Since the end of the 20th century, with the increasing role of the human factor in the world, the importance of the social and humanitarian component in world politics has also increased. This manifested itself not only in humanitarian and social issues, but also in the fact that the human factor has become an important component of other issues, including military and economic ones.  The analysis of the Russian international studies on social and humanitarian issues in the article has been carried out in two main areas related to each other: 1) soft power and public diplomacy; 2) human capital.  Various approaches to understanding soft power and public diplomacy in Russia are analyzed under the framework of the first area. It is shown that rather often both these terms are understood as informational and propagandistic influence on the societies of other coun­tries. In this regard, in recent years, Russian authors have paid special attention to the issues of information and hybrid wars.  Russian researches on human capital in quantitative terms is much inferior to the research of the first area. At the same time Russian works on the issues of the role of higher education, its use as a soft power were to a great extend a pioneer ones.  The main conclusion of the article is that humanitarian issues do not occupy the some prominaut place in the international studies they do in real life world politics.  

Despite the fact that four years have passed since the accession of Crimean peninsula, an active polemic continues in the academic community. Obviously, it somehow sets a certain political discourse not only of the present, but also of the future. Therefore, one cannot ignore the existence of serious arguments from those who criticize legitimacy of the Russia’s actions. However, on the other hand, there are enough legal and legitimate reasons to recognize the reunification of Crimea and Russia as fully justified. The analysis of the relationship between the legal and political aspects of legitimacy is crucial in this matter.  In the post-Soviet period, the Ukrainian government, setting a course for rapid Ukrainianization and building (almost not taking in consideration its own realias) a state of the European type, proved unable to change the pro-Russian identity of the Crimeans. On the contrary, its policies only increased people’s discontent with Ukrainian reality. As a result, the pro-Russian orientation of the majority of Crimean residents has become both Russian legitimacy and legality. In addition, the issues of national security were an important circumstance of the Russian leadership actions during this period. Russia was forced to consolidate its high traditional legitimacy on the peninsula legally, when it sensed a threat to it from the expanding NATO because of the coup d’état and the ouster of the legitimate authority.  Introducing the blockade of the peninsula, the Kiev authorities finally undermined the Ukrainian legitimacy among the population of the Crimea. The blockade, first by non-state actors, and then by state structures of Ukraine in water supply, access to electricity, restriction of freedom of movement and in other areas, led to the violation of human rights in the Crimea. Today, the Ukrainian state in every possible way reneges on international law norms in relation to the Crimeans, arguing that the Russian Federation has “occupied” the Crimea. However, if Russia’s criticism of Ukraine continues in a rationally legal manner, Russia should also insist, within the same rational-legal logic, on material reparation of the consequences, which may cause Ukrainian blockade of the peninsula.  

The US political system is repeatedly subjected to significant deviations from those constitutional provisions that determine the relationship between the three branches of power. The scientists use such phrases as «Jacksonian democracy» or «Imperial presidency» to illustrate the attempts of American presidents to intervene those issues which constitutionally assigned to the other branches of power.  In general, despite these deviations from legally established rules, the elites retained a general consensus on the notion of stable domestic and foreign policies. As the main threat to this stability, the possibility of organizing a revolution from above was considered. However, in November 2016 D. Trump managed to be elected under the slogan of such a revolution, becoming the first the president in the political history of the United States, which has no firm support among the elites.  Undoubtedly, such a success illustrated serious problems within American society, that’s why the reasons of the conflict between D. Trump and his opponents could be found first of all in the ideological sphere. The newly elected president proposes a transformation of the fundamental basics that determined the vectors of US foreign and domestic policy in recent decades.  In this case, unlike the historical precedents considered in this paper, D. Trump’s criticism goes beyond simple accusations on the pages of the mass media or in statements of the leading representatives of the American political establishment. It takes a form of an acute confrontation between the branches of power and within them. The analysis of this situation is proposed in the article, both from the point of view of political and legal sciences, which could help to make a forecast on the chances of D. Trump to become a winner in this conflict within the American political elite.  

