Rapid economic development of the PRC led to its transformation into the world's largest consumer of energy resources. Moreover, for Russia China has become a priority partner in the energy sector. Meanwhile, Chinese approaches to energy policy are changing under the influence of both the internal shifts within the country and global trends in rethinking of environmental effects of energy production. This article aims to evaluate the current state of the Chinese energy industry and policies of Beijing for its further reformation. The authors rely not only on official documents and data, but also on forecasts of leading Chinese think tanks, which contribute to state planning. Analysis shows that national energy policy started to take shape after 2007 with the publication of the first White Paper on this issue. However, despite consistent efforts of the Chinese leadership to ensure long-term planning in national energy sector, there is considerable uncertainty about its future. On the one hand, gas industry is placated as a priority of the PRC strategy. On the other hand, the lack of its own reserves of traditional natural gas as well as difficulties in development of shale formations and other alternative sources of gas, which the country possesses, encourage some Chinese experts to push for a greater reliance on the renewable energy. This approach is justified due to the Chinese leadership role in production of relevant equipment. The most important challenge for China (given its environmental obligations) is the continued dominance of coal. Beijing pursues consistent policy to reduce it and to introduce modern technologies in the coal industry, but the problem remains large-scale. Finally, energy efficiency and international expansion of Chinese corporations are essential reserves of China’s energy policy. The analysis demonstrates that for the foreseeable future, the PRC market will continue to form a demand for Russian energy resources, which creates grounds for furthering cooperation.

The article deals with German development aid in the context of German foreign policy. The author pays attention to two aspects: the relation between development aid and security and relation between development aid and economic agenda. Germany is one of the main donors in the world. In 1990th and 2010th the architecture of German development aid has been reformed. The number of the involved institutions thanks to merges has been reduced; in the end of the first decade of the XXI century the responsibilities of Foreign policy ministry and the Ministry of economic cooperation and development have been redefined. The policy became focused on fewer countries. At the same time despite the expert recommendations to reallocate resources to multilateral institutions (like UN, World bank), Germany prefers bilateral aid. The analysis shows that the German development aid falls into line with security policy. German development aid is an art of compensation for the German troops not taking part in USA operations. At the same time Germany allocates development aid in the regions where the German troops are. On hand on the analysis of economic motives of German development aid it is not possible to make definite conclusions. Germany is one of the leading export nations, but because of the high-quality goods and not because of German development aid. At the same time German development aid is focused on those economic sectors, which are promoted by the German government: climate protection and energy. German politicians point at economic aspects of development aid and its role for German economy. Even though Germany is actively supporting aid for trade, there is no serious outcome: the import  of  the developing countries to Germany is not growing.

Over the last decade we have been able to observe that most of Russian political scientists, specializing in international relations, have become numerically inclined. They have focused on the quantitative research methods, the phenomenon which now seems to have turned into the cult of statistics. If any research work  – an article or monograph– fails to provide quantitative data, it is automatically stigmatized as political opinion-based journalism. The supporters of quantitative methods in the sphere of international relations usually put forward three reasons: 1) any research work requires complying with standards and accuracy; 2) only numerical data can be verified; 3) allegedly, only figures can provide “discipline” in research being the solid and objective evidence for your observations. However, what they do not realize is that such dominance of statistics in the humanitarian research creates a risky illusion of being “quasi- accurate”. Scientists often provide numerical data for the unprovable and even faulty assumptions.

The bulk of the examples from history are in unconformity to quantitative models of the international relations, as from a numerical viewpoint it is the territory and the size of the population of the country which is most important. According to this logic, it was the defeated (in real history) who had to win and not the opposite way around. Apparently, the material resources, which can be numerically assessed, are less important than non-material resources: the spirit and mentality of the nation, its cultural strategy as well as the quality and the mindset of the political elites. It is impossible to assess these factors statistically, but it was these very factors that led those states to victories over the others.

