Human civilization is not viable if it does not provide the population of the world with food. Up to now,humanity has still not succeeded in making food available on a constant basis to all inhabitants of the planet: around 800 million people do not have enough to eat, millions are suffering from chronic hunger. For more than half a century efforts to develop measures to provide people with food have been undertaken at global, regional and national levels. In the 21st century almost all countries, international organizations, non-government and financial entities, the expert community and representatives of business are working to some degree to try and solve the global problem of food security. The efforts aimed at solving this problem increase each year in scope and magnitude, becoming more unified and better coordinated. Today a comprehensive multilevel approach is the most important feature of the international cooperation to improve on the current situation. Institutional entities are more and more actively involved in international cooperation regarding this issue. In 2015, the world community is assessing the achievements of 2000 Millennium Development Goals and of the 1996 World Food Summit, but it is also developing a new program of a conceptually new development which prioritises the problem of providing the population of the world with food. Hence, we have reached a chronologically meaningful phase of international cooperation to ensure global food security. On the basis of documents and materials of international organizations, analytical papers of Russian and international scholars, this paper reaches the conclusion that we are still a long way away from achieving food security and that only dynamic international cooperation, not only in the agricultural area but also in solving economic, trade, political and investment problems could make it possible. The purpose of this study is to analyse the contemporary international system of the international multilevel cooperation that is focused on solving the global food security problem. The article aims to define food security criteria and indicators, identify the vectors of international cooperation, the resource potential and their links to other problems of international development.

Today the notion of “Chinese dream” has emerged as part of the official discourse of the PRC. Meanwhile, its substance has not been fully clarified. The article studies historical transformations of the concept. Its evolution since the 1860s has been defined by the strategic challenge, posed by the Western states. In response the Chinese intellectual elite created several modernization programs, with each one of them more comprehensive than the previous. However, in practice the modernization of China meant its Westernization. Therefore, the way towards “Chinese dream” appeared also to be the erosion of “Chineseness”. Even Marxism, which was used to overcome the Western domination, has Western roots. Therefore, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China used counterstrategy of de-Westernization of Marxism, appraising it as a scientific truth, and making it a global heritage, rather than a European one. The transformations caused by China’s modernization brought about the search for Chineseness. To disclose it the author formulates the concept of “methodological China”, which reflects the ironical fact that the way the country acts defines its essence better than its values. Chinese adaptability enabled it to copy the best from the Western experience and, therefore, to take from the leading states their winning recipe. The implementation of this strategy had an impact on the general trends of global development. Any innovative strategies through time lose their exclusivity and are copied by rivals. Under these conditions, countries have to deal with resource limitations. Therefore, competition for resources to fulfil national dreams could become not only meaningless, but could also create threats for the humanity as a whole. Thus, it is important to transfer from pursuing narrowly defined “national dreams” to the construction of stable and common world. The initial reading of the “China dream” more than 3000 years ago was formulated very much in this paradigm of thought and the current Chinese initiatives testify that this logic reemerges in Beijing.

This article presents the application of quantitative methods of analysis in International Studies in Russia and abroad. The role of formalized quantitative methods and modeling in research methods used in articles in the world leading and top-rated journals on international relations and political science indexed in Scopus is described, based on a review of foreign publications. The genesis of mathematical methods in foreign IR studies is shown, as well as the basic mathematical techniques used by foreign IR researchers in relation to the basic paradigms of theory of IR are studied. The case of the international conflict studies – by far the most quantified sub-discipline within political science – is analyzed in detail. The basic schools for quantitative analysis of international relations, formed in the Soviet Union and Russia, are mentioned and a basic bibliography in this area is provided. This articles also analyses the role of the Soviet and Russian schools of cliometrics and quantitative history under the leadership of academic I.D. Kovalchenko in applying quantitative research in the humanities. The author presents the results of his own study of the use of quantitative methods in articles published in six leading Russian IR scholarly journals in 2014. Three groups of them do not use mathematical methods, occasionally applying and regularly applying- are segregated. The main reasons why quantitative methods are so rarely used in domestic IR studies are revealed. The main practical difficulties of constructing formal models of IR related to interdisciplinary synthesis in educational and research activities in the Russian realities are enumerated. The author pays special attention to the lack of appropriate textbooks in mathematics, adapted for the humanities, as well as of the specialized software needed for quantitative analysis and visualization of research data.

