The article deals with internationalization of Russian Universities – one of the top priorities of Russian higher education to date. Higher education by its nature is deeply reliant on integration of individual institutions into the global academic universe, as it aspires to enlighten students to the frontier of human knowledge. However, in the 2010s Russian Universities adopted a rather narrow understanding of internationalization, based on formal requirements advanced by international agencies evaluating quality of higher education. Their instruments neglect various specific functions, which internationalization could play in the development of individual institutions of higher education as well as the role of industry as a whole in advancing national capacities of particular countries. As a result, many Universities find themselves in a pointless hunt for higher positions in various international rankings. Thus, internationalization becomes an end in itself. In this respect, the author considers the experience of one of the leading Russian Universities, MGIMO, and outlines two major challenges of internationalization for Russian higher education, including its effects on quality of teaching and financial sustainability of Universities. A genuine and useful internationalization involves joint academic programs, in research rather than in education per se, which can become the elements of global scholarly infrastructure. Practical steps in this direction should include liberalization of the law and the tax policy towards foreign students, professors and scholars. A successful internationalization of Russian higher education is only possible with a cohesive University community, while today competition between individual institutions prevail over the search for the common cause.

The article is focused on the question how and why the iconoclastic candidate Donald Trump won in 2016 election despite the resistance of his own party and most of American political elite. Also analyzed are current American debates about causes, nature, and implications of this phenomenon for the future of American democracy.

The key component of Donald Trump’s victory was a protest vote of America’s working class, coming mostly from the Mid-West and the country heartland in general. This protest is rooted in deteriorating material conditions of this electorate that has suffered from the negative consequences of globalization and de-industrialization. It has also experienced a painful loss of status and identity in the context of a changing racial composition of the country and the spread of multiculturalism imposed by the liberal elite. Donald Trump’s campaign, according to the author, has skillfully mobilized and rode this discontent channeling it against political elites, mainstream media and academic community, blamed for total disregard of ordinary Americans’ interests. Speaking for the “Forgotten America” Trump offered a populist program of action in tune with this mood. The country’s political class reacted to Trump’s victory as an “authoritarian-nationalistic” threat to liberal institutions that had to be rebuffed. Defending liberal democracy from populist extremes becomes even more urgent in light of international scope of this challenge.

In this context, the article traces an erosion of the main institutional barriers on the way of populist protest – anti-majoritarian features of U.S. Constitution, the party  leaders’  control  over  nomination process, political elite dominance in public information through mainstream media and expert community. Since this erosion is largely irreversible, the main attention in the current debates is focused on searching for a constructive response to populist challenge – a response aimed to ameliorate its preconditions – a glaring social and economic inequality, negative consequences of globalization, and extremes of multiculturalism. The article’s final conclusion is that the Trump phenomenon presents a serious test for American liberalism.

The aim of the present study is to demonstrate and analyze the role of multilateral diplomacy in its attempt to resolve the Libyan crisis. The author explores the stages of the crisis, the policies brought forward by individual countries and international organizations involved in dealing with Libyan crisis.

It is obvious that multilateral diplomacy can be crowned with success only on the condition of unanimous approach on the part of key stakeholders. However, “the case of Libya" highlighted deep divisions among the actors both within the UN Security Council and among the powers and other international organizations involved in the conflict. The resistance of a number of oil companies which suffered losses from the sanctions also played a role.The author arrives at the conclusion that the coercive diplomacy initially aimed at forcing the Libyan leadership to change their political course eventually turned into a policy of “regime change”.

The study of the Libyan case has once again cast doubt on the effectiveness of lop­sidedly interpreted “coercive diplomacy” and first and foremost emphasizes the need for a "renaissance" of traditional diplomacy as an instrument of resolving conflicts by peaceful means through negotiation and dialogue.