Thus, the emphasis on quantitative research methods in political science is not that harmless, as it might seem at first sight. Its main effect is not “scientific accuracy”, as alleged by its proponents, but rather in promoting mechanistic superiority of the potentials. The latter can be easily disguised by hidden material or non-material factors, which seem to be difficult or even impossible to consider when using quantitative approach. The result of this clash is often not in favor of the numerically inclined scientists. Ideally, by employing the quantitative models we could avoid discussions involving moral and ethical issues, but in reality such an approach is even more likely to throw light on these problems (which are initially subjective matters) in international relations.

The notion of power is fundamental to the international relations theory serving as a tool for  both assessment of the contemporary IR and making forecasts about a new world order. Studies of power give an impression of a dynamic subdiscipline, rich with substantive discussions, new concepts and approaches. However, this image can be deceptive, hiding serious theoretical issues and  gaps  which severely limit the opportunities for applied analysis of power relations in the international arena. This paper focuses on the so-called faces (or dimensions) of power debate – one of the key theoretical debates within the Western studies of power, which to a considerable extent has predetermined the present state of the subdiscipline. On the basis of a thorough critical analysis of works by R. Dahl, P. Bachrach, M.S. Baratz, S. Lukes and several other scholars the paper provides an original assessment of the main points and directions of the faces of power debate, as well as its implications for theoretical studies of power in international relations. It is shown that contrary to common perceptions this debate should not be viewed as a manifestation of a steady and continuous development of scholarly approaches to understanding the essence  of  power  in international  relations  from  overly  simplified  and  reductionist  towards  more sophisticated and methodologically consistent. The author argues that the debate on the faces of power has shifted the focus of power studies away from fundamental theoretical issues towards albeit important but only peripheral questions and consolidated several trends, detrimental to the epistemology of power. The general decrease in scholarly knowledge of power agenda constitutes the first and most fundamental trend. The second trend is a continuous and methodologically untenable process  of  broadening the research field of power to include new forms and types of social interactions. Finally, the third trend is linked to the introduction of normative components in the process of conceptual analysis of the notion of ‘power’, increasing attempts to provide definition of a normatively desirable power. The second section of the paper examines the concept of J.S. Nye as an illustrative example of these trends. The author concludes that a possible way to break this impasse involves resurgence of unduly forgotten ideas of R. Dahl enhanced by a more elaborated methodology for study social and economic determinants of power relations in the international arena.

The article is devoted to the problem of searching reasons of radical mass forms of social protest., to which collective actions from the mass protests interfaced to collisions with security forces to the protest leading to overthrow of the power and civil wars belong. This type of protest distinguishes, from the point of view of the author, other qualitative psychological state of protest because protesters are ready to take the huge risk for life and health, losses of freedom and property defending the requirements). The author considers that manifestation of such protest in most economically and politically developed countries of the world (2010–11 in England, 2014 and 2017 in the USA, May, 2017 in France, July, 2017 in Hamburg), along with other arguments, shows insolvency of many put-forward complexes of the causes of radical mass forms of social protest, in particular, of the principles of "Malthusian trap", "J-curve" and "structural and demographic concept" of J. Goldstone, which are popular in the last decades. From the author’s point of view a problem lie in the field of relationships of cause and effect in application of the specified approaches to radical mass forms of social protest and also from the point of view of universality of connection “reason–phenomenon”. One of key is transfer of perception of these principles from area "economic" to the sphere of social psychology and complexes of the psychological reasons of radical mass forms of social protest. The author comes to conclusions that "Malthusian trap", "J-curve" and the structural and demographic theory of J. Goldstone can't be considered as the causes of radical mass forms of social protest and can act only as contributing factors and conditions which can create nutrient medium for emergence dissatisfied but not carry out high-quality transition between a condition of protest fnd its radical and mass forms.

