Старостин Александр Михайлович

Introduction. The deepening and increasing complexity of transitional processes caused by a strategic rejection of the model of pro-Western socio-political convergence and a shift toward a course of comprehensive civilizational sovereignization characterize the current stage of development of Russian society and the state. The intensification of geopolitical confrontation, military-political risks, sanctions pressure, and internal structural imbalances has exacerbated the problem of the effectiveness of public administration and the quality of ruling elites. Under these circumstances, the substantive and value-oriented aspects of political and managerial agency become especially important, thereby enhancing the relevance of elitological concepts as essential instruments for analyzing and predicting political evolution. Of special scientific and practical relevance is the study of the civilizational conditionality of the elite-formation process and the possibilities of its transformation within the emerging model of the «state-civilization,» aimed at mobilizing the internal potential of Russian society and ensuring the long-term sustainability of national development.The purpose of the study is to conceptualize the civilizational conditionality of the elite-formation process in contemporary Russia, as well as to identify the conditions for enhancing the effectiveness of political and managerial agency in the context of the strategy of state-civilizational sovereignization.The methodological framework of the study is based on the political-elitological paradigm and the civilizational approach. The research employs methods of doctrinal analysis, comparative-historical and systems approaches, and the results of an interregional expert survey conducted in 2024, aimed at assessing the state and value orientations of contemporary Russian political elites.Results. The study demonstrates that the previously dominant universalist elitological mainstream is losing its relevance under conditions of a shift in Russia’s political course. The authors present a critical assessment of the limitations of administrative-bureaucratic governance mechanisms and elites oriented toward private and situational interests. The necessity of a civilizational re-norming of the elite-formation process is substantiated, including the principles of public service, responsibility, professionalism, patriotism, and acmeological selection. The authors’ vision of civilizational elite specificity is presented as a key factor in unlocking the mobilization potential of Russian society.Conclusions. The article argues that the successful implementation of the «state-civilization» model is impossible without the formation of civilizationally oriented political elites. The activation of the mobilization capabilities of Russian society based on civilizational identity and sovereignty is regarded as a necessary condition for overcoming contemporary and potentially emerging risks and threats.

The article analyzes the problems of political risks and transparency of state power, paying special attention to domestic and foreign research in this area. The author points out the insufficient systematization and understanding of political risks in Russian science. Special attention is paid to the concept of transparency as a key principle of the functioning of modern government. The article examines examples of legal regulation of transparency in countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The author emphasizes the importance of creating a balanced system where transparency must be combined with the need to protect national security. In addition, the article discusses the problem of "double standards" in international politics, considered as an instrument of information warfare and a means of manipulating public consciousness.

The article examines the processes of development and affirmation of the civilizational identity of Russia and the West from the standpoint of modern Russian political documents (the Message of the President of the Russian Federation, the Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation), which determine modern conflict situations and processes at the global level in a number of aspects. It is shown that the development of global civilizational identity acts as a new format of social globalization - decentralized globalization. In relation to the Russian civilizational identity, the doctrinal origins of its soil-based model are shown, laid down in the works of N. Y. Danilevsky and the Western paradigm opposing it, which underlies the concepts of modernization and convergence of Russia according to the Western model.

In article the author's view of political safety of modern Russia from positions of the dominating elite and public opinion which in the conditions of updating of external threat to the Russian state got a line out is represented, promoting, thereby, a reconstruction of traditional bases of development of political system and political values of society. In this article strategy of ensuring political safety of Russia in a format of an articulation of threats of external character and reproduction of traditional political culture of Russians is analyzed in the context of a problem of a political infantilization of the Russian population as reflections of his political immaturity and crash of the democratic project.

