Дзахова Лариса Хасановна

Introduction. The article analyzes destructive processes that threaten the national security of the Russian Federation and domestic political stability in the context of the expansion of non-regional players in the South Caucasus. The urgency of the problem is determined by the threats and risks that have arisen that can affect the stability of interethnic relations and the unity of the peoples of Russia. Purpose. Identification and analysis of factors and trends that pose threats and risks to national security and stability, and interethnic harmony in the Russian Federation. Materials and methods. In the study, the authors used documents from government authorities of the Russian Federation and the South Caucasus states; official statements from heads of state; and scientific research related to the regional issues under consideration. The materials of the regional media are considered as sources allowing to reconstruct the course of historical processes in the South Caucasus in the post-bipolar period. The article uses a historical and comparative research method, as well as analysis, synthesis, generalization and comparison. Results and conclusions. The role and influence of non-regional players on the South Caucasian states is regarded as a consistent and long-term anti-Russian strategy to implement the foreign policy vector of the NATO countries, aimed at forming disintegration processes with Russia, provoking ethnic strife and interfaith intolerance. Regional stability, transformed under the influence of a new stage of escalation of military-political conflicts in the South Caucasus, which occurred in the first quarter of the XXI century. – The five-day war in South Ossetia in 2008 and the defrosting of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2016-2023 have become a serious challenge to Russia's national interests. Territorial disputes and ethnopolitical conflicts between the post-Soviet republics of the South Caucasus, which are projected into the Russian North Caucasus through numerous South Caucasian diasporas and migration flows, remain a key factor in destabilization. The foreign policy of the elites of the South Caucasus states, which have revised relations with Moscow, translates relevant ideological attitudes and narratives to diasporas, and influences the interethnic and interfaith unity of the peoples of the Russian Federation. The authors conclude that these issues are relevant and that it is important to study such trends and processes in order to preserve regional stability and strengthen civil and national unity in the Russian Federation. The combination of these risks and threats is considered as a serious challenge to the territorial integrity and interethnic unity of the peoples of Russia. Timely response – Russian President Vladimir Putin declared 2026 the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia, and the state national policy of the Russian Federation has been updated.

Introduction. National security is a complex category, the determinants of which are embedded in the very foundations of human evolution, as well as in nation-state construction and the institutionalization of the political system and socio-political relations. Ensuring national security encompasses the security not only of the state but also of society, including strata and groups differentiated by various identity characteristics. Accordingly, a significant component of the national security of the Russian Federation as a multi-ethnic, multi-component federation is the security of ethnic communities through the satisfaction of ethno-identification needs and the optimization of ethno-political emphases, which is clearly evident in the North Caucasus region.Purpose. Identifying ethno-identification needs (including deficits), as well as ethnopolitical emphases in the design and implementation of national security in the North Caucasus region.Theoretical Basis. A categorical understanding of national security is linked to the assets of philosophical and socio-political knowledge, as well as the interdisciplinary methodology of dialectical scientific analysis. It allows us to identify politically determined, institutionally instrumental factors of national security, including political determination, nation-state building, the tradition of government-citizen relations, and others. Along with the philosophy of national security, the political science of national security has significant potential, considering it as an institution encompassing an ideological and doctrinal basis, programmatic and project-based goal-setting, an organizational and functional structure, and value properties differentiated across political time and space. A multi-paradigmatic approach to ethnicity as an identification complex allows us to identify not only cultural but also political projections of national (ethnic) self-determination, integrated into the modern Russian civil process.Results. An important component of national security in a multiethnic and multicomponent Russian Federation is ethnic security as a guarantee that Russian citizens fulfill their needs in the field of ethnic identity. Disregard for the ethnic interests of citizens and at the same time uncontrolled politicization of ethnicity lead not only to ethnic conflicts, but also to separatism, extremism and terrorism, as well as to the threat of the collapse of the state. In this regard, the problem of ethno-identification needs and ethnopolitical accents, significantly differentiated by the communities of Russian regions, among which the North Caucasus stands out, is being actualized. Optimization of ethnic identification needs and ethnopolitical accents is promising within the framework of the new edition of the «Strategy of State National Policy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2036» (Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated November 25, 2025), which has a continuous and at the same time creative character in emphasizing the value vector of national policy.Conclusions. The tasks of strengthening national security in the North Caucasus Federal District are defined, taking into account the current ethnic identification needs and appropriate ethnopolitical accents. These include: solving social problems, improving the quality of life, standard of living, and restructuring the social service system to optimize interethnic relations in the overall context of overcoming socio-cultural and economic problems of the population; analyzing and monitoring the dynamics of interethnic and interreligious processes, as well as determinants and possible vectors of national-cultural, nationalterritorial, national-state self-determination; ensuring ethno-cultural, ethno-linguistic, ethno-political security as a component of national security, taking into account the remaining internal regional and Russian risks, as well as risks of external geopolitical origin, etc.