The article about small peoples and nation's tendency to self-determination offers the experience of Catalonia as an example. In Catalonia, there was an aspiration for isolating their location from Madrid for a long time. This struggle went through catalanisme movement formed in a second half of 19th century, the proclamation of Second Spanish Republic, the Civil war and francisme period. In the beginning of 21st century the struggle for state self-determination have just become bigger and now there are two opinions on future of the region: a huge autonomy as a part of Spain and full independence from Madrid. The majority of Catalonian political elite supports the second thought and initiates number of referendums about self-determination of the region willing to legitimize its intentions. Since 2014 referendum was banned by Spanish Parliament and Constitutional Court of Spain the Generalitat de Catalunya made the macro-opinion poll which did not have any validity. The new President of Generalitat Carles Puigdemont related the necessity to make a referendum and future of democracy and most significant European values generally, not only future of Catalonia, making a report in headquarters of European Parliament in Brussels. On June 8, 2017, Puigdemont officially proclaimed his determination to make a referendum on October 1. Since that moment this subject has become the main one not only in Catalonian political system but in Spanish. As a respond to this the Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy officially warned Puigdemont of responsibility for possible crisis and named him a "political blackmailer". Even though separatist movements in whole Spain are not as strong as in Catalonia now, the small nation's tendency to self-determination gradually becomes a global European trend. The success of referendum about so called Brexit (dates June 23rd, 2016) has highly contributed to it.

21st century has seen the USA, NATO and international coalitions participating in politico-military asymmetric conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Military campaign in Afghanistan has already become the longest in the US history. Before leaving the office, the former US president Barack Obama had declared the success of the mission. At the same time, the decrease in a number of foreign troops in Afghanistan is said to have led to the instability in this country. Effectiveness and efficiency of the decisions taken by the previous White House administration are again a subject of the fierce debates amidst the new strategic plan for Afghanistan announced by the new USA president Mr. Trump. The White House has decided to focus on a result, not a timeframe. The mission will be aimed at “killing terrorists”, not at peacekeeping in or development of Afghanistan. The authors of the article try to escape linear paradigm and descriptive method, estimating the efficiency of the military component of the US and ISAF strategy in Afghanistan during Mr. Obama’s presidency (2009–2016) with the use of the game- theory model developed earlier by other scholars. This model describes the relations between terrorist and counterterrorist actions. The model turns out to be inapplicable to the asymmetric conflict, according to the results of the regression analysis of the panel data and time-series, characterizing the politico-military situation in Afghanistan in 2009–2016, and collected by authors through quantitative event-analysis. Surprisingly the function of the terrorist actions in Afghanistan is positively related with the functions of counterterrorist actions, whereas, the functions of counterterrorist actions does not depend on terrorist attacks. As a result, the authors of the article suggest a new game-theory model for the forecasting of the politico-military situation in Afghanistan after 2016 within non-linear paradigm framework.

This article examines the American policy in the field of cybersecurity since the 1990s to the present. The article is based on the constructivist theory of international relations and takes as a basis the discourse analysis of cyber threats reflected in U.S. official documents and strategies. The construction and articulation of cyber threats are, in this case, the founding factors for the further formulation of cybersecurity policy. Changes in the discourse of cyber threats allow us to analyze the evolution of the American approach to cybersecurity, notably the weights in the documents followed the changes of the presidential administrations, but the main focus on the infrastructure and network security remained stable. However, with the development and dissemination of technologies cyberthreats had received social and then political dimension. In the mid-2000s appeared the international dimension of cybersecurity policy; it became clear that cyberspace is global, and for the safe and cost-effective use of the Internet it is necessary to build an international cybersecurity system. The discourse of cyber threats in American documents has undergone some changes. Their typology was expanded and detailed, the variety of potentially dangerous actors has increased, and possible rivals have become openly called at the interstate level. The article consists of three sections. The first analyzes the U.S. approaches to cybersecurity in the late 1990s-early 2000s, when the protection of internal computer systems and the unilateral nature of the policy in cyberspace dominated the views of the American political establishment. The next section is devoted to the period of the B. Obama administration, when international cooperation was put on the agenda, and cybersecurity policy started being implemented on the principles of multistakeholderism – the participation of all stakeholders, including business, to create a secure cyberspace. The last two sections consider the paradigm shift in the American vision of cybersecurity towards information security, an approach actively advocated at the international level by Russia, that took place after the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. The scandal with the use of personal data of American users of Facebook for targeting election advertising and propaganda can become a trigger for consolidating the information focus of cybersecurity in the updated American policy.

