The world politics of the age is characterized by the sharpening of the global challenges and at the same time blockage of many of the multilateral mechanisms, providing international decision making as well as by deterioration of legal framework of the political orders. These conditions are too much extent a product of the transition to the new stage of globalization, which has not received relevant conceptualization in scholarly assessments. However, the departure from previous 70-years period in the evolution of the global system is quite visible (although, the latter was not homogeneous either as it included at least two major sub-periods). Despite the high uncertainty of the current global trends, one of its identifiable characteristics becomes the rise of cultural and civilization dimension in global discrepancies. In the previous period the impact of culture on international politics was masked by the conditions of bipolarity and interstate rivalry. In the 1990s its growing acknowledgement manifested itself in a simplified model of the “Clash of Civilizations”. The evidences in favour of this concept precluded deep thinking regarding the real cultural codes of individual societies. Meanwhile, without such in depth understanding unprepared reaction to the social, economic, humanitarian and political challenges leads to the consequences which are far from expected. For example, without analysis of the civilization and cultural roots of the Russian society it is difficult to assess the place of the Russian state in international system and patterns of its behavior. The study of national features of individual societies, however, could be productive only when  they  are compared with more general regularities. In this regard, the Western analysts often attribute Russia some patterns which are shared by all major powers (including the eagerness to protect its interests by force when it is perceived necessary). The myths about Russia are often supported by  an  unsophisticated approach, built upon the mirror vision of the West. It ignores the motives of national survival in Russian history and politics. Meanwhile, Russian view of the world is also guided by its messianic perspective, which associates Russian contribution to the international order with the concept of justice.

The article discusses the current state and macroeconomic effects of global imbalances – the existence of significant current account deficits or surpluses in the leading countries of the world economy. Global imbalances should be considered as a macroeconomic phenomenon, a reflection of macroeconomic disequilibrium both internal and external. Their persistence in recent years suggests that there are structural problems in national economies and in the international financial system: imbalance between gross domestic disposable income and aggregate internal expenditures, imbalance between gross domestic investments and national savings, large fiscal deficits. Large deficits – and associated large net foreign financial liabilities – expose the country to the risks of a sudden cessation or rising difficulties in financing these liabilities. Large surpluses can be problematic for the country because of growing international reserves, inflation pressures and increasing real exchange rate. The widening of current account imbalances in some of the world’s largest economies was a worrying trend during the last few decades. After world financial crisis flow imbalances have narrowed. But in many countries narrower external imbalances have come at the cost of demand compression due to recession and of increased internal imbalances (decrease in output and high unemployment). Now there is the risk that flow imbalances will increase again. At the same time stock imbalances have widened further. Imbalances within the euro area became more persistent with the adoption of the euro. The leading position of the US dollar in the world monetary system also contributes to global imbalances persistence. There are strong differences in views regarding the causes of global imbalances and their macroeconomic effects. But it is clear that there are strong political and economic imperatives that require consistent macroeconomic policy implementation needed to reduce remaining external imbalances and to prevent new emerging imbalances.

Post­multicultural perspective to study and comprehend modernity involves a number of complex theoretical and practical issues associated with redefining the role of the nation  state,  international migration and cultural diversity in the context of globalization. The genealogy of post­multiculturalism in social and scientific discourse is presented a) in terms of its break with multiculturalism; b) in the logic of continuity of its basic ideas and concepts; c) in the perspective of the coexistence of projects of multiculturalism and post­multiculturalism. At present, the rethinking of the concepts of multiculturalism involves the search for its updated versions, including national ones, corresponding to the realities of the 21st century, as well as its redefinition as a global phenomenon in the context of the emergence of new migration patterns, transnationalization and reconfiguration of diasporas. The transition from multiculturalism to post­multiculturalism creates a framework to discuss old and new migration, diversity and super­diversity, relations between immigrant groups as elements of the structure of the national society and diasporas as social agents of transnational nature. Post­multiculturalism allows to  establish  new relations between national and transnational development lines, on the one hand, and to focus on patterns of representation of immigrant identity as multidimensional, hybrid and fluid, on the other hand. The emerging post­multicultural perspective implies both the recognition of cultural diversity and the preservation of collective national identity. Conceptualization of cultural diversity in terms of  super­ diversity or hyper­diversity in the post­multicultural perspective is associated with a rethinking of concepts of culture and ethnicity in sociology and social anthropology. In this case, ethnicity is not considered as a factor that determines a one­dimensional evaluation of diversity. The fact that culture is becoming global, that is, a special context for the formation of meanings, involves shifting the focus  from  relational dimension of social life to the representation of patterns of identity and culture by immigrants and post­ immigrants in the context of diversifying global mobility and transnationalization. Super­diversity associated with the new immigration (S.Vertovec) and social and cultural space of modern megacities correlates  with  post­multiculturalism.