Article opens a problem of destruction of national identity and growth of threats of military and information security through a prism of evolution of war, its forms and methods which become more and more cruel and sophisticated in process of development of humanity. The strangest wars came during an era of registration of the nations, the national states and, respectively, updating of a problem of national identity. Today wars are waged on "fronts" of national identity which destruction, in fact, and is the war purpose. It can have local or global character, but it is obligatory with use of media means. Thus, in article the key idea is carried out: wars are determined by a spiritual and moral condition of society, and nature of their evolution allows speaking about a spiritual devolution of modern society.

The Article illustrates that in the conditions of globalization as an alternative to unipolar world ideology based on the state institutionalization as the basic and inter-state relations as the backbone, the ideology and the concept of a multipolar interaction of modern local civilizations is formed. And that causes the increasing demand of civilized approach to contemporary politics, particularly in the developing world. A civilizational approach to Russian politics brings political science discourse in the framework of a wider discourse, rather than a system-state one. A review of the evolution of the civilized approach is given. A comparison matrix of basic concepts of Western policy in the centrist and civilizational projection is offered.

This article considers the main vectors of transformation of the Russian nation-state identity through the prism of content changes and threats to the national security of Russia. The authors analyze the state of patriotic orientations of modern Russian citizens, their attitude towards the state, defining the nature of the nation-state identity. And, depending on this, minimizing or maximizing the degree of internal threats to national security.

The article analyzes three waves of annexation and secession conflicts in XX century which changed dramatically the structure of the global geopolitical space and the political map of the world. The author dwells on the premises forming the fourth wave since 2010s. The thesis about the extent of man-made actions in the observed waves of conflicts is being discussed. As a result the authors come to a conclusion about the growth of the level of man-made actions moving from the level of geopolitical art to the level of geopolitical engineering.

On the basis of the analysis of different approaches to the formation of political philosophy the article presents the author's observation from the view point of philosophical innovatics as a sphere of applied philosophical knowledge and philosophical development. The article orients postgraduates, holders of master's degree and students, studying the problems of political philosophy, to the modern instrumental approach in the representation and solvation of its problems.

The article deals with the perfected model of philosophical innovatics which was earlier proposed by the author. A new version was called systemic and comparative. It involves concepts (and referred fragments of philosophical activity): “models of fundamental philosophy operanalization”, “versions of philosophical experience”, “convergent and cross-cultural philosophy”. According to the proposed model we provide new trends of researches aimed at philosophical cognitology and cognitive philosophical innovatics, and the steps to modernize professional and propeadeutical philosophical education.

The article discusses factors contributing the formation of a new multidisciplinary scientific approach cognitive science and its applied fields as cognitive analytics in basic types of modern activity (political, economic, social and cultural, scientific). Author analyses the characteristics and examples of cognitive analytics use in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge and management.

The author of the article has worked out the research area of applicative philosophy and philosophical innovatics. In these terms the article touches upon conceptual, projective, administrative approaches to reforming the local government. From this standpoint the author underlines that while financial, economic and legal aspects of local administration are more common for its organizational structure and theory, it is necessary to escape underestimating the great importance of self-organization and the sphere of moral values and motivation.

The author deals with the analysis of peculiarities and complexities of historical cognition, reconstruction and presentation of historical processes and events, which were revealed by various directions of philosophy of history. The author stresses the significance of the famous historian M. Ferro concerning the phenomenon of "historical memory" and "images of the past" common in mass conscience. With the help of "M. Ferros method" the considerable impact of solid entity of such valuable factors as ethnocentrism, ideocentrism, leadercentrism and eventcentrism on the historical image of the country and nation was stated. A peculiar "antidote" against such historical aberations is the method of polycentric approach of historical introduction of images, based on informing the mass subject about the existence of parallel and alternative images of the same processes and events.

In the article the problem of systemic interrelations of the main factors of elitological research, providing their final relevance: doctrinal, assessment-expert, objective-characterologic.

The article deals with the conditions and factors of formation and functioning of the elites in post-Soviet evolution of the Russian society. Data from long-term sociological surveys carried out by the scientists of North-Caucasus Academy of Public Administration (URIF RANHiGS) in the Rostov Scientific elitological school are widely used.