Introduction. The problem-subject field of modern political science tends to expand and diversify. The research focuses on the phenomenon and institution of power in its achievement, retention and application. Also, the most important niches of political science are elections and the electoral process, parties and party competition, the political class and the political elite, political rational choice and political culture, and many other objects and subjects inherent in politics and the political process. Purpose. An analysis of modern scientific journalism by scientists of North Ossetia-Alania, devoted to the problems of patriotism in its various aspects and based on the tasks of various areas of scientific knowledge. Theoretical Basis. An institutional approach to patriotism is being implemented based on theoretical generalizations and an empirical bank of reviewed articles. The semantic vectors of the scientific narrative are typologized, such as: a) categorical and semantic parameters, historical and ethnocultural determinations of patriotism; b) the foundations and symbols of patriotism; c) the event and subject series of patriotism. The secondary nature of the analysis is compensated by original generalizations addressed to politically-oriented plots, images and theses, which are revealed in the articles reviewed and which meet the demands of modern political knowledge. Regional scientific journalism of the patriotic semantic vector is a significant narrative that contributes to the replenishment of political knowledge regarding the rational and emotional properties of patriotism as a civil, socio-political institution. Results. The content analysis of scientific journalism texts captures a number of specific patriotic accents, which: firstly, are embedded in the regional historical, cultural, socio-political, political and managerial context; secondly, they are linked to the all-Russian information and communication patriotic discourse; thirdly, they are correlated with the defining value properties of Russian society - collectivism loyalty to the Motherland, willingness to defend its interests. The patriotism of the North Ossetian society, as follows from the analysis, is based on the ethno-cultural code of the Ossetian people, which is logically projected into Russian civic patriotism. Despite the common Russian civic accents of patriotic discourse, the scientific journalism of North Ossetian scientists is strongly linked to the history, mythology, and culture of the Ossetian people. At the same time, the research postulates the international content of patriotism, the subjects of which are historical characters, war heroes, as well as real residents of the republic, known for their heroic deeds, belonging to different nations. Conclusions. The patriotic accents of the modern scientific and journalistic discourse of the Russian Geographical Society are largely determined by modern internal and external factors. The priorities and deficits of modernity actualize the political science analysis of patriotism of modern regional scientific journalism of the Russian Geographical Society, which reliably and promptly responds to trends, patterns and challenges of the Russian political and global geopolitical space.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the content and purpose of political management as a special type of management that has ample opportunities for organizing and optimizing relations in society and relations between society and the state. The resources of political management are revealed in conditions of geopolitical risks that negatively impact the Russian state and Russian society and which are neutralized by technologies of political management. Social goals and the spiritual aspect of political governance in the modern Russian Federation, which are based on traditional Russian spiritual values, are highlighted. The thesis is made about the need for sociality, spirituality, morality of politics, without which it is impossible to maintain the stability of the political system.

The article is devoted to understanding such important processes of partogenesis as party competition and party hierarchy, based on the theoretical and methodological ideas of M. Duverger and R. Dahl. The phenomenological and institutional resources of competition and hierarchy are considered, both in terms of general objective circumstances and in terms of environmental factors. The alignment of the hierarchy of modern parliamentary parties of the Russian Federation is traced. A political analysis of three party-competitive cases, which are carried out in modern party competition and party hierarchy, is carried out. «Party patriotism» is nominated as an ideological and program complex of the unity of political parties in support of the state and power. The problematic aspects of party competition and party hierarchy and factors of their possible transformation are revealed.

