Many scholars face a difficulty in formulating a research problem and research question while working on the research. The author introduces several methods that would help researchers to be more precise while working on the architecture of their research topic.

Some social terms and concepts that appear under certain circumstances often are widely used and become a part of social and political discourse, mainly, due to the problematic issues they bear within themselves. Russian scientific discourse today experiences the raise of using the concept of “social mission” on one hand and “social responsibility” on another. The author attempts to analyze these metamorphoses and trace their emergence and evolution.

The article addresses to the Asian vector of the Russian foreign policy in particularly relations between Russia and China since post-Soviet period until nowdays. The author examines the stages of changing the Russian foreign policy as well as the positions of lobby parties in foreign policy. The article gives the detailed analysis of the cooperation between Russia and China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. The author examines Russian-Chinese relations in key areas of collaboration such as mutual trade, nuclear power and military-technical sphere. According to the author significant step in Russian-Chinese relations is the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation signed in the July of 2001 during the visit of Jiang Zemin. The author assesses results of three stages of the relations between Russia and China and future development trends.

The article provides an analysis of the factors contributing to the integration of the countries in BRICS and studies the reasons for rising attention of world community to the unit. BRICS is considered as a united organization compared with rest of the world communities (for example with G7) as well as a set of countries with common specifics of development. The author divides the analogies into internal and external. Among internal analogies there are the level of socio-economic development and the political systems. The external analogies include the positions of countries in the structure of international relations, the striving for multipolarity and the emerging role in the world community that means the striving for the promotion of national interests and the similar approaches to peaceful settlement of the international conflicts. The author highlights the actual mechanisms for collaboration between the parties and the future model of cooperation.

Article retracted

The article deals with the comparative analysis of Russian and Chinese participation in the current system of global governance, and in its reform. The author views participation of the respective countries in the system of global governance as part of their foreign policy and foreign policy strategy. He shows common and distinctive features of conceptual and practical approaches towards global governance defined by specific features of Russia’s and China’s history, economic development, political culture and traditions. Based on this comparative analysis, the author speculates on the future trends of participation of the two countries in the global governance system, in the spheres of global economy and international security, and on the future trends of their policy coordination in these respective areas.

The article assesses the significance of environmental agenda in public-private partnership projects in today’s Russia. The author argues that sustainable development and corporate social responsibility plays an increasingly important role in cooperation between the state and the private sector in modern Russia.

Given growing importance of education as a factor of internal development and in the context of globalization universities can be considered to be international economic actors playing an increasingly significant role in economic and political agenda. Universities face a lot of challenges, to wit: quality control, further privatization of higher education and for-profit education, the problem of innovations and advanced technologies, the emergence of international labour market etc. Therefore internationalization of higher education determines the necessity to reform and adapt universities around the globe.

Recently passed the Russian ‘Foreign Agent’ law against foreign funding of NGOs and civil society has attracted criticism from almost every quarter. From home to abroad all party concerned (i.e., civil society organizations, NGO groups, donor countries (especiallyAmericaand European countries) as well as some Russian opposition political parties) are of the view that this bill has been introduced to scuttle the independent civic activities and in this way unconstitutional. However on the basis of overall analysis of ‘Foreign Agent’ law in the context of American democratic promotion policy this paper is of the view that this law simply cannot be characterized as anti-democratic, which is against the very basis of freedom and rule of law, by the anti-democratic Russian government but it should be seen as extension of same challenge which American democratic promotion policy is facing around the whole world. It is because of its illegal and unconstitutional method of regime change policy, with the help of foreign funded NGOs, and civil society which has compelled various countries includingRussiato resort this type of law. It is important to note that the promise of peace, stability and prosperity by the democratic promotion protagonists after the fall ofSoviet Unionhas not been realised till today. Instead what post-Soviet states are witnessing today is emergence of chauvinist nationalist government in respective countries which witnessed colour revolution. Whole region is now plunging into economic turmoil, ethnic nationalism, rise of religious fundamentalism and identity politics. Recent overthrow of legitimate Viktor Yanukovych government inUkraineand subsequent decision by incumbent government to exclude Russian as administrative language can be sited as example. That is why former American Republican Congressman Ron Paul is of the view that “US‘Democracy Promotion’ Destroys Democracy Overseas’’. In this context this paper will argue that democracy can only be beneficial when it evolved from within according to the aspiration of native masses and should not be imposed from outside with certain geopolitical interest in mind. Looking at the backlash against this policy this paper will further argue that the time has come when America should think of to review the policy of democratic promotion through foreign funding and simultaneously NGOs and civil societies should instead of fulfilling the agenda of their donor counties should work for making native people politically conscious and should not let the people make sceptic even of its guanine activity. 

After the collapse of theSoviet Unionand the raise of new independent states a question of choosing the format of center-regions relationship became crucial. Political elites ofRussiaandKazakhstanmade completely different choices:Russia— in favor of a federal state, whereasKazakhstansupported the idea of a unitary state. These decisions were made more than 20 years ago and it is now possible to evaluate the consequences of these choices in both states. 

American expert community emerged as an influential component of the national political establishment and is able to affect significantly foreign policy of the country. The article seeks to analyze the current state of the foreign policy expertize in the U.S. It identifies functional objective determining activities of the expert community, related both to the clarification of foreign policy ideology and to the achieving greater efficiency in foreign policy. The author also studies the issues related to funding of expertise, including the amount of accumulated financial resources and numerous private sources it comes from. Finally, he examines the foreign policy discourse in the U.S., defined by competing approaches developed by multiple think tankers.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the U.S. strategy “New Silk Road” and the project of China to establish economic belt “Silk Road”, as well as their implementation in Central Asia. However, the unstable situation in Afghanistan, the lack of sources of financing capital-intensive infrastructure projects, the existence of various contradictions between the countries of this region and other reasons prevent the full implementation of the U.S. strategy. At the same time, the Chinese project faces a lack of precision uncertainty of funding.