One the global megatrends in the 21st century is the formation of a contemporary world order. The process has started after 1989 and is going on since. It is relying on efforts of various players including, first of all, leading world powers which are pursuing different often contradicting interests and institutional plans. One of the most acute problems is structural: reaching consensus between great powers especially between the Unites States, China and Russia. Growth of Russia’s and China’s activity, certain degree of cooperation in their efforts to influence world order, their rejection of the liberal project built upon Western values and institutions promoted by the United States cannot be left without answer from Washington. America is not going to retreat or retrench, is not pleased with the coming criticism and with the activities of Russia and China. American political establishment tries to neutralize efforts thwarting its plans and interests. The dilemma is whether America needs to come to any kind of compromise with Russia and China on the issues of international security, trade, global problems; or pursue policy of deterring these countries. There is no full consensus on the issues of world order and American global strategy in the political and expert communities. Most active representatives of decision makers in Washington support continuation of decisive even aggressive policy in the world and towards Russia and China. There are opponents to such strategy, but they do not constitute the majority and hardly have influence. Disagreements on foreign policy issues among policy makers were visible during presidential elections in 2016 though most important were still domestic political issues. Outcome of elections and first years of the Trump administration do not give us clear answers about further development of the political situation, about U.S. foreign policy behavior, and about reaction of the American public. It is very important to monitor political moods and preferences in Washington, to analyze debates on the most acute problems of international relations and world order formation. It is necessary to react to American actions and ideas, to suggest our own comments and vision of the future, to promote our alternative views and conceptions to other international players in order to neutralize negative consequences of American actions. In the article the author continues analyzing debates on the most acute issues of world order formation, American and Russian approaches to them using recent publications and discussions with the leading American specialists on this topic.

In the light of rapid transformation of contemporary world order in the context of long military-political destabilization in the Near and Middle East the increasing attention of expert community is drawn by an empire phenomenon. In 2016 the world has celebrated 100-year anniversary of the well-known British- French Sykes-Picot agreement which in many respects has laid the foundation of a political configuration of the contemporary Middle East shaken today – a circumstance which reports additional relevance to studying the heritage of the European colonial empires in the practical plane. The answer to the question of a role of the colonial knowledge acquired during an era of empires in military-political planning and forecasting in Great Britain and the USA in the second half of XX – the beginning of the XXI centuries (the Anglo-Saxon model is of special interest as is the most integral from the point of view of reception of colonial experience of the European powers during a post-colonial era) allows to make more subject idea of the theory and practice of the international relations after World War II, with transition from an era of global colonial empires by an era of nuclear superpowers, and after “Cold War”, in the conditions of disintegration of bipolar system and the accruing contradictions between supporters of the concept of “global leadership” and the multipolar world that has not only the academic, but also political value.

In this regard the main attention in the article is paid to a role of historical modeling of the asymmetric conflicts as method of military-political forecasting in the second half of XX – the beginning of the 21st centuries in expert maintenance of the USA policy in the countries of “the Third world”. The state and tendencies of development of science about the international relations allow to claim that “lessons of history” of the asymmetric conflicts in expert circles keep the value for the analysis of decision-making process in the countries with high degree of inclusiveness of representatives of the academic world in expert community and relevant social and political discussions. At the same time, so far as concerns the role of colonial heritage of the European empires in development of a relevant  foreign  policy,  it  is necessary to consider influence of disciplinary filters on judgments and conclusions of experts. These methodological restrictions of the analysis of the USA policy in the countries of “the Third world” representatives of expert community also investigate in this article.