Rising global competition and limits of catch-up innovation development orients emerging economies towards qualitative transformations of National Innovation Systems (NIS) for an intensive innovation growth. This process will determine the architecture of international relations, regional and global power balances. The article analyses theoretical provisions related to the opportunities, prospects and factors of this transformation. Some “technology-push” (General Purpose Technologies, emerging technologies, etc.) and “demand-pull” (disruptive innovations) theories are briefly reviewed. Despite contradictions between theories, it is assumed that emerging economies innovation capacity would be determined by their potential to realize both breakthrough technologies and disruptive innovations. Analysis of theories also reveals that innovative institutions and culture as most important factors in this transformation. Still, comparison of institutions and resources of most developed nations with emerging economies gives limited grounds to believe in the possibility of their NIS radical transformation. Nevertheless, we are witnessing an improvement in the institutional and cultural characteristics of emerging economies. A hypothesis of this study, that allows to redefine potential for NIS transformations of emerging economies, is the sectoral nature of innovation institutions development. It is assumed that in certain industries, sectors or clusters favorable conditions for intensive innovation development are formed, which  then  can  diffuse  to  the general economy. This makes NIS transformation more realistic (less resources and efforts are needed) and manageable. The communities of practice and innovation are defined as key agents of change. In conclusion, it is noted that even with a sectoral approach, the success of NIS transformation is not predetermined. Depending on how successfully emerging economies will develop their innovative institutions and culture, it can either widen the development gap between them and the developed nations, or, alternatively, create new opportunities for their leadership.

The consept of security plays a pivotal role both in international relations theory and practice. However, despite the fact that different aspects of security problematique have been thoroughly examined in a number of Russian and foreign scholarly works, the very concept itself remains surprisingly understudied. The latter fact not only hinders all attempts to assess the evolution of security studies, their current state and prospects, but also makes it difficult to formulate expedient political strategies and security programmes to counter new challenges and threats. To find the basis for a comprehensive study of the concept of security it may be appropriate to revisit the basic ontological and epistemological foundations of the most influential approaches and theories in the security studies. For this purpose the present paper examines intensive debates on the possibility, acceptability and necessity of widening the concept of security in the post-bipolar world that swept in the Western security studies in the 1990s.

The author comes to the conclusion that these debates are framed by two fundamentally different ways of conceptualizing security – traditional rationalist and postmodernist – with entirely divergent, practically mutually exclusive, assessments of the substantive status of the subject and the object of security, of the possibility acquiring of objective knowledge of international phenomena, and of the aims of security studies in general. Accordingly, the “widening debate” can be outlined on two levels. The first level of the debate encompasses works written within the framework of traditional rationalist approaches ((neo)realism, (neo) liberalism, (neo)Marxism, conventional constructivism). The second level of the debates emerged with the introduction of postmodernist, discursive methods and practices, which provided an alternative understanding of the very basic elements of the international relations theory, its concepts and principles. This level is represented by postmodernist, poststructuralist writings on security, with the theory of securitization serving as probably the prime example of postmodernist research programme.

This version of mapping of different approaches within the security studies may serve as a starting point for further analysis of contemporary concepts of security, clarifying their content and meaning.

Nanotechnology (NT) is the first global scientific and technological initiative of the 21st century, which attracted considerable research, economic, and political interest. Due to the perception of NT as a source of transformative innovations (the effects of which may be enhanced through convergence with bio, info-, and cognitive technologies), the governments of many countries have adopted national nanotechnology programs. Nano-bibliometrics, that arose in the West in the late 1990s, in the 2000s, became rapidly growing area of intensive research with a special focus on cross-country comparisons.

The article presents a comparative analysis of Russia and some other countries, active in the nano field throughout 2000-2014. Initial data (about 570 thousand nano publications)  were  obtained  from  the Science Citation Index Expanded database. It was analyzed using main bibliometric indicators in order to identify publication output, citation, and co-authorship links.

This research demonstrates that, despite the recession of hyperinterest, Nanotechnological field continues to grow. Due to unevenness of this growth it leads to significant changes in the global nanotechnology landscape, as exemplified by drift of center of the global nano research to the Asian region. Leading Western players more and more concede to Asian countries both in volume, and in scientific impact of the produced nano publications. In these terms, the United States has lost the lead under onslaught from China and Singapore, while South Korea actively attacks the German positions in international ranking. In its turn, latecomer Iran has taken, in 2014, the fifth place by publication output. Russia was not able to reach the set goal to become one of the world nano-leaders. The country's international competitiveness in the field is associated with a limited number of scientific directions, such as graphene research, nanobiomedicine, metamaterials for optics. Current results of the Russian nanotechnology policy are also discussed in connection with the completion of the Program of nanoindustry development in Russian Federation up to 2015.

At the present time Islamic extremist groups expand their presence in the Lake Chad basin countries. Encouragement in various forms from similar organizations all over the world might, on the one hand, give birth to new or lead to extension of existing ethnic and religious conflicts; on the other hand, result in birth of transnational panreligious entities. At the same time local ethnic, geographical, and other peculiarities of the region form the oppositely directed tendencies. As a result, new quasi or true states, defending their own interests, may appear on the political map of Africa.