This article examines the American policy in the field of cybersecurity since the 1990s to the present. The article is based on the constructivist theory of international relations and takes as a basis the discourse analysis of cyber threats reflected in U.S. official documents and strategies. The construction and articulation of cyber threats are, in this case, the founding factors for the further formulation of cybersecurity policy. Changes in the discourse of cyber threats allow us to analyze the evolution of the American approach to cybersecurity, notably the weights in the documents followed the changes of the presidential administrations, but the main focus on the infrastructure and network security remained stable. However, with the development and dissemination of technologies cyberthreats had received social and then political dimension. In the mid-2000s appeared the international dimension of cybersecurity policy; it became clear that cyberspace is global, and for the safe and cost-effective use of the Internet it is necessary to build an international cybersecurity system. The discourse of cyber threats in American documents has undergone some changes. Their typology was expanded and detailed, the variety of potentially dangerous actors has increased, and possible rivals have become openly called at the interstate level. The article consists of three sections. The first analyzes the U.S. approaches to cybersecurity in the late 1990s-early 2000s, when the protection of internal computer systems and the unilateral nature of the policy in cyberspace dominated the views of the American political establishment. The next section is devoted to the period of the B. Obama administration, when international cooperation was put on the agenda, and cybersecurity policy started being implemented on the principles of multistakeholderism – the participation of all stakeholders, including business, to create a secure cyberspace. The last two sections consider the paradigm shift in the American vision of cybersecurity towards information security, an approach actively advocated at the international level by Russia, that took place after the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. The scandal with the use of personal data of American users of Facebook for targeting election advertising and propaganda can become a trigger for consolidating the information focus of cybersecurity in the updated American policy.

The article discusses the current state of socially oriented investments of Russian business abroad, in order to assess the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the activities  of companies.  Academic literature encompasses various explanations driving enterprises to assume social responsibility. Such pluralism as well as difficulties in identifying of long-term consequences of social investments makes it hard to assess their effectiveness. Nevertheless, CSR has become the generally accepted  standard  of business behavior, and in some cases, the mandatory requirement of national  regulators.  In  Russian practice, this recognition is often less pronounced than abroad. As a result, Russian enterprises are also less inclined to implement CSR projects than Western companies. A similar trend is also characteristic of foreign businesses operating in Russia. However, when entering foreign markets, Russian corporations adopt international rules of the game. In particular, when they operate in developing countries, they often imitate practices of foreign competitors, investing in social infrastructure in areas of their activities, in formation of local human capital, and in compliance with high environmental standards. Moreover, CSR activities carried out by Russian companies abroad demonstrate sectoral specificity. Real sector enterprises focus on the development of physical infrastructure and human capital, while  representatives  of  the financial sector implement their social responsibility through supporting and lending projects that meet a range of environmental and social international standards. In conclusion, the author draws a number of recommendations to Russian  businesses regarding adoption  of CSR in  operations in foreign  markets. First, in the context of high competition from foreign players, CSR should be integrated in a systematic manner by Russian businesses and implemented as part of a overall business strategy in foreign countries. Second, in order to increase direct commercial benefits for business in the framework of socially-oriented projects, it seems necessary to reconcile social and environmental goals with financial ones. Third, in the context of expanding the scale of a ‘lean’ economy and growing environmental responsibility, investing in CSR projects should remain a priority for companies.