The notion of International Regimes recently emerged as an influential concept, enabling to explain the nature of international governance. Apart from uncovering their internal structure and assessing their power to restrict national policies, the current research programme is also focused on identifying their origins. In explaining them, many scholars have relied on the “life-cycle” approach, which identifies several stages, associated with the birth, dissemination and acceptance of international norms. The current article aims to summarize recent theoretical developments in this domain, focusing on the evolution of prohibition regimes, which was initially traced by Eton Nadelmann, and to test their explanatory power in the case of international regime to fight money laundering. It also aims to find ways to further develop the presented research program. This analysis demonstrates that legalization of criminal gains was not perceived as an issue for international regulation. However, the rise of public awareness mobilized several powerful states to form an international coalition, which acted as a trigger for the creation of an international regime. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering became its main pillar and an influential international institution. Due to the collective hegemony of the leading states, other players had to adjust. Therefore, in recent decades the emerged regime consolidated and proved viable. The study demonstrates the significant role of the political component within the traditional domain of technocratic international cooperation.

The article addresses the role of technological innovations in the theoretical discourse on international relations. The role of science and technology in global development is forever increasing, and it is important to reflect its impact on political interactions. The author examines multiple approaches to this issue by traditional and current political theories and paradigms. He seeks to determine the degree of conceptual sufficiency or insufficiency of established academic approaches for understanding the role of science and innovation in international relations as a systemic social and political phenomenon. It also seeks to disclose more promising theoretical frameworks. The author argues that realist and liberal paradigms (due to their technological determinism), as well as social constructivism (due to its social and cultural determinism), are conceptually fragile for understanding the systemic role that science and technology play in global political transformations. While realists study the effect of scientific and technological development on the distribution of capabilities among actors, liberals identify it as a source of systemic innovations, leading to the rise of new types of actors and themes in international politics. On the contrary, constructivists focus on the socially defined nature of technological development and its dependence on existing norms and on the values of their creators. The importance of scientific innovations is undetermined. The author also presents the findings of the Science, Technology and Society studies, which emerged as an interdisciplinary field of research of interrelations between social systems. However, the agenda of international politics remains on the sidelines of this research program. Due to the gaps in the previous theoretical frameworks, the author outlines prospects for more prolific consideration of the problem through further development of the interdisciplinary research field and the complexity theory as applied to international processes.

The trend towards widening of the international academic discourse though integration of non-Western national schools in IR, affects Russian scholarly community today only marginally. Russian scholars are hardly included in the international debates regarding the major directions of political, economic and social development in the globalized world. Therefore, they are unable to influence the intellectual landscape of international relations. The current article emerged from the comparative study of domestic and international academic and publication practices. It aims to identify key barriers towards greater engagement of Russian authors in the global academic debate on world politics. The article views the academic practices, which emerge from interaction between members of the scholarly community, as crucial regulatory frameworks, which define the quality of the research publications. Since 2012 Russian authorities have adopted multiple decisions, aimed to integrate Russian science in the international context. These measures significantly affect Social Sciences, including International Studies. They resulted in accelerated adoption of formal requirements to the scholarly publications, while academic journals have become the major enforcers in this process. However, the current study confirms that the internalization of new standards and practices by the academic community is far from being complete. This process is complicated by the fact that epistemological and methodological foundations of the Russian school differentiate it significantly from Western IR. Meanwhile, the major differences lie in the definition of aims and structure of scholarly publications, as well as in criteria of academic study. Thus, the authors of the article come up with proposals, intended to foster more successful integration of Russian IR in the global academic discourse. The study relies on the monitoring of self-positioning of journals and their requirements for authors, as well as on the interviews with publishers and editors of major Russian and international journals and authors who have a successful track-record of publishing in both contexts.