The author argues that the emergence of new cells of Islamic extremist organizations such as Boko Haram most likely within the territories predominantly populated by Muslims. The lower their income level and literacy rate, the higher the probability of emergence. The geopolitical zones (states in the second stage of the study) of Nigeria, regions of Niger and Cameroon, macro-regions of Chad  were  selected  as  the territorial range. The religious affiliation data have been compiled from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) database. Income level and literacy rate were evaluated indirectly using body mass index and calculated degree of age heaping (modified Whipple's index), respectively. Hierarchical  cluster analysis, using SPSS Statistics 17.0, has allowed me to identify four groups of territorial-administrative units by the level of occurrence probability of new Islamic extremist groups.

The article clearly shows that Boko Haram has the western and north-western potential direction of its territorial development. Meanwhile, the new cells more likely to form inside Nigeria than outside. Thus in the near future the expansion of Islamic extremist organizations in the Lake Chad basin countries will occur at the local level. The effect of ethnicity factor interferes with globalization and highlights secession processes.

The article explores the key global trends in the development of electronic government building upon the record of such countries as Russia, China and the United States. It studies the impact of the international rankings on the national e-government development plans, including the adjustment of the areas of e-government, and reviews the balance between indicators, included in international ratings and the domestic policy of the state in this area, determined on the basis of socio-political, economic and cultural characteristics of specific states. The specific development of the concept of “open government” as well as the tendency towards publishing “open data” are included in the analysis as a major trend in the formation of e-government. The authors emphasize the political effects of the publication of open data, including the ability of society to monitor and control the activity of the authorities on the basis of publicly available information. The article explores the complex issues of institutional provision of e-government development, including the establishment of the legal framework and the allocation of specialized government agencies responsible for the development and implementation of state policy in this area. The article provides an overview of the basic conceptual documents defining the characteristics of e-government in the United States. Based on the analysis of these documents it concludes that in the US the existing trend is towards the use of mobile communication and significant attention to security, reliability and accuracy of information in provision of public services through electronic means. Considering the record of e-government in China, it draws attention to the influence of the bureaucratic and the ideological inertia on the introduction of information and communication technologies in the activities of public authorities.

In the article the authors describe the main trends in international trade in services, compare different approaches to the assessment of international services trades through the balance of payments and through the evaluation of the statistics in terms of value added. The growing fragmentation of production processes across countries carries important consequences for the world trade and creates new opportunities for the global growth. Under the new conditions of global value chains acceleration, the trade liberalization and the business investment openness in countries are important conditions for sustainable economic growth and protectionism costs have become much more significant than usually perceived. The traditional instruments of trade policy in the form of tariffs do not apply to the quantitative analysis of services trade, taking into account the specific characteristics of services tradability. Trade in services  tends  to  be restricted mainly through market access barriers and through treatment of foreign providers that is less favorable than that of national ones.

The article reviews the evolution of analysis methods for barriers to trade in services and classifies the approaches to quantify the restrictions in services trade. There is also a review of the measures in services trade based on notifications of countries measures under the World Trade Organization.

Current trends in international trade are associated with a slowdown of the material production and the concurrent development and growth of the international trade in services.  The  international  trade  in services has become over the last decades not only one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy, but also an important component of national economies, and requires an adequate level of state regulation. The development of the service sector requires a comprehensive assessment of trade barriers and regulatory measures. The provisions of the General Agreement on Trade in Services are far behind the practice of measures affecting international trade in services.

Despite the significant contribution of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to the combat against transnational money laundering and terrorist financing, the group faces a number of challenges that stem from both the organizational structure and activities of the FATF. The aim of the current article is to systematically assess existing limitations and drawbacks, related to its lack of institutionalization as well as dependence on Member-States. This analysis demonstrates extent to which governments of developed nations could utilize FATF in their interests, while the developing countries pay major costs of its operation.

As FATF is limited by mandate, which has to be extended by Member-States regularly it enjoys limited independence and pursues a contradictory approach in assessing money laundering and terrorism financing. One of the main criteria for assigning a state to the category of "non-cooperative" appears to be non-compliance of jurisdictions with the anti-offshore Recommendations, which primarily affect the economies of small countries, without providing them alternative sources of income. Meanwhile, a number of developed countries such as the UK and Switzerland, being offshore centers and non-compliant with the same regulations, have never been on the FATF black lists. These  examples  prove  double standards in the activities of the Task Force.

