DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.18357

Abstract: The article considers Russia-Kazakhstan relations in the sphere of energy gaining special significance in the new reality of the global world. Energy cooperation is the most important factor of formation of the new political and economic strategies of both countries. The author studies the role of this sphere for the cooperation of the countries, the formation of interrelation models and the development of their national economies. The author analyzes the impact of the negative tendencies in this sphere on the dynamics of bilateral Russia-Kazakhstan relations, their multilateral cooperation with other countries, including their relations within Eurasian integration, and the prospects of these negative tendencies overcoming. The research methodology comprises general scientific methods and approaches, and the complex approach, which includes the wide range of social sciences. The novelty of the study consists in the consideration of bilateral relations of Russia and Kazakhstan from the position of the geopolitics of natural resources and their influence on various aspects of bilateral relations. The author concludes about the necessity to extend multilateral cooperation against the background of common and similar drawbacks of raw-materials-based economies of Russia and Kazakhstan. Their common drawbacks can serve as an impetus to the search for a collective approach which would simplify the task of development of a common modernization scenario aimed at the newest technologies mastering and introduction of innovations within the economies of the Union thus promoting their mutual integration. 

DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.17454

Abstract: The article reveals the evolution of policymaking models in the Russian Federation on the national state level. The author notes that in the modern Russian history (since the formation of the Russian Federation in 1991) three policymaking models have sequentially changed each other: the polycentric, the vertically centralized, and the combined. The latter one is currently functioning in the Russian Federation. The research methodology is based on the system, structural-functional, and comparative-political approaches, the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction and observation. Each of the mentioned policymaking models had corresponded with the socio-political formation of the Russian state on particular stages of its development and gave place to the next model under the influence of radical changes of the political life which caused significant changes in the political system and regime of the Russian Federation. Together the three models are the stages of one and the same evolutionary process, the extrapolation of which helps forecast those changes which the combined model is going to face nowadays. 

DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.18758

Abstract: Based on the detailed analyses of the U.S. media reports, the author shows the political profile of the U.S Senator Marco Rubio, one of the leading Republican Party candidates for the next American presidency in the 2016 election. The author gives Rubio’s political biography and studies his possible connections with mafia formations and corporations during the U.S. Senate election campaign as the state of Florida candidate, and his five-year stay at the Senate. Based on the trustworthy sources, the author states that Rubio's work hadn't been remarkable for any practical results, and didn't bring any benefits to the state of Florida. The research methodology is based on the system, structural-functional and comparative-political approaches, the methods of anaysis, synthesis, induction, deduction and observation. The article studies the history of Rubio’s failure in the presidential campaign, during which he, despite his young age, handsome appearance and declamatory skills, had shown himself a weak, dependent on the political technologies politician, who didn’t manage to withstand a siege with such a political heavyweight as Donald Trump and the Senator from Texas, the same as Rubio Cuban American, Ted Cruz. The author comes to the conclusion that the emergence of such politicians as Marco Rubio on the political arena as the leading presidential candidates speaks for a serious degradation of intellect and will of the U.S. ruling elite. 

DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.19140

Abstract: To overcome the 2008 global financial and economic crisis and eliminate the reasons for such crises in future, the European Union had intensified its activities which resulted in two essentially new treaties in 2012. The first one, the European Stability Mechanism Treaty, established the European Stability Mechanism possessing the legal status of a legal entity with full legal personality and the €700 billion authorized capital. The second, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, which hasn’t been joined by Great Britain and the Czech Republic, established the rules aimed at discipline strengthening, the coordination of economic policies of the EU member-states, and raising the effectiveness of the Eurozone countries’ economies management. These new treaties, which have strengthened and enlarged the legal grounds of the Economic and Monetary Union, demonstrate that the European economic and monetary integration is evolving. The analysis of these treaties shows that these international statutory instruments not only help overcome the consequences of the difficult financial and economic condition, which had affected some EU member-states in the result of the 2008 global crisis, and avoid such crises in future, but also symbolize the next step in the development of the European economic and monetary integration which is the basis of the European integration process in general. This fact conditions the important international and political role of these treaties. 

DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.17599

Abstract: The author analyzes the influence of “colour revolutions” on state sovereignty of the modern nation-states using the example of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. The differential peculiarity of “colour revolutions” on the post-Soviet space was their non-violent character. Though the mechanism, developed by the Western geopolitical engineering specialists, failed during the 2005 “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The technologies and results of the “Tulip Revolution” had a destructive influence on the Kyrgyz society. Its consequences turned in the series of crises, among which the most significant was the second Kyrgyz revolution of 2010, the slipping down to the status of a failed state and the prospect of the civil war and the loss of state sovereignty. The research methodology is based on the system, structural-functional and comparative-political approaches, the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction and observation. The problem of state sovereignty in the context of the current crisis of the global governance system is very significant. “Colour revolutions” are among the most serious threats to the normal functioning of states. In the last 15 years, the wave of “revolutions” overflew several countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. Kyrgyzstan became one of their victims. The author concludes that only by virtue of the transition to the new system of administration, especially the policy of a close cooperation with Russia, Kyrgyzstan, subjected to the external “democratization” in the form of the 2005 “colour revolution”, manage to preserve its sovereignty and integrity. 

DOI: 10.7256/2409-8671.2016.2.17580

Abstract: The research subject includes the political research institutions of Great Britain, theoretical and practical aspects of their work, and their importance for the society and political public institutions. In the first part, the author considers the structure and activities of the three leading scientific institutions of Great Britain: the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute, and the Centre for Political Science; in the second part of the article, the author analyzes the importance and influence of research institutions on the political life of Great Britain and their effectiveness, their cooperation with the government, mass media, and participation in debates. The research methodology is based on the general scientific proposition about the system character of complex political processes, and the idea about the interdependence of factors conditioning the formation of the state’s political strategy. The most important methodological approach is the historical approach presupposing the study of social and political phenomena through their origin and evolution. The author concludes that the British scientific research institutions had formed in the 1980s and had become the significant figures in the complicated process of policy formation and its introduction into the global political space; creating a particular atmosphere and attitude and being the only opponents in the debates, scientific institutions had formed the very political process in Great Britain. They impulse innovations, struggle against passivity and inclination for compromise in parliamentary and bureaucratic procedures.