Since Ancient Greece, different civilizations and cultures have emphasized different meanings and dimensions of freedom. For the Western civilization, which includes the United States of America and Western Europe, freedom has included civil liberties and democracy as concepts developed in the European and American socio-political thought. The West actively promotes this understanding of freedom on which it seeks to build the global order of the XXIst century. However, over the last three decades a number of contradictions in the Western conception of freedom have become manifest. Representative democracy has also become susceptible to the risks of "creeping totalitarianism" due to the spread of mass conscience manipulation techniques and data processing capabilities.
          Factors favoring the totalitarian drift can include bureaucratization of political systems, the view of democracy as a bargain between various social groups and a "messianic" approach to promoting democracy in the international community. Responses to pro-active democratization can include outright rejection of democracy and freedom and toughening of rule in different countries and even on the regional scale. In today’s state and international governance systems it could be most productive to adopt a somewhat limited interpretation of freedom – as the right of social actors to overcome anything that is perceived as non-freedom, whatever its origin might be.
          Since any global order is aimed at maintaining the "connectedness" of the international system components, it will require more power-wielding than a simple international regulation understood as control over a limited number of critical variables. A successful global order might be less democratic and free and more centralized and rigid, that is, more authoritarian than currently expected in the West.

Liberal Economy and Economic Non-Freedom

         Absolute freedom as an economic category makes no sense. It can be argued, however, that, amongst all economic systems, it is in a liberal economy where actors enjoy greatest freedom. This freedom is commonly defined as their unrestricted ability to choose how to allocate limited resources in pursuit of their needs.
          Economic reforms implemented by Russian government over the last 15 years have for the most part been aimed at liberalizing national economy. Yet they fell short of providing a genuine freedom to economic actors. Over the first half of 1990s, the Russian economic authorities were reluctant to stop subsidizing particular industries. The amount funneled to inefficient enterprises in the form of government subsidies roughly equaled the funds borrowed by Russia from international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund. Only a very limited number of economic actors (mostly private individuals – top managers of subsidized enterprises) appropriated the freedom of benefiting from the government-provided money. At the same time, the Russian economy still badly needs firm protection of property rights and a reform of natural monopolies.
          Once a country achieves a desired level of economic freedom, well-functioning democratic institutions and a civil society will become instrumental to preserving these achievements. One of the major factors fostering civil society and democratic practices in Russia is economic growth. This growth, in its turn, will strongly depend on the consistency and resolve of the Russian government in pursuing economic liberalization.

Governance and Dirigibility in World Politics

         The traditional "three-worlds" structure of the international community have undergone significant transformation since the end of the Cold War. While the First World remained almost entirely in place, the new Second World includes transition countries of the former Soviet bloc along with the most successful emerging East Asian economies. The Third World includes now only the least developed, and sometimes even "failing", states of the global South.
          The First World countries are distinct for their self-organizing capabilities and the ability to resolve conflicts among themselves peacefully. They are also successfully addressing most of the socio-economic problems haunting the contemporary Second and Third Worlds. The future of the world politics largely depends on whether the First World will become the primary "manager" of the international system in the XXIst century.
          Transition countries of the Second World seek to model themselves upon the West and compete for its political support and economic assistance. These countries can pose a military challenge to the First World if they are equipped with modern weapons systems that could be supplied by Russia which now also belongs to the Second World.
          The lower tier of international actors, i.e. countries today’s Third World, are "unimportant" to the rest of international community except for two reasons. First, they are the major source of human resources recruited by terrorist groups and networks and, second, they stimulate the "pangs of conscience" in the rich countries, thereby serving as a factor of the First World’s moral progress.
          The United States is regarded in all of these worlds as the only potential "international regulator". However, at the beginning of the XXI century, the failure of the Bush administration to combine adequately two main levers at its disposal – the U.S. military power and economic assistance – has been rather provoking than soothing the main contradictions within the Third World that need to be urgently addressed.

Contemporary Studies of Nuclear Stability

Non-West in the Discourse of Comparative Politics

         Comparative methods are becoming increasingly popular in contemporary political science. They serve as useful tools to explore the peculiarities of non-western societies and their political organization. These methods can be applied not only in quantitative studies but also in qualitative country- or region-specific research. The latter allows political scientists to move beyond juxtaposing Western and all non-Western societies and look for distinctions among the variety of non-Western types of political organization.
          On the whole, there are two approaches to explaining divergences between Western and Oriental political cultures. The first proceeds from the assumption that the latter are identical to the pre-modern Western modes of political organization. The second approach stresses the lack of individual rights protection vis-И-vis the state in Oriental societies and the distinction between the right of imposing a land tax and the right to use this land for the purposes of agricultural production.
          Western political culture is based on the instrumental, demystified vision of the nature, the principles of uncertainty in political competition and openness to the outside world. Oriental political cultures are characterized by the principle of abstention from voluntary activity, the irrational respect toward the state which not only governs, but also encapsulates moral and religious authority, and the vision of freedom as a collective, but not individual good.