Within current conditions large business seeks to more actively influence processes of public state policy formulation and implementation connected with regulation of the economy and allocation of public resources. To ensure growing and systemic influence on the processes of government decision making, corporations promote economic interests by creating systems of controlled communications and relations with state bodies (SB). This field of professional activity identified as «GR» (Government Relations) is a specific type of management activity, specific cross-sectoral (cross-area) management of interactions between business companies (and other non-state actors) and the state authorities, located at the crossing of three basic sectors of governance (government, business and social (nonprofit) organizations). Professional functions on establishing and maintaining relations between business and government are conducted by GR-departments of large companies, specialized consulting firms and business associations. The complexity of those activities for business organizations proceeds from its specific location at the intersection of two environments (sectors): internal (in-house) and external (political and public) ones. This means that GR-specialist tries to consider the interests of these counterparties and identify points of intersection, where common interests can develop into business cooperation, and this may also contribute to the constructive involvement of business in shaping public policy. During such activities GR-specialist regularly faces the practical problems of frequent temporary error (“temporal asynchrony”) and low level of spatial contingency (“spatial incongruence”) between the “sectoral (environmental)” types of managerial dynamics and their autonomous rhythms and paces, special sectoral functioning and development strategies, deployed within each of these sectors (industry business strategy vs public policy area) and specific phases of the cycles of corporate and public governance, yet weakly interlinked. The authors stem from the common idea according to which a basic methodological prerequisite for the analysis, design and implementation of the effective and efficient GR-work is the development of a cycle model of the so-called “cross-sectoral” management, which would consider complex dynamics of the «internal» corporate processes as well as «external» public-management cycles.

Nowadays energy diplomacy tends to be one of most relevant and important fields of applied research in International Relations. It is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach being an intersection of political and economic theory, international law, energetics, theory of diplomacy, as well as other fields. Still, numerous research works in the given area both in Russia and abroad are characterized by a number of controversies, such as absence of a common theoretical, methodological basis and conventional terminology, as well as lack of consistency in the choice of scientific paradigms, which leads to divergence of research results and hinders the comparability of the latter. Along with that, in terms of scientific policy it is worth mentioning the absence of a common scientific space in the above field of research, which tends to be shaped by national research cultures and traditions. Throughout the 2000-2010s representatives of the MGIMO scientific school have accumulated experience in dealing with problems of energy diplomacy. However, most of the existing works do not specify the selected political theory paradigms, such as, for instance, realism, liberalism or constructivism. With no intention to conduct a comparative analysis of the aforementioned concepts, the authors of the article outline the key theoretical findings of political realism as the most suitable paradigm for explaining, analyzing and eventually forecasting the recent trends and phenomena given the current geopolitical and economical juncture. They prove the applicability of the proposed model to the OPEC case study and demonstrate its potential practical usefulness for policy-makers in foreign affairs and international energy relations.  

The research object of the article is a development of the international regime of the Caspian Sea after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and increase in the number of the Caspian Littoral States, which transformed the former “closed” Soviet-Iranian region to the arena for wrangling between the different foreign policy interests of the most powerful world nations. The research subject is the key role of energy resources in the negotiation process between the States of the Caspian Region. The author pays special attention to the evolution of national approaches of the “Caspian Five” to the problem of mineral resources delimitation as well as its connection to negotiations on the draft comprehensive Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The article mentions the key benchmarks of the negotiation process, examines the influence of biand multilateral arrangements among Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan during 1998-2003 on the situation in the region. The role of conflicts among Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan over transboundary oil and gas fields in the southern part of the sea as a factor of regional instability as well as its negative influence on the relations between the Caspian Littoral States, in general, are analyzed. The main conclusion of the author is that debates, launched by the Caspian Littoral States on the energy issues in the format of the Special Working Group at the level of Deputy Foreign Ministers, have gradually transformed to the multilateral mechanism for interaction of regional actors and become a trigger for debates on the other issues of the Caspian agenda such as economic, ecological, military, security, transport, tourist cooperation, etc. Taking into account importance and a positive role of four Caspian Summits as well as influence of other factors (separate position of Iran, external forces, environmental risks) on the negotiation process, the author underlines the fact that all efforts of the Caspian Littoral States should be focused on elaborating the compromise settlement scheme of mineral resources delimitation, which should be fixed in the future comprehensive Convention.  