Тhe article contains a political analysis of the implementation of the main principles of the state youth policy of the Russian Federation at the regional level of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation of the North Caucasian Federal District, in particular, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (RNO-A). The characteristic properties of youth are singled out as a special social group that requires the appropriate political and managerial attention of the state. The program-targeted efforts of the regional profile executive body of the North Ossetia-A to implement the doctrinal principles of the Russian federal youth policy are traced. As an independent case, the content and organizational initiatives of the head of the RNO-A S.I. Menyailo on the formation of a significant information, communication and value space for interaction between the authorities and youth. Documentary empirical material is involved, meaningful on the basis of content analysis and participant observation.

The article explores the main directions and forms of state-confessional relations in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, developing, on the one hand, in line with all-Russian trends, and, on the other, having regional specifics. The authors show that a high degree of threats and risks, a complex ethno-confessional composition of the region determine the features of state-confessional interaction and determine the choice of specific tools and mechanisms. The analysis of the regional experience of state-confessional relations allows us to identify the most popular and effective models of state religious practices and to identify prospects for their development.

The article is devoted to the problem of the knowledge resource of the formation of the Russian political elite at the regional level of the North Caucasus Federal District. The educational level of the politicians of the subjects of the Russian Federation of the North Caucasus Federal District operating in the system of interethnic relations and ethnopolitical processes of the regions is emphasized. Defined problem-thematic field of education of politicians, as well as educational areas of advanced training and retraining of politicians and managers working in the field of inter-ethnic relations.

The article analyses different concepts of civil society prevailing in Western scientific thought. The authors noted that a variety of approaches have formed sustainable understanding of concepts such as civil society and the State, identified various facets of relations between political and non-political institutions. Moreover, these relations have demonstrated the basic stages of formation of the liberal-democratic political system in Western European countries.

The article explores the cultural and historical prerequisites for the marginalization of politico-elite groups in modern Russia, chronologically related to the twentieth century, during which our country experienced two major waves of marginalization that affected the political elite. The authors note that in the process of modern Russian elitogenesis there is a reproduction of specific features characteristic of the previous historical period, including clientelism and clanism in particular.

The article problematizes the modern concept of "relay race of generations" in elitologicheskom dimension, considering the current situation as a determinant of intergenerational divide political elites change.

The article investigates the ideology as a phenomenon and institution of public life, its role and importance in the life of modern society. Defining the functional characteristics of the ideology, the authors position about this phenomenon as a determinant of social practices. In the understanding of the authors of ideology appears in the form of, first, a system of ideas, opinions and beliefs of different social groups, and secondly, the socio-political orientation of social development, thirdly, the process of forming values. There in lies the essence of the social ideology, defining its role in modern society.

Awareness of identity as a phenomenon and as an institution is very important for a modern person. It is in the difficult position of permanent choice. Problem of Russian identity and the formation of a sense of patriotism was a defining trend in this study.

The author investigates the mechanisms of youth involvement in the political process. That youth, according to the authors, is a personnel database and it will determine the political future of the country, so the study of the political potential of youth is relevant and timely.

This article analyzes the attitudes and expectations of today's youth in the context of social, ethnic, religious factors, the values of its social and political activity in the conditions of crisis experienced today national and cultural identity. The study of the crisis of national identity seems crucial in order to preserve national identity as a determinant of social and cultural dynamics of contemporary society. The authors examine these issues as they relate to one of the subjects of the Russian Federation North Ossetia.

The article considers the ethnic, national and state identity as the interwoven forms of social being of the individual. The authors believe that «ethnos» and «nation» has a real ontological content, and their position in ociety is largely determined by the state, possessing the real, not imaginary sovereignty.

Article is devoted to a problem of development of political regionalistics. Special attention is paid to studies of regional political and administrative complex.