The first decades of the XXI century were marked by the active development of information and communication technologies, including in electoral and political spheres. The COVID-19 pandemic has given a powerful additional impetus to these processes. The practice has become ahead of regulation, both nationally and internationally. The lack of unified legal enactments regulating the digitalization of socially significant procedures (primarily in the electoral sphere) is a constraining factor in the development of political processes of a new reality. The author is sure that it is necessary to unite the efforts of legislators, relevant public and international organizations to develop improved rules for political life of society in the digital environment, where the balance of guaranteed rights and freedoms of citizens will be maintained, on the one hand, and a high level of security, reliability and efficiency of new technologies, on the other hand.

Since the second half of the XX century, political parties as a socio-political institution were in a state of global crisis, the manifestations of which were the decline in the number of their members and the fall in the level of trust in them. The study aims to analyze the factors affecting the level of trust in political parties in the European Union; the objective -to identify these factors and determine the correlation between them and the level of trust in political parties. In this study, the level of confidence in the national government, the national Parliament, regional and local authorities, as well as levels of economic development and corruption, are considered as indicators correlating with the level of confidence in parties on a pan-European scale.

The study is based on comparative and statistical methods. The source of the analysis is the data of sociological surveys on trust in political parties published on the official website of the European Commission on the results of population surveys in the framework of the “Eurobarometer” study for the period from 2000 to the present. The dependent variable is the level of trust in political parties, determined as a percentage of the number of respondents who trust this social institution.

The analysis suggests that the lowest level of trust in political parties is typical for countries that have a low level of trust in the national government and Parliament, regional and local authorities, as well as for states where non-democratic regimes have existed for a long time. In addition, the level of trust in political parties correlates with the level of corruption in General and corruption of political parties in particular, and with the level of economic development, but the degree of their correlation is lower compared to other indicators considered. The level of trust in political parties below the Central European level is typical mainly for countries that have recently embarked on the path of democracy - the Baltic States, Eastern and Southern Europe.

The multi-criteria content of corruption makes it necessary to take into account the multitude of factors that influence its formation, and therefore, of course, are necessary for adoption in the development of effective mechanisms to counter this phenomenon. In the Russian Federation, to date, a well-developed legal and regulatory framework for anticorruption activities has been created, there are criminal legal means to combat corruption, however, based on the practice of law enforcement, they all have low efficiency, which makes us turn to the search for anti-corruption tools that are excellent from the normative fixing of the specifics of unlawful behavior and its consequences.

The search for effective anti-corruption means is reasonably carried out in the socio-political sphere since it is not possible to solve the social problems of society solely through criminal law and regulatory means. In addition, the lack of proper attention to the socio-political means of combating corruption can, on the contrary, reduce the effectiveness of the preventive effect of prohibitions and lead to an increase in the scope of criminal law regulation, excluding the necessary effectiveness and efficiency of such measures.

The norms that are adopted to protect modern society (in the field of economic activity, the criminal law environment, etc.) often do not take into account the possibility of milder and more stable anti-corruption impacts, one of which is the formation of a national system of anti-corruption education and upbringing. It seems that the existing social mentality, which contradicts the existing anti-corruption measures, needs to be introduced in new educational standards, both at the level of general educational organizations and at the level of formation of relevant skills and competencies for certain categories of students in the framework of higher education and additional training programs.

The problematic nature of the subjects chosen for the study is concentrated not only on theoretical and methodological aspects, but also on practical ones, which determines the significance and importance of studying these issues in the context of approaches of foreign countries.

The article deals with the genesis of the so-called «party of power» in Russia, its features. The subject of the study is the political elite of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation as the main driving force for its formation and development (on the example of the regions of the Central Black Earth Region). Its goal is to study the role of the regional ruling elite in the functioning of the “party of power” through institutional and functional approaches, within the framework of various types of analysis. It describes the main trends that arose in the party construction of Russia in the early 90s. Last century, their results. The author analyzes the state of the political elite, including the ruling elite of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the reasons for their ideological, political and economic disunity. At the same time, emphasis is placed on the evolution of the views of the ruling elites regarding political parties and movements (on the example of the regions of the Central Black Earth Region). The article considers attempts to revive the «party of power» in new socio-political relations, its various models at the regional and federal levels (the concept of the so-called «third force»), their goals, tasks and contradictions. The author describes the reasons for the resumption of interest in the above concept in the early 2000s of the new century and the formation of the Russian «party of power» of a new type. We are also considering a set of problems that contributed to the consolidation of the Russian ruling elite, including at the regional level (using the example of the Central Black Earth Region), their results. In conclusion, an assessment is made of the possible prospects for the development of regional organizations of the «party of power», their role in socio-political processes.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics and recruitment channels of the regional political elite of CPRF and «Fair Russia». The study uses heads of regional party branches as a political elite group that holds key positions in party structure and selects candidates for all levels of elections. The empirical data includes 170 representatives of the party elite. The analysis showed differences in the age structure of the party elite. The largest demographic group of the Communist Party is people over 60 years old, in «Just Russia» the same group is between the ages of 40 and 50. During the last years, CPRF begun management reform and system renewal of staff policy by young party leaders, in contrast to «Just Russia» where the system of elite recruitment is rather random. The representation of women in the elite of both parties is insignificant and amounts to 9% in the Communist Party and 11% in the «Just Russia». The study traces an increase in the share of professional lawyers among the younger generation (25-40 years old) of regional elite in both parties. Finally, we have identified significant differences in the key recruitment channels of elite groups. About 50 per cent of persons from CPRF were appointed to the elite position because of their long and active party work. In «Just Russia», the key recruitment channel is large and medium-sized regional business.