The review article reveals the content of the concept of Food Regime, which is little-known in the Russian academic reference. The author monitored and codified the semantic dynamic of the terminological unit from its original interpretations to modern formulations based on the retrospective analysis. The rehabilitation of the academic merits of D. Puchala and R. Hopkins — authors who used the concept Food Regime for a few years before its universally recognized origin and official scientific debut, was accomplished with help of historical and comparative methods. The author implemented the method of ascension from the abstract to the concrete to demonstrating the classification of Food Regimes compiled on the basis of geopolitical interests in the sphere of international production, consumption, and distribution of foodstuffs. The characteristic features of historically formed Food Regime were described in the chronological order, as well as modern tendencies possessing reformist potential were identified. In particular, it has been established that the idea of Food Sovereignty (which is an alternative to the modern Corporate Food Regime) is the subject for acute academic disputes. The discussion between P. McMichael P. and H. Bernstein devoted to the “peasant question” — mobilization frame of the Food Sovereignty strategy was analyzed using the secondary data processing method. Due to the critical analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to follow the principles of the Food Sovereignty strategy to prevent the catastrophic prospects associated with ecosystem degradation, accelerated erosion of soils, the complete disappearance of biodiversity and corporate autoc racy successfully. The author is convinced that the idea of Food Sovereignty can ward off energetic liberalization of nature, intensive privatization of life and rapid monetization of unconditioned human reflexes.

The subject of the study is analysis of the state of food security of the South Asian countries at the present time.  The methodological basis of the study is such methods as induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis. The systematic approach to the overall study of the South Asian countries’ economy and the state of its food security in particular has become the base of this research. Historical and statistical method were used to solve the main task of the research to reveal the conditions of the region’s agricultural development and food availability and food accessibility in the region as well as to carry out an assessment of the ability of households to obtain nutritious food all year round. The author also used the comparative method to analyze the South Asian countries’ approaches to realization of food policy that has allowed to reveal the specific tools used by certain countries of the region and the common characteristics of all countries of South Asia.  While selecting the research topics the author proceeded from the idea that the problem of the state of food security of the South Asian countries has not been studied for the last two decades.  The research required to attract and summarize a large amount of statistical data that has been drawn from many sources including official-sites of international organizations and South Asian countries. The author also used Russian and Indian scientific journals and monographs.  The article highlights the state of food security in the region in accordance with criteria offered by the FAO. The author examines the situation in the South Asian countries’ agriculture sector, its productivity, the volume of production, food waste as well as the countries’ dependency on food imports. The article also presents some information on food accessibility which is generally considered within the context of household income, food distribution systems and ability of the household to obtain food seasonally, as well as food consumption within the context of dietary energy consumption and dietary protein and fat consumption.  The author examines all the seven South Asian countries’ national policies for food security aiming at struggle against undernourishment. The author draws the attention to the fact that despite the slight differences in tools they have common aims and tasks. The key directions of national policies for food security include measures to promote big agro-based industries financed by both private and public sector; increase agricultural productivity; enhance agricultural R&D; managing food security risks and vulnerabilities.  The author also notes the steps to aiming the collective food security within the framework of the regional integration group – the SAARC.  The article presents statistical data characterizing hunger and undernourishment trends in South Asia.

Regional banks are struggling with significant obstacles in the modern Russian economy. Among them are strong competition with major big banks, strong resource restrictions, tightening the Bank of Russia’s requirements, and quite rapid expansion of financial technologies. Thus, the reduction of regional banks occurs, that produces both a negative impact on the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and challenges for balanced competition on the Russian market. Basically, these banks provide the settlement of region’s social and economic problems while maintaining local companies and enterprises.  Collateral, as a source for losses covering, became the essential element of credit risk management in banks. Providing lenders to implement such instruments, it helps to reduce bank losses under borrower’s default.  The purpose of the article relates to revealing of collateral determinants with higher impact on bank risk with the application of empirical methods (including regional level). This study is based on linear regression models evaluated by the least square method. Private data of secured small and medium business loans is used.  This article presents LTV (loan-to-value) as a major collateral determinant. The empirical evidence of interlinkage between collateral requirements, by the means of LTV, and risk premium is provided for loan portfolio of Russian regional banks. The hypothesis that LTV conversely correlates with risk premium is statistically proved.

