No 3 (2023)

This paper presents a quantitative empirical study of the impact of the EU enlargements in 1995 and 2004 on the speed of the decision-making process (legislative process). The research is based on two methods: interrupted time series analysis and survival analysis (Cox model). The use of these methods increases the validity of the present study. The empirical data consists of the EU secondary law directives and regulations. The methodology and research design allow to distinguish between the impact of enlargement and the impact of changes of the institutional parameters of the decision-making process. The findings demonstrate that the legislative process significantly accelerated at the time of the 2004 enlargement. Most likely this was because 1) the preferences of the new member states were generally within the range of preferences of the old members and a new axis of conflict (Western versus Eastern member states) emerged only in a limited number of EU areas of activity; 2) the Council adopted new Rules of Procedure immediately before the entry of new members, which significantly increased the effectiveness of the Council. As for the 1995 enlargement, due to the low reliability of estimations, it can only be cautiously concluded that it did not have a visible slowing effect on the decision-making process. The conclusion that the 2004 enlargement did not entail a slowdown of the EU legislative process is of fundamental importance for understanding the specifics of the functioning of the EU.

The article focuses on the two concepts that have become increasingly common in the official discourse of the EU in recent years - “strategic sovereignty” and “strategic autonomy”. Top public officials, politicians and bodies of the European Union and of member states refer to each of these terms, depending on the circumstances or the established tradition of using the concept in a particular area of the EU's policy. However, there is still no clear understanding in the academic and expert community of how they relate at the semantic level - in other words, whether these terms are interchangeable with regard to their meaning, adjacent ones or they differ radically from each other. The author uses the morphological analysis of ideology by M. Freeden with the special emphasis on the process of decontestation as a theoretical and methodological framework of the study in order to compare these two concepts and discover their semantic content. The empirical evidence of the article includes speeches of EU’s top public officials, politicians, as well as key documents of the EU during the period of active dissemination of concepts in the discourse of Brussels. The analysis reveals that the two concepts occupy related semantic positions, but they are not completely synonymous. It is difficult to predict the further evolution of the concepts within the EU’s semantic system, but they have already taken an important place in the foreign policy discourse of Brussels that will inevitably affect all the EU counterparties, including Russia.

The article concentrates on the agreements between Belgrade and Pristina reached on February 27, 2023 in Brussels, and on March 18, 2023 in Ohrid through mediation of the EU and the USA. It also traces the chronology of the process that led to the current result and discusses “The Agreement on the Path to Normalisation of Relations between Kosovo and Serbia” and the “Implementation Annex”. The analysis indicates the perception of the documents by society and political forces both in Kosovo and Serbia. Based on sociological surveys the study examines the attitude towards various ways of resolving the “Kosovo problem”, towards the EU, NATO, and Russia. It also draws attention to the change in the position of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church, and speculates on the reasons for this turn. The article makes an assumption regarding the future course of behavior of the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia along with representatives of the EU and the United States. Whether Serbia joins the anti-Russian sanctions is an open question. The choice should be made between interests and emotions, national mythology and material goods, tradition and the future. The Western push to further promote accession of Serbia to the EU in exchange for recognition of Kosovo's independence means essential revision of the national Serbian national identity. It is about a historical choice, which will require a corresponding response from Russia.

The article examines the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) support measures for sustainable development in the European Union (EU). The study focuses on the theoretical approaches to the concept of sustainable development that is the basis for the development of sustainability programs in the EU in which small and medium-sized companies take part. The article scrutinizes the aim of the European countries to decrease the ecological footprint by taking collective action in the EU and introducing measures to make the production process greener in the EU member countries. The authors underline the role of SMEs in the realization of 17 Sustainable development goals (SDGs) developed by the United Nations. They outline the support measures for sustainable development which number has increased considerably in EU-27 member states in the last three years and that include the support measures for improving regulation of the SMEs activity, their access to resources in accordance with the SME Strategy for sustainable and digital Europe, measures to introduce innovations in ecological and social spheres; technologies of the circular economy and wasteless production that can be implemented in Russia. The study is based on the data of international organizations, international agencies and documents of the European Commission.

Using socio-cultural methodology, as well as comparative analysis and data from the most authoritative agencies in the field of global university rankings, the article scrutinises examples of the successful creation of some newly founded universities in Europe, Asia and Russia. The main purpose of the study is, firstly, to outline the socio-cultural background, and, secondly, to compare the features of the entry of relatively recently emerged universities among the world leaders. The article reveals that along with the traditional resource sources of university efficiency, such socio-cultural dominant idea of modernity as the ubiquitous “acceleration of time“ characteristic of the global era of the knowledge economy begins to play an equally important role in achieving the latter. It is established that young universities appear as an up-to-date version of the response to the challenges of modern culture as a marker of acceleration of social time. Accelerated university is defined as a university that has reached a world-class level in several decades, often with uncertain future prospects. It is argued that of all the examples considered in the article, it is the University of Skoltech that currently proves to be almost completely confirming this definition. The evolution of a young university is considered as the result of a risky innovation, the success of which is not a foregone conclusion, and is also subject to constant changes.