It is widely known that the head of state plays the leading role in Russia, China and France, but in India, Germany, Italy and other parliamentary republics he is de facto subordinate to the head of government. Hierarchy of relations between the two top officials in these countries is predetermined both by constitutions and political practice. One cannot be so unequivocal when considering the situation in Eastern Europe, where original forms of government emerged. They include features of both semipresidential and parliamentary regimes. Generally, the head of state does not have wide formal powers but is elected directly by the population and exercises considerable political influence. That is why it is difficult for many to determine whether it is president or prime minister who is the most influential politician, which elections (presidential or parliamentary) are more important, and which of the top officials is the main decision maker in such spheres as foreign policy, defense and security. For example, in 2014new presidents were elected in Romania and Slovakia who had run against the incumbent prime ministers. The PMs retained support of the parliamentary majority and secured their positions after the elections. The foreign leaders are facing a problem now: who is the most influential top official in these states, which one of them shall be their counterpart in the negotiations? Diplomats, experts in international relations and journalists are also asking the same questions. To answer these questions, we shall analyze the features of power sharing between the president and the head of government in 6 Eastern European states (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia). We cannot use only a formal-legal approach and ignore political practices. The formal legal approach has already been used by many other researchers, but it is difficult to formalize and systemize political practice because there are many informal customs. That is why special attention is paid in this article to establishing criteria that can be used to analyze political practice. This article is aimed at ranking 6 Eastern European states by political influence of the President. It studies the following issues. Firstly, the existing views on the forms of government of these states are considered. Secondly, the results of the previous research by other authors having the same aim are systemized and compared. As long as most of them are based mainly on formal-legal approach the third goal is set; namely, to establish criteria to assess political practices. After analyzing the political practices the states are ranked, this ranking being compared with the results of the previous research by other authors. In conclusion, we examine the reasons why such specific forms of government emerged in Eastern Europe, forms that contribute to the permanent struggle for power between presidents and prime ministers.

The notion of “power” is one of the key and, at the same time, one of the most controversial in the theory of international relations. The introduction of the conception of “soft power” by J.S. Nye and the scholarly discussions to follow only aggravated the situation of terminological inexactitude, virtually bringing it to the brink of epistemological relativism. The paper attempts to lay down the general framework of a system definition of “soft power”. The definition which would allow, on the one hand, to draw a line between “soft power” and “hard power” and, on the other, to show their intrinsic interdependence within foreign policy activities of an actor on the international scene.

The first section of the paper examines two main approaches to the definition of power, its nature and essence, developed in the Western political science – a resource-oriented and context-oriented (relational) approache. The author highlights the strengths and weaknesses of both and comes to the conclusion, that the latter possesses a higher epistemological potential regarding foreign policy analysis.

In the second section of the paper the author specifies and develops conceptual basics of the context- oriented approach and outlines the prospects to overcome its main setback: theoretically infinite process of the context specification. The author emphasizes the goal-directed character of actors’ behavior on the international scene and, following this line of reasoning, formulates the definition of “soft power” as a specific form of power interaction, aimed at achieving long-term, strategic goals through indirect influence on the response unit, represented by wide sections of the population, specific social groups within it or the structure of international relations in general. The author also stresses the irreducibility of power of an actor to its resources and the inconsistency of the idea of the existence of some special “soft power resources”.

The final section of the paper summarizes the key points of the author’s concept and outlines the main directions of its development and verification.

Interview with Eduard Batalov.

A book review: Глобальная безопасность в цифровую эпоху: новые стратагемы для России / Под общей редакцией А.И. Смирнова М.: ВНИИгеосистем, 2014. 394 с.

A book review: Лилли, Биляна. Внешняя политика России в области противоракетной обороны: игроки, мотивы и влияние. Лондон: Из-во «Лексингтон Букс», 2014. 390 с.