，而很少关注其长期影响。镇压对抗议活动规模和抗议者人数的影响，以及互联网作为国家制裁对抗议活动影响的中介因素所起的作用，都未得到充分研究。本文试图弥补这些不足。作者首先研究了支持镇压严重程度与街头抗议活动之间可能存在的三种相关形式--负相关、正相关和抛物线型（n 型）--的理论论据，然后对具有相同抗议触发因素--怀疑选举舞弊--的国家案例样本进行了相关假设检验。为了验证这些假设，作者利用了选举前几年针对民间社会组织、抗议活动参与者和互联网上反政府信息作者的最大镇压力度数据，以及选举后第一周的抗议活动数据。研究证实了镇压对未来抗议活动的影响。同时，镇压的严重程度与抗议活动参与者人数之间的长期关系呈二次 n 型：镇压程度低和高时，抗议者人数最少，镇压程度中等时，抗议者人数最多。至于互联网的影响，离线环境下的镇压数据并未发现这一影响，但网络上政治活动的制裁力度数据却揭示了这一点：如果一个国家的互联网用户比例较低，镇压就会减少抗议参与者的数量；如果比例较高，中等强度的镇压就会使抗议者的数量达到最大。
{"title":"Long-Term Effect of Online and Offline Repressions on Post-Electoral Protest Participants’ Number (Cross-National Empirical Study)","authors":"V.E. Belenkov","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-164-186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-164-186","url":null,"abstract":"Although the relationship between state coercive measures and protests has long been studied in Political Science, there are a number of gaps in the modern research studies about the impact of repressions on street protest activity. A serious flaw in these studies is their focus on the influence of repressions on the existing protest campaigns, with little attention to their long-term implications. The impact of repressions on the scale of protest and number of protesters, as well as the role of the Internet as a factor mediating the impact of state sanctions on protests, is understudied. The article attempts to bridge these gaps. The author has first examined theoretical arguments in support of three possible forms of correlation between the severity of repressions and street protest activity — negative, positive, and parabolic (n-shaped), after which he tests relevant hypotheses on a sample of country cases that share the same trigger for protest — suspicions of electoral fraud. To test these hypotheses, the author utilized data on the maximum strength of repressions against civil society organizations, participants in protests and authors of anti-government messages on the Internet in the pre-electoral years, as well as data on protests in the first week following the elections. The study confirmed the influence of repressions on future protest activity. At the same time, the relationship between the severity of repressions and the number of protest participants in the long term has a quadratic n-shaped form: at low and high levels of repression, the number of protesters is minimal, at medium — it is maximal. As for the impact of the Internet, it was not detected on data on repression in the offline environment, but it was revealed on data on the strength of sanctions for political activity on the Web: if the share of Internet users in a country is low, repressions decrease the number of protest participants; if it is high, repressions of medium strength correspond to the maximum number of protesters.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"4 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140410816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-187-196
A.N. Kozhanovsky
The published article represents a review of the monograph by S.M.Khenkin Spain: Modern Unstable Society. The monograph examines Spain’s experience at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, as a country that, due to historical circumstances, faces instability and unpredictability of development (so typical in the modern world) in an especially acute and concentrated manner. Khenkin identifies and describes, one by one, factors that characterize and explain the unstable state of the modern Spanish socio-political system, consistently integrating the current issues into the general context of the historical development of the Spanish society, its political and cultural traditions and comparing what is happening there with the situation in other European countries. Based on his research, he comes to the conclusion that several acute and persistent socio-political conflicts make high instability a distinctiveness of the country’s life. In the monograph the author provides careful and multilateral analysis of the transition from Francoism to consolidated democracy; various aspects of the ongoing transformations in the society; the specifics of the Spanish party-political system and its evolution; national-regional issue. He documents a radical change in the sentiments in the Spanish society with the appearance of a new generation, which clearly manifested in the reassessment of the transition, with harsh criticism replacing earlier approval, and in the conflict around “historical memory”. The author analyzes the relationship between the central government of the country and regional separatists and does not see any prospects for a prompt resolution of the conflict. According to his reasoned assessment, separation from Spain of any of its regions will inevitably cause irreparable damage to all parties to the conflict.