Methodology of International Negotiation Analysis

         The last quarter of the XXth century has become a genuine "era of negotiation". Negotiating at both the summit (heads of state) and the expert levels has become widespread. Experts are now often playing decisive roles in negotiations while senior officials only "rubberstamp" their agreements.
          Studies of international negotiation break down into three major approaches: psychological, technological and methodological. While the first explores personal and national negotiating styles, the second seeks to build formal models which are to help find optimal solutions. These approaches, however, address only parts of the whole picture of contemporary international negotiations. Only the methodological approach aims at conceptualizing the current negotiating trends, strategies and tactical techniques.
          It is useful methodologically to distinguish between "constructive" and "instrumental" negotiating strategies. A constructive negotiator seeks to achieve a certain goal while an instrumental approach means conducting negotiations for their own sake or as a means to win time. At the tactical level, negotiators seek to influence each other by persuasion, promising or coercion.
          Negotiations can yield two types of results: settlement or resolution. The former falls short of resolving the problem, but negotiators reach a constructive mode of interaction; the latter implies an agreement addressing the substance of the problem to the (partial) satisfaction of the negotiating parties.

Non-Freedom: A Historical and Philosophical Deconstruction

         The meaning of non-freedom is rooted deeply in the historical experience of a nation and the philosophical concepts underlying this nation’s culture. However, the current demand for justifications of non-freedom has uniformly affected both Western and non-Western (such as Russian) societies. This places understanding of both historical and philosophical foundations of the notion of non-freedom on the immediate research agenda of social scientists.
          The meaning of freedom has evolved in the course of the world history. In ancient societies, freedom was associated with belonging to a (powerful) group whose members used to refer to each other as "friends". A non-free individual was consequently "alien" to the major societal groups (e.g., a slave).
          In the Christian world, the group defining its members as "free" came to encompass all those who believed in Jesus Christ. At the same time, the Renaissance brought about a feeling of the existential non-freedom of the man who is unable to choose the time and place to be born.
          The West and East Christianity significantly diverge in the understanding of freedom and non-freedom. In the West, religion has been traditionally balancing secular authorities and played an important role in promoting the ideas of civil rights and liberty, whereas in the East, the clergy helped ruling elites to promote the notion of their "sacred authority" which, among other things, keeps affecting the public consciousness in today’s Russia.

How to Study Russia’s «New Borderline Areas»?

Conflict Management by the French Intelligence

Temptations of «Oil Armaments»

Transnational Capital in the New Industrial States

CONTINUING THE DISCUSSION

The Notion of «World Politics» in the Context of Social Science

PERSONA GRATA

Images and Personalities

Fiona Hill
«ѕwas going to join the British foreign service, but found myself in an American think-tankѕ»

Russia’s Community of International Relations Scholars

«A network many seek to joinѕ»

«Sisters—Competitors»

Ukraine: Quo Vadis?

SCRIPTA MANENT

Reviews

The MGIMO School Erupts
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Дегоев В.В. Внешняя политика России и международные системы: 1700 – 1918 гг. М.: РОССПЭН, 2004. 496 с..
Наринский М.М. История международных отношений. 1945 – 1975. М.: РОССПЭН, 2004. 264 с.
Современные международные отношения и мировая политика / Под ред. А.В. Торкунова. М.: Просвещение – МГИМО, 2004. 991 с.

Between Chaos and Self-Organization
Шишков Ю.В. Решающие полвека в истории человечества. М.: Новый век, 2004. 289 с.

The Atlantic Union from the European Side
Уилл Хаттон. Мир, в котором мы живем / Пер. с англ. Под ред. В.Л. Иноземцева. М.: Ладомир, 2004. 556 с.

Chinese Studies in the United States
Richard C. Bush. At Cross Purposes. U.S. – Taiwan Relations Since 1942. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. 286 p.
Chinese Military Power. Report of an Independent Task Force / Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Harold Brown, Chair, Joseph W. Prueher, Vice-Chair, Adam Segal, Project Director. New York: Council on Foreign Relations. 2003. 93 p.

American Theories of Regional Stability
International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific / G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (eds.). New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 450 p.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Human Rights Are More Important than Sovereignty

Do Not Blame the Chronocentrism!

A POTENTIA AD ACTUM

New Doctorships

Contents and Summaries

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