Development of the international banking business, the formation of its new paradigm in the context of globalization of the financial system and the intensification of global economic relations in recent years requires the innovative component. The combination of innovations, financial and external economic environment is one of the most important factors that characterize the phenomenon of the “new economy”. Therefore, innovative processes should be considered in conjunction with the changes of the processes connected with the foreign trade banking.  The article gives a brief overview of the scientific literature on the international banking business and its innovative trends. Prerequisites are disclosed, direction and purpose of banking innovations, the area of their implementation and multi-vector forms of manifestation, reveals problems of innovative development of the international banking business, identifies potential paths of their solutions. The necessity of implementation of the innovative methods and instruments of bank service of foreign economic activity is justified and measures for their introduction in this process are offered.  A wide spectrum of innovative trends of international banking business is defined as internal competitive environment, and external vectors. The author draws the attention to the contribution of the improvement of the sustainability and competitiveness of the business in terms of volatility of market processes. In the article on the example of the Republic of Azerbaijan presents practical recommendations on the development of innovative technologies in the banking system, the implementation of main tasks in this area, which are aimed to the development of effective management decisions on innovative international banking business in the foreseeable short and medium term.

The article looks into the most important aspects of the world economy reindustrialization, examines strategies for reindustrialization of the USA, Canada, and Australia. The correlation between the world trend, namely the transition to the digital economy, and the process of reindustrialization within the framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is considered. On the basis of comparison and analysis of expert evaluations, statistical data by sectors of industrial production of the USA and Canada it is shown that the absolute advantage of Canada when carrying out the re-industrialization of the economy is skilled labor, specialists with secondary education. The study confirms the fact that amid the reindustrialization on the verge of the Fourth industrial revolution, the availability of skilled labor is a necessary condition for the competitiveness of the state. The Russian Federation faces the situation when conducting the re-industrialization is complicated by adverse international economic and political environment (policy of sanctions against Russia). It is revealed that for the Russian Federation the reindustrialization of the economy shall combine the active modernization of the existing production capacity, while shaping new industries on the basis of technologies of the sixth technology wave. The comparative analysis outlined that under the circumstances the drivers of the new industrialization should be science-based industries, with the latest technologies and the largest number of highly skilled personnel concentrating there.  

The article conducts a political analysis of the Western European institutions of corporatism. The main task of the author is the study of the policy of harmonizing the interests of labor and capital (trade unions and employers’ associations), which is implemented in countries such as the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark etc. Dynamics of political processes unfolding in the space of Western Europe, suggests that the mechanisms of articulation and political representation of social and labour interests have significantly transformed over the past 30 years. The use of institutional and systemic approaches along with the empirical methods, leads to the conclusion that the most developed European countries are moving from the classical model of corporatism to a more pluralistic forms of interaction between the state, labour and capital. Social partnership as an instrument of collective bargaining between employees and employers is displaced from the political sphere to the sectoral and organizational levels. The typical institutions of democratic corporatism (tripartite commissions, socio-economic councils, etc.), who played a crucial role in rebuilding post-war Europe, become rudimentary organs of the national political systems. In addition, there is a tendency to weaken the political influence of trade unions, who successfully struggled for the satisfaction of collective demands of workers in the beginning of XX century. Large multinational companies prefer to influence the political decision-making centers autonomously, ignoring the associative membership in the guild organizations. As a consequence, corporatist bargaining is being replaced by direct and indirect lobbying, Government Relations and election fundraising. When accounting for identified trends, the author presents a hypothesis that the evolution of corporatism in Western Europe will lead to its gradual degeneration. Taking into account the identified trends, the author presents a hypothesis that the evolution of corporatism in Western Europe leads to its gradual degeneration.

A collection of research papers by Polish, Kazakh and Lithuanian authors dedicated to the formation and development of modern Kazakhstan was published in 2016. The collection examines a wide range of historical, legal, political, economic, ecological, ethno-confessional and cultural issues. Some of the articles are written in Russian, some in Polish, the rest in English. The publication of the collection shows the interest in Poland towards Kazakhstan – a country where tens of thousands of Poles have been thrown at various times, and where the Polish diaspora still exists.  

Book review: Steinacher, Gerald. Humanitarians at War. The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust, Oxford: OUP, 2017, 330 pp.  The book under review is written by Gerald Steinacher, a researcher from Nebraska-Lincoln University and deals with the analysis of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) activities in the period of 1944-1950. Using a variety of sources (archives, newspaper articles, reports and personal notes by ICRC representatives), the author attempts to demonstrate how the ICRC was trying to overcome a serious moral, organizational and financial crisis it found itself in: because of its failures to respond to the Holocaust and its activities to assist the former Nazis, it not only compromised its reputation and status, but also lost credibility in the eyes of the leading states of that time.

A.V. Krylov, V.M. Morozov, A.V. Fedorchenko «The State of Palestine: the right to the future». Moscow State University of International Relations of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MGIMO-University), 2017, 380 p.