A number of experts noted that nowadays in the European Union we are witnessing the formation of so-called "new architecture of the gas market", which is based on mechanisms for ensuring the transparency of the gas market. This article examines the EU gas market monitoring  as  one  of  the important elements for ensuring the transparency of energy markets. At the same time, the author aims to reveal the instruments’ of the new energy policy formed by the European Union influence on its relations with the Russian Federation as the main supplier of energy resources. Using the methods of analysis and legal interpretation of the text, the answer to the question "How will the European Commission's intention to increase the transparency of the energy market, or rather the gas market, influence relations with the Russian Federation?" is given.

Presented in February 2016 by the European Commission "Sustainable Energy Security Package" as part of the "European Energy Union" framework strategy includes the task of increasing the European energy market transparency. Thus, the effort to increase the transparency can be considered one of the priority directions of the European Commission’s work in the economic sphere. Due to the fact that the topic relates to the markets’ transparency as an important element of European energy security and, accordingly, one of the main points of the current political agenda, REMIT Regulation, REMIT Implementing Regulation and the role of ACER agency is investigated. In addition, the paper explains the specificity of long-term contracts for the supply of natural gas, as well as wholesale energy markets and products that are affected by these regulations. Relevant documents and various expert opinions necessary to the explanation of this issue are considered. Based on the analysis, the author draws a conclusion that gas market monitoring and ensuring greater transparency (long-term contracts, publication of insider information) will not negatively affect the relations between the European Union and Russia in a long- term perspective, as they are interdependent. Also, on the basis of expert opinions, the author concludes that in a short-term perspective, the Russian Federation managed to adapt flexibly to new market conditions (spot instead of long-term contracts), and not to lose its share in the EU gas market. Moreover, in a long-term perspective, Russia can also increase its share in the European market due to the growing demand for gas in the EU, although this depends on the influence of various factors mentioned in the article. On the other hand, the EU managed to realize its intentions of "EEU" to increase market transparency, which could lead to increased energy security of the EU.

Interview with M. Mastanduno.

In the article, we consider the basis of culture-centric methodology. We examine notions of ‘culture’, ‘value’ and ‘practice’ as the key elements of this methodology and follow their interconnections and mutual determination. The prospects of the methodology based on these notions is evaluated from the point of view of its applicability to investigations of national cultures, science as a special type of culture,diplomatic community, which can also be considered in possession of a peculiar group culture. We examine the relations of ‘culture’ and ‘practice’ on the one hand with ‘paradigm’ in the initial Kuhnian sense on the other and attempt to lay ground for application of the latter beyond analysis of scientific research. We also consider application in a wider context of postpositivist methodologies of such authors as philosophers  I.  Lakatos,  P.  Feuerabend,  sociologists  N.  Gilbert  and  M.  Mulkay,  social  psychologist I. Mitroff. The concepts of the three latter authors are seen as a solution to the problem of the inner contradictions of cultures. The core of the Gilbert and Mulkay’s method is the separation of discourse practices in accordance with their sphere of application and in grouping them in different repertoires. And the basis of Mitroff’s method is in psychoanalytic approach to individual ambivalence, which provides ground for recognition of the fact that each norm, adopted by an in individual, is complemented by an opposite norm that allows flexible adaptation to different social situations. Cultures differ not so much in norms themselves as in the forms of expression these norms acquire, which provide for their implementation or in especially expository cases block implementation of an opposite norm. The main thesis of the article is that these approaches, developed in philosophy, sociology and psychology of science can be successfully employed in analysis of cultures of a much wider range of communities than just scientific community. We suggest examination of the diplomatic community as one possible example. Employing the Kuhn’s theory it can be characterized as a community of ‘translators’,  providing  means  of  communication between incompatible world-views, in other words, they possess a new paradigm constructed in order to combine previously existing ‘incommensurable’ ones.

A book review:  Smith, T.W. Human Rights and War through Civilian Eyes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 262 р.