The article deals with the causes and specifics of the corruption cases, which took place in some Latin American countries in 2013 – 2016, including very scandalous ones in the highest echelons of power. The author marks a very dangerous tendency towards the cooperation between the corrupt politicians and the powerful gangs of organized criminality in such countries as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and some Central American states, seeing a special danger in the fact, that a further convergence between them may transform those gangs into terrorist groups. The author does not agree with those experts (L. Cockroft,

P. Hakim, etc.), who consider corruption “endemic” for Latin America, and demonstrates that it is an international phenomenon. Nevertheless, he admits a special character of corruption in Latin America: its historic, socio-economic and cultural specifics. Their recognition is essential for successful struggle against corruption. All the history and practice of this struggle, including in the Latin American countries, has proved the inadmissibility and counter-productivity of any conjectural and precipitated approaches to it. The author proves, that a converged character of the modern organized criminality and corruption demands similarly converged methods of patient and consistent struggle with them, based on the use of complex and differentiated methods. A special significance for the poliactive cultures (to which Russia also belongs), will acquire, along with the liquidation of economic disproportions and the sophistication of the methods of governance, creation of an atmosphere of the zero-tolerance towards corruption. An important place in this struggle will belong to the cultural and educational policies, to the bringing up of the new generations in the spirit of radical non-acceptance of the very “culture of corruption”.

While exploring euroscepticism many researchers attempt to standardize the research procedure in order to improve the accuracy of the analysis. This paper presents a method to calculate the Index of attitude to European integration based on the content analysis of party programs and politicians’ declarations. This is a way to quantify the attitude of a party to the EU as a whole (1­13 points) or to specific activities of the organization by different policy domains, as well as the coherence of criticism of the EU from domain to domain. The following parameters should be measured to achieve these goals: a party's attitude to the general idea of European integration, affective and instrumental support of the EU, perception of the EU as an (un­)accountable organization. The given estimation procedure allocates different values for actors with distinct attitude to the EU role (demanding decommunitarization, not supporting the EU without requests for reforms, calling for policy changes with the same amount of powers at the EU level, supporting it without reform requests, calling for further communitarization). Content analyses of the programmes of three British parties (the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the United Kingdom Independence Party) demonstrate that the Index is instrumental and allow to measure the level of Euroscepticism, the coherence of an actor’s position on different EU policies, dynamics of actor’s attitude to the EU and to compare different parties’ ideologies. Estimations made by leading Russian experts in the research of the political parties of Great Britain correspond to the indicators of instrumental support included in the Index, thereby confirming its relevance.

Analysis of foreign policies of middle and great powers has traditionally been considered one of the key problems of International Relations. The period after the end of the Cold War is characterized by the formation of a new political and economic architecture, the emergence of new centers of power, the aspiration of non-Western players to challenge American domination by forming an independent growth pole that excludes hegemonism, asymmetric dependence, sanctions and any other forms of "economic war" as foreign policy tools. The non-linearity and randomness of these processes makes the problem of studying foreign policy strategies as a response to the global challenges of the modern world order relevant to an even greater degree. The current article analyzes the peculiarities of the foreign policy strategies of middle powers towards the great powers (the U.S. and China) using examples of South East Asian nations and Malaysia in particular. It reveals the conceptual features and theoretical  limitations  of  the  main strategic patterns identified by structural and neoclassical realism – balancing, bandwagoning  and hedging. Using the case of Malaysia as a basis, the paper highlights the main factors that influence the elaboration of foreign policy towards the great powers by middle power in terms of ensuring national security and maximizing economic benefits. The article argues that economic pragmatism, a strong institutional framework for bilateral cooperation, and the desire of the Malaysian ruling elite to strengthen its positions lead to Kuala Lumpur's rejection of the balancing policy against Beijing, despite the existence of a territorial dispute with China, the growth of Chinese ambitions and close military-political cooperation between Malaysia and the U.S. Therefore, this article challenges Stephen Walt's neorealist approach, showing that the geographical proximity of a weaker state  with  a  powerhouse  may  rather become a valuable asset than a source of threat. Finally, the article attempts to construct a new typology of foreign policy strategies of middle powers, building upon the tools introduced by Neoclassical Realism.