{"title":"Instability of Social Life as Spanish Distinctiveness Khenkin S.M. Spain: Modern Unstable Society. Moscow: Aspect Press, 2023","authors":"A.N. Kozhanovsky","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-187-196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2024-112-1-187-196","url":null,"abstract":"The published article represents a review of the monograph by S.M.Khenkin Spain: Modern Unstable Society. The monograph examines Spain’s experience at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, as a country that, due to historical circumstances, faces instability and unpredictability of development (so typical in the modern world) in an especially acute and concentrated manner. Khenkin identifies and describes, one by one, factors that characterize and explain the unstable state of the modern Spanish socio-political system, consistently integrating the current issues into the general context of the historical development of the Spanish society, its political and cultural traditions and comparing what is happening there with the situation in other European countries. Based on his research, he comes to the conclusion that several acute and persistent socio-political conflicts make high instability a distinctiveness of the country’s life. In the monograph the author provides careful and multilateral analysis of the transition from Francoism to consolidated democracy; various aspects of the ongoing transformations in the society; the specifics of the Spanish party-political system and its evolution; national-regional issue. He documents a radical change in the sentiments in the Spanish society with the appearance of a new generation, which clearly manifested in the reassessment of the transition, with harsh criticism replacing earlier approval, and in the conflict around “historical memory”. The author analyzes the relationship between the central government of the country and regional separatists and does not see any prospects for a prompt resolution of the conflict. According to his reasoned assessment, separation from Spain of any of its regions will inevitably cause irreparable damage to all parties to the conflict.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"2019 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140415836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-19DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2023-111-4-51-66
R. Belkovich, S. V. Vinogradov
Since the publication of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, the egalitarian tradition, which associates fair institutional structure with reaching equality in one aspect or another, has started to play a central role in academic discussions of the social justice problem. The article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of egalitarianism of luck, which by the end of the 20th century has become the main direction in the framework of this tradition. The proponents of this direction in their argument depart from Rawls’s idea about the lottery of birth, according to which a game played by a fortune, being arbitrary from the moral point of view and affecting the distribution of resources in society, is unfair, and therefore should be compensated. Rawls’s approach to minimizing the role of luck in a fair distribution did not guarantee sufficient compensation for natural inequalities, assuming at the same time excessive compensation for “expensive tastes”. Trying to solve this problem, Ronald Dworkin distinguished between brute and option luck, using the model of the “veil of ignorance”, behind which the amount of fair compensation is determined. Further development of egalitarianism of luck at the turn of the 1980—1990s is associated with the names of Richard Arneson, Gerald Cohen, John Roemer and some other authors who made a number of amendments and changes to the concept of undeserved luck and proposed their own ways to neutralize its consequences for society. The arguments of proponents of luck egalitarianism at the end of the 20th century aimed at strengthening the role of an individual’s freedom of choice and implantation of the ethics of responsibility into the theory of social justice. At the same time, the interpretation of luck as a true “currency of equality” made the question of fair distribution conditional upon the consensus on the limits of human capacity for systematic cultivation of virtues and the scope of individual responsibility for one’s own destiny.
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Pub Date : 2023-12-19DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2023-111-4-67-93
G. Borshchevskiy
The article presents the results of an institutional study of the official Russian narrative about traditional values, which is aimed at identifying the degree of their integration into the system of legal norms. Using methods of comparative legal, thesaurus and content analysis, as well as the analogy method, the author attempts to assess the optimality of the choice of traditional values in Russia from the point of view of constitutional norms and postulates of the world religions and determine to what extent these values are incorporated into the documents of political goal-setting. The author treats as traditional the values recorded in the “Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values” approved by the presidential decree in 2022, and compares them with the values of the Constitution, the basic moral imperatives of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism, as well as with the values outlined in the strategic documents and national development goals of the Russian Federation. The study shows that the officially declared traditional spiritual and moral values do not fully coincide with the constitutional ones and, at the same time, are more focused on secular ethics than on the principles of the world religions. Simultaneously, the author reveals their inconsistency with the top-level goal-setting documents and national projects. According to the author, in the current conditions, such a discrepancy, which weakens the effect of a legislator’s actions, may be preferable to the consistent and systematic introduction of values with their conventionality being questionable. Revealing socially significant norms is possible only after conducting a detailed and substantive study of public opinion, longitudinal trends, political and economic processes. Otherwise, normative entrenchment can cause further polarization of the society rather than its consolidation.
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Pub Date : 2023-12-19DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2023-111-4-7-30
K. E. Petrov
The article attempts to use the theory of conceptual metaphor to compare distant communicative practices of Ancient Greece and modern times. The author interprets digital communications and social media as Digital Agora, or Agora 2.0. Just as during ancient times the influence of the Agora made the Athenian aristocracy reckon with the demos, the influence of social media has significantly reshaped the modern political process, limiting the former capabilities of the elites. The use of the conceptual metaphor of Agora 2.0 allows the author to clarify similarities in the functioning of open communication systems, within which the mass dissemination of persuasive fake news and/or foreign interference in the electoral process turn out to be essentially insurmountable. Societies have to adapt in order to compensate for the potentially destructive effects of agorocentric structures. According to the author, it is still an open question of whether the Digital Agora will cope with numerous challenges, or whether the trends causing irreparable damage to democratic institutions will prevail. When examining a potential response to the challenges posed by the existence of the Digital Agora, the author makes use of a biological metaphor of an immune response, employing it to analyze most probable scenarios — from a radical ban on the Agora 2.0’s very infrastructure to the introduction of subtle homogenizing institutions that prevent the unchecked growth of populist influence.
{"title":"Challenges of Agora of Digital Society","authors":"K. E. Petrov","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2023-111-4-7-30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2023-111-4-7-30","url":null,"abstract":"The article attempts to use the theory of conceptual metaphor to compare distant communicative practices of Ancient Greece and modern times. The author interprets digital communications and social media as Digital Agora, or Agora 2.0. Just as during ancient times the influence of the Agora made the Athenian aristocracy reckon with the demos, the influence of social media has significantly reshaped the modern political process, limiting the former capabilities of the elites. The use of the conceptual metaphor of Agora 2.0 allows the author to clarify similarities in the functioning of open communication systems, within which the mass dissemination of persuasive fake news and/or foreign interference in the electoral process turn out to be essentially insurmountable. Societies have to adapt in order to compensate for the potentially destructive effects of agorocentric structures. According to the author, it is still an open question of whether the Digital Agora will cope with numerous challenges, or whether the trends causing irreparable damage to democratic institutions will prevail. When examining a potential response to the challenges posed by the existence of the Digital Agora, the author makes use of a biological metaphor of an immune response, employing it to analyze most probable scenarios — from a radical ban on the Agora 2.0’s very infrastructure to the introduction of subtle homogenizing institutions that prevent the unchecked growth of populist influence.","PeriodicalId":508002,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia","volume":"128 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139171601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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