Implementation of the international standards greatly depends on the effectiveness of the FATF-style regional bodies (FSRBs), but the level of cooperation between them and FATF is not that high, particularly in the regions that are most vulnerable to terrorist financing. One of the stumbling blocks on the way of cooperation with the FSRBs appears to be the lack of FATF tools that would enable it to make experts of the FSRBs take an active part in the FATF work, as well as to influence their activities through such measures as sanctions.

The article is devoted to cooperation of the United States and Canada in the field of cross­border oil and oil products transportation via pipelines, as well as standardization that is closely related to their functioning. The study focuses on the relationship between developments in trade relations, international regulation of international trade and development of pipeline transport. As part of the analysis of cooperation between the countries, the main focus is placed on practice of developing and expanding cooperation in North America, which is characterized by active interaction of authorities, expressed in international legal acts, both mandatory and non­binding. In the WTO system, a distinction is made between two terms: "standard", the observance of which is voluntary, and "technical regulations", including the requirement that compliance is mandatory for companies. The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade recognizes the right of countries to establish technical regulations, including requirements for labeling and packaging of goods, which should be based on evidence­based data. Similar rules apply to the processes of determining compliance with standards – certification. The use of international standards seems to be a positive trend in the development of national standardization systems, but the need for regulatory bodies to bring standardization in line with regional and international standards generates a number of specific tasks. The record of cooperation between Canada and the United States demonstrates that parties managed to establish highly efficient regulatory regime, built upon multi­level interaction.

Over the last decades, the international community has witnessed a number of steep declines in oil prices. The most recent plunge began in June 2014 and by January 2016 the Brent oil price fell 77% and remained at relatively low levels afterwards. Some analysts believe the fall in oil prices in the mid-2010s has many in common with the collapse in oil prices in the mid-1980s. They both were provoked to a great extent by a significant increase in oil production in some exporting countries. Currently there is no definite answer to the question  whether  these  actions  have  been politically  motivated.  However,  there  are  many  experts assuming that during the Cold war the main target of such an aggressive pricing policy was the Soviet Union, but in the mid-2010s the focus shifted to Russia which pursues independent foreign policy in the Middle East and other regions. The article examines different views on the collapse in oil prices in the mid-2010s with references to the past. In particular, it is assumed that such phenomena can have purely economic reasons:  the cyclical imbalances  of world  supply and demand;  constant, fierce competition between exporters for limited markets, especially in the era of rapid development of renewable energy. However, there is also an alternative point of view, according to which Saudi Arabia and some other OPEC members provoked the collapse of oil prices in the mid-2010s with the sole purpose to crush the U.S. shale industry, which for several years has led to a glut in the world oil market.

Interview with Feydor Voitolovsky.

The article discusses a problem of trust to social science in the context of contemporary globalization of science and national transformations in Russia. It raises the issue of trust to the Russian Social Science among various social groups such as university professors and scholarly communities, representatives of public authorities and business, journalists and media executives, and student's community. The aim of this paper is the substantiation of methodological approach to the research of this problem,  and  the description of results of its testing on the group of experts, representatives of university science from various regions of Russia. The authors assume that the decline of trust to Social Science in Russia is caused by both universal factors and some specific for the country. The universal factors include the shift from academic science to “postacademic” one, which is oriented towards applied researches and commercial efficiency. Specific factors include the institutional instability which causes the weakening of the need in scientific results for the state and business; the transformations in science institute that cause the imitation of scientific activity and the decrease of conscientiousness of researchers; the “blind” copying of the Western concepts to analysis of Russian phenomena; the “brain drain”.

The article defines theoretical and empirical objects, subject field of empirical research and frames some methodological principles for study of trust. The trust to social science includes abstract trust and the trust to certain scientists, schools and results. A set of indicators for the measurement of the level of trust is given. Results of experts’ poll are presented. They indicate the validity of the developed methodology; possible directions of further researches of the trust; some necessary ways of the increasing the level of the trust to social science in Russia. It is concluded that the trust research to social sciences based on the offered methodology will allow obtaining valid data for implementation of administrative decisions in scientific policy.

A book review: Шаклеина Т.А. Россия и США в мировой политике. М.: Аспект Пресс, 2017. 339 с.

A book review: Мировая экономика и международные экономические отношения. Полный курс / Под ред. А.С. Булатова. М.: КНОРУС, 2017. 916 с.

A book review: Huv S. La Russie et l’ONU. L’Organisation des Nations Unies, cadre et instrument de la politique ext rieure russe (1999–2015). Paris: L’Hartmann, 2015. 186 p.