The article is focused on the concept of “strategic partnership” and its usage in regard to the EU-Japan relations. This term is widely used both in the European and Japanese political practice and was originally introduced to characterize bilateral relations in 2002. On July 18th, 2018 the two sides signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which fixes the usage of this term in the legally binding document. However, the term is vague and still has no commonly accepted definition. Research in Japanese and European foreign policy narrative on the “strategic partnership” issue showed that no definition of this term is needed: each specific “strategic partnership” is unique in nature and is named as such for a specific purpose. Employing this approach allowed to finding out what meaning Japanese and European sides imply when naming their relations “strategic” and for what purpose they have been using it so far. The conclusion the author comes to is that the European Union plays the leading role in using the rhetoric of strategic partnerships and applies it in two dimensions. The first, ideological one, implies, that Brussels is striving to spread the rules and norms it shares through interaction with its strategic partners, who are characterized by considerable economic and political weight. Japan is an important like-minded partner of the EU in this regard. The other, pragmatic dimension involves strategic partnership as an instrument for development of informal trust-based relations, which allows the EU to resolve disputes with its strategic partners more effectively. In case of EU-Japan cooperation the problem of lifting European embargo on arms supply to China was a challenge for EU-Japan strategic partnership, which finally ended up with keeping embargo valid and strategic partnership safe. Tokyo, according to the author’s findings, doesn’t have its own structured view on the usage of the strategic partnership concept and applies this term, among others, to the partners not playing a truly strategic role for Japanese diplomacy. Engaging with Brussels, Tokyo, however, fully accepts the rhetoric it practices.

The article is dedicated to “global governance” – a special subject field of academic studies of international relations. The prerequisite for its genesis was the growing number of problems of a global scale and the need for their solution. The consequence is the diversity of opinions and approaches to its content. This diversity is not absolute and is determined by the conceptual frameworks of political and economic sciences. The article studies the content, premises and consequences of global governance based on Political Science and Economics research tools of global processes: International Relations Theory, International Economics and International Political Economy. In the first sections a comparative analysis of the monodisciplinary and interdisciplinary economic and political paradigms of globalization is carried out. The results obtained are used then to formulate the axiomatics of the institutional aspect of global processes. The subject of the final section is the question of the states foreign policy, its conceptual content, economic prerequisites and political limitations at the present stage of evolution of international relations. The comparison and generalization of the theoretical approaches to the study of global governance carried out in the article state the economic nature of the factors contributing to it and the political nature of its constraints. In political and economic knowledge of International Relations globalization manifests itself as an irreversible process of growth of cross­border economic interdependence leading to the creation of  universal  supranational  political institutions. Political action on the world stage is an integral part of globalization, caused by the need to neutralize its negative economic consequences. The main deterrent here is the institution of sovereignty. The latter actualizes and requires a reconsideration of the foreign policy of states. National governments are no longer a neutral maximizer of public welfare, and cooperation and conflicts between states are not determined solely by national interests. The global processes evaluate through the search and implementation such foreign policy, that on the one hand represents a political compromise at the international level, and on the other is the result of consensus of internal political, economic and other social constraints of global actors.