Discussing the monograph “Revolution and Its Overcoming: Essays on the History of the Russian Mentality” by Doctor of History, Professor E.M. Kozhokin. The collection of seven essays related to one cross-cutting theme of the formation of revolutionary ideas in Russian society is considered from the perspective of a modern reader.

The article is devoted to the gender aspect of pension reform in the Russian Federation. The unfairness of men's later retirement compared to women is reinforced by the significantly lower average life expectancy of Russian men compared to women. At the same time, in recent decades, world experience has shown a tendency to equalize the retirement age for men and women. In Russia, the legislator did not even take into account the sharply negative public opinion on the issue of raising the retirement age, the low average life expectancy in Russia compared to developed countries, according to the experience of which in 2018 the decision was made to gradually increase the age to 65 for men and 60 for women for retirement. The author provides statistics on the average life expectancy in Russia, including men in various regions of the Russian Federation, examines the history of the problem, provides world practice in the issue of pension reform in recent decades, and analyzes the legal positions of the Сonstitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the possible violation of gender equality when men retire 5 years later than women and international law.

What factors influence the level of representation of women in parliaments? There are several explanatory models in the research literature, but a broad consensus is formed around one. Research shows that there is a strong correlation between the level of women's representation and the type of electoral system. It is noted that the high representation of women in Parliament is associated with the conduct of elections based on the proportional electoral system. The author emphasizes that scientists came to this statement as a result of, first, analyzing data from developed countries, consolidated democracies and, second, conducting cross-country research. The purpose of this article is to verify this provision in Russian conditions. To achieve this goal, the author collected empirical material based on lists of candidates (both Federal and single-mandate districts) of political parties. The research method was regression analysis. As a result of statistical calculations, the author came to the conclusion that the Duma elections under the proportional system do not ensure high representation of women. It is shown that the voting system does not work automatically in terms of determining the proportion of women parliamentarians. Electoral systems are one of the many factors that can affect women's representation in legislative bodies. Other factors are party characteristics such as party ideology.

The Red Sea and the Aden Gulf area, where from time immemorial ancient sailors paved trade routes, and the North-East Africa (the Horn of Africa) are rapidly turning into an important strategic region. It's about ensuring free access to the Red Sea and, therefore, to the Suez Canal, that significantly reduces the delivery time and cost of goods, including energy resources. It facilitates and cheapens the trade between Europe and Asia.

However, such a strategically important region is extremely unstable and turbulent. Navigation here is carried out, including along several narrow straits, which have been named as “suffocating” and “shock points” of modern geopolitics. We note a trend towards increasing competition in this once “sleepy” region. Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE are striving to secure their interests here in competition with other Middle Eastern “heavyweights” - Turkey and Iran. Qatar has recently joined the above non-Arab actors.

The accelerated dynamics of events leads to changes in the balance of power, which affects politics of non-regional actors - China, the United States and others. This article aims to comprehend the prevailing political realities in the area under consideration, to identify the military-political and trade-economic factors that determine the geostrategic importance of the Red Sea and adjacent territories, to determine the features of relations between the countries of the region, as well as their interaction with non-regional players.

The Republic of Korea is one of Russia's priority partners in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2020, the countries celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. In recent years, the countries have made significant steps towards strengthening trade and economic cooperation. In February 2019, the countries signed an action plan for implementing 9 priority areas of cooperation - natural gas, energy, Railways, seaports, the Northern sea route (NSR), shipbuilding, industrial complexes, agriculture and fishing. The Russian-Korean innovation center was opened, and in September 2020 an agreement of intent was signed to create a South Korean industrial Park in Primorsky kray. At the end of 2019, Moscow and Seoul decided to declare 2020 “The year of mutual exchanges”.