The article presents the results of a multidisciplinary analysis of such political constant (political sense) as “feminism”. New aspects of the reaction of societies to the practice of exercising political power in different regions and countries are revealed. The analysis was carried out on the basis of political media geography - a new discipline in political science. The author considers feminism as a political sense that fits well into the framework of “big” ideologies: communism, socialism, capitalism. The author uses the concept of a mental landscape, which can be considered as a way of thinking, attitude to any socially significant phenomena and processes of residents of a certain area, territory. The research is based on big data obtained from Google for the period 2010-2023 - the dynamics of Internet users’ requests in Nordic countries, according to topics that mark the meaning of “feminism”. The study concentrates on a new understanding of Internet bibliometrics, which takes into account the massive interest of users in various topics, expressed in the number of requests for certain keywords or phrases in a certain period of time. The author focuses on the phenomenon of anisotropy of mental landscapes especially in Sweden and Finland. Despite the fact that feminism still remains politically attractive, available empirical data indicate an increasing anisotropy of the mental landscapes of all countries in the region. Popularity of feminism fell below its peak. It is possible to predict the degradation of the ideology, the decline of its role as a factor and instrument of political struggle.

The article analyses the reasons for the choice of radical Islam by young Muslims in the European countries. Islam became a Western religion as a result of the migration of millions of Muslims. The authors provide a number of indications of the formation of a new global religious system. The new religious cross-border communities constitute a globalised network. Their dynamic nature and partial virtualisation of their activities weaken the state control. The activities of “parallel societies” are associated with Muslim immigrants. Their parallel system of leadership and law creates real competition for the state governance structures. The fundamentalist version of Islam becomes attractive to Muslims who have endured its de-territorialisation. Their religious identity is formed under the influence of new interactions, media resources and participation in a global network of like-minded people. Islamic fundamentalism does not naturally emerge from Islam. This is the result of the secularisation of Islam, when the priority of politics over religion uses the latter as a resource for legitimising its social and political protest. It is also a reaction to the search for an identity that is relevant in a new environment. The attitudes inherent in fundamentalism, such as distrust of the values of European civilisation, the call for radical measures in their denial, the construction of a private version of the tradition and its idealisation, are based on modern problems. This represents fundamentalism as a postmodern phenomenon.

In a radically changed world, geopolitical costs and errors as a result of underestimation or, conversely, overestimation of increasingly non-linear hybrid processes, conflicting trends and often spontaneous events acquire increased practical and political significance. Under these conditions, the focus of research attention could not but be on the recently published work of French researchers and international experts under the catchy and meaningful title “The world will never be the same”. In the focus of the analysis is the updated context of modern crisis geopolitics. The conceptual and analytical basis of the text is formed by extensive introductory and at the same time generalizing sections that systematize two dozen chapters on a variety of international topics and problems. They were written by the co-leaders of the team of authors, well-known French international political researchers Bertrand Bady and Dominique Vidal. A new approach is put at the forefront, which is not predetermined in advance, but is created on the basis of life practice as a result and under the influence of historical surprises, unforeseen and even previously unimaginable events. An attempt was made to consider the problems of the future world order through the prism of great-power contradictions, the confrontation of various value orientations and development models with an emphasis on the competition of democracies and autocracies. On the example of the United States, the concept of world domination is rethought. The book reflects new features of the expert-analytical work of French international researchers. The authors are aware that the confrontational severity of the crisis situation in Ukraine and its internationalization in a variety of hybridized forms have sharply “shaken” the more or less established balance of power not only in the European region, but throughout the global space. In general, they agree that optimistic options for a new world order are at stake. In separate sections of the book, the chaos of world politics and international relations is linked to the overstrain of the US hyperpower, which is approaching a critical point.

This study examines how the Russo-Georgian War in 2008 and the Ukraine Crisis in 2014 were discussed in Western and Russian academic circles. The findings show that historical accounts as well as various theoretical frameworks were used to explain the Russian foreign policy (RFP) regarding these conflicts. In comparison, although mono-theoretical models were utilized in both cases, they are more dominant in the works of Western scholars. On the other hand, inductive historical explanations were used more in the works of Russian scholars. Another important point is that in the latter studies, alternative accounts to the Western unilateralism are more popular. These accounts reveal themselves with concepts such as “multipolar world” or “Eurasianism”. As for the mono theoretical accounts, realist approaches seem to be the dominant framework in both cases. Realist frameworks emphasize the improved material capabilities of Russia and external pressures in its sphere of influence. The later component of the realist approach is stressed more by scholars from both academic circles. Moreover, even the studies that utilize different approaches, such as ideational explanations, domestic political factors, decision-maker related approaches, or the ones that highlight the regional competition, emphasize the role of the strategic or geopolitical imperatives as a factor that cannot be ignored regarding how RFP is formed and implemented.