This paper deals with theoretical approaches to understanding of the contemporary world order. In particular, three approaches are analysed: confrontational fatalist, cooperative mitigationist, and consensual radical, each one with its own logic. The fatalist approach, inherited from the past, is rooted in  the  logic  of  confrontation.  According  to  this  logic,  mutual  distrust  among  states  leads  to  power balancing and inevitable wars, which make the core of the contemporary world order. The mitigator approach derives from the logic of cooperation among states, which resort to international institutions to mitigate the fear of one another. According to this logic, mutual participation in international regimes and organizations helps to reduce uncertainty in interstate relations. The third approach, aimed to the future, involves the logic of consensus. According to this logic, mutual distrust between nation-states can be transcended by eradication of the nation-state as such. Taken non-Western societies for example, the paper demonstrates how political, economic, social, and cultural challenges transform the contemporary system of international relations, eroding the notion of state sovereignty. At the same time, many countries actively resist these processes by diplomatic means, trying to rescue the Westphalian world order. However, the author suggests that diplomacy may suspend but not reverse the natural process of the Modern world order erosion, which gives way to a new, post-Modern one. The new world order will be based on interdependence, that means nation-states loosing their sovereignty in favour of international institutions. The need of the new world order is proved by global challenges like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, poverty, hunger, epidemics, forced and illegal migration, trade in people, child labour, sex industry, gender discrimination, which no state (including the USA and their close allies) is able to resist on its own.

The article offers an analysis of geopolitical and geoeconomic transformations, caused by the process of conjugation of Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) Initiative and the process of integration within the Eurasian Economic Union. When assessing the negation of non-preferential trade and economic agreement between the People's Republic of China and the EEU, the authors conclude that it will significantly strengthen the international subjectivity of the Eurasian Economic Union. At the same time success of the Eurasian regional integration project and its conjugation with SREB initiative to a great extent depends on whether the particular interests of the certain states will prevail in this case or their interests will be coordinated to the objectives of multilateral cooperation of the EEU countries. Such sensitive questions as customs regulation, protection of domestic market and producers, regulation of conditions of access for external players to the transport and energy markets of the EEU countries can be solved in the most effective way with appropriate consolidated approach of participants of the Eurasian integration. New opportunities, which are presented by conjugation of the SREB and the EEU, should be considered as a peculiar examination on efficiency and a political maturity for Post-Soviet elites. New modality of the Eurasian regionalism can become a practical result of conjugation of the SREB and the EEU. The accompanying process of development of the Greater Eurasia concept reflects objective dynamics of the strengthening economic interdependence, but at the same time promotes designing of the macroregion on the basis of the ideas and identities which harmonization will serve the interests of China, Russia, other countries of the EEU and wider range of the Eurasian actors.

A book review:  Миронов В.В. Очерки развития английской школы международных отношений. Омск, 2017. 436 с.

A book review: Haggard S., Noland M. Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements, and the Case of North Korea. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2017. 321 p.

The development and implementation of new regulatory standards to prevent crises and increase bank stability became common in recent years. These standards are aimed to maintain the financial stability of banking sector, but the results of their practical implementation are not so clear. The subject of research is the analysis of the new capital requirements and financial leverage indicator introduction impact to the credit institutions business model. The authors examined innovations in regulatory capital requirements of credit institutions, adopted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel III). The presented review of scholarly literature is devoted to the possible multiplicative effects of the implementation of the Basel standards. Regarding Russia the improvement of the bank capital quality and adequacy stimulating in conditions of economic instability can negatively affect to the credit institutions business activity. The new financial leverage indicator introduced by Basel III, is calculated by banks for reporting purposes in Russia and is disclosed by them from January 1, 2015. The authors of the article expect that the financial leverage standard will have a weak effect on the banking sector in comparison with capital adequacy indicators based on risk. The role of this indicator can be more significant at the macro level. It can be considered as one of the early warning indicators of the credit institutions that are used to take preventive measures by the Regulator. At the same time, the introduction of this indicator can have a strong effect on banking sector business activity. The authors carried out analysis and concluded that exceeding the planned level of financial leveraging, banks formed a high-risk asset portfolio. The quality of this portfolio is not «captured» by the new coefficient. The authors are convinced that the leverage coefficient level should be differentiated for banks with different business models.