Article
A methodology for analyzing and forecasting sociopolitical destabilization
The article presents a methodology for the analysis of political crises meant to assess the current situation of sociopolitical (in)stability of the developing and developed societies in question, provide an inertial forecast of the developing situation in a given period, analyse threats to stability threats, and examine possible measures to counteract such threats and their likely influence on the situation. The methodology is based on modeling sociopolitical stability in the country in question with the help of an elaborate logical-mathematical model.
The approaches to the modeling of innovative development of economic systems based on the methodology of nonlinear dynamics are proposed. The generalized nonlinear dynamic models for the analysis of economic development is discussed. The loss of stability of the dynamic mode and the area of deterministic chaos are considered in terms of risk analysis
Main concepts and models of the modern theory of self-organization of complex systems, called also synergetics, are generalized and formulated in the book as principles of a synergetic world view. They are under discussion in the context of philosophical studies of holism, teleology, evolutionism as well as of gestalt-psychology; they are compared with some images from the history of human culture. The original and unfamiliar (to the Western readers) research results of the Moscow synergetic school which has its center at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences are expounded in the book. Complicated and paradoxical concepts of synergetics (structure-attractors, bifurcations, blow-up regimes, non-stationary dissipative structures of self-organization, fractals, non-linearity) are translated into an intelligible language and vividly illustrated by materials and examples from various fields of knowledge, starting with the laser thermonuclear fusion and concluding with mysterious phenomena of human psychology and creativity. The style of writing is close to that of popular-science literature. That's why the book might be of interest and is quite comprehensible for students and specialists in the humanities. It is shown that the development of synergetics entails deep changes in the conceptual net through which we comprehend the world. It means a radical shift of paradigm, a conceptual transition from being to becoming, from stability to sustainability, from images of order to chaos generating new ordered evolving structures, from self-maintaining systems to fast evolution through a nonlinear positive feedback, from evolution to co-evolution, reciprocal evolution of different complex systems. The new synergetic way of thinking is evolutionary, nonlinear and holistic. This is a modern stage of development within the traditions of cybernetics and system-structural analysis. However, many elements of the latter have undergone important changes since their appearance.
This article analyzes some important aspects of the world socioeconomic and political development in the near future. The future always stems from the present. The fi rst part of the article analyzes the global causes of the contemporary crisis and the possibilities to eliminate the most acute problems that have generated this crisis. The authors believe that in some respects the global fi nancial system, notwithstanding all its negative points, still performs certain important positive functions including the ‘insurance’ of social guaranties on a global scale. New fi nancial technologies decrease the risks in a rather eff ective way, they expand possibilities to attract and accumulate enormous capitals, actors, and markets. The modern fi nancial sector also contributes to the insurance for social funds on a global scale. The participation of pension and insurance funds in fi nancial operations leads to the globalization of social sphere. The countries poor in capital, but with large cohorts of young population, are involved more and more in a very important (though not quite apparent) process of supporting the elderly portion of population in the West through the vigorous unifi cation of the world’s fi nancial fl ows, their standardization, and by increasing global mobility and anonymity. The second part of the article considers some global scenarios of the World System’s future and describes several characteristics and forecasts of the forthcoming ‘Epoch of New Coalitions’. Among the problems analyzed in this paper are the following: What are the implications of the economic weakening of the USA as the World System center? Will the future World System have a leader? Will it experience a global governance defi cit? Will the world fragmentation increase?
Some texts written by me together with corresponding member of the Russian Academy of science Sergei P. Kurdyumov (1928-2004) and under his direct ideological influence are collected in the book. These texts are elaborated, systematized, brought together in the book and supplemented with new materials. Sergei P. Kurdyumov were possessed of a deep metaphysical flair and put forward ideas, the matter of which are not fully clear up to now. These are, first of all, the idea of co-evolution and the notion of complex structures developing at different tempos as co-existing tempo-worlds. Owing to developments in the field of nonlinear dynamics and of synergetics, the classical problem of time and the problems of evolutionary holism disclose some new and non-traditional aspects. The matter of new notions of nonlinearity of the course of time in the processes of evolution and coevolution and of nonlinear links between different modi of time – between the past, the present and the future - come to the light in the book. Analyses of four interconnected aspects of the course of processes in open and nonlinear dissipative systems – of evolutionarity, temporality, emergent nature and holism – are carried out. A whole series of paradoxical notions, such as “the influence of the future upon the present”, “the possibility of touch of a remote future in praesenti”, irreversibility and elements of reversibility of the course of time appear in synergetics, non-traditional and nonlinear notion of time being at the heart of all of them. It is shown that the best pictorial view of the nonlinear time is apparently the tree of evolution or the tree of time that represent one of archetypes in the human psyche. This image is widely used in myths and religious doctrines of the world nations (the tree of evolution of languages from some united parent language or the tree of evolution of biological species), the image is often drawn by children, appears in consciousness of a man in his sleep, etc. The synergetics methodology under development is applied to study of cognitive systems. The emergent structures of evolution and of self-organization of the individual consciousness, their spatiotemporal peculiarities, and the complexity of the human Self are considered in detail. The radical changes in the understanding of the problems of time that occur due to synergetics are compared with images of time and with the notions of connection between the past, the present and the future in the history of philosophy and of culture. The obtained methodological inferences are of great importance for a reform of systems of education, for forecasting (for building of scenarios of future development), for effective management activity in the modern globalizing world, for elaboration of methods of stimulation of the creative thinking, for the growth of personality and its adequate building into the social media.
The dynamic approach to understanding of the human consciousness, its cognitive activities and cognitive architecture is one of the most promising approaches in the modern epistemology and cognitive science. The conception of embodied mind is under discussion in the light of nonlinear dynamics and of the idea co-evolution of complex systems developed by the Moscow scientific school. The cognitive architecture of the embodied mind is rather complex: data from senses and products of rational thinking, the verbal and the pictorial, logic and intuition, the analytical and synthetic abilities of perception and of thinking, the local and the global, the analogue and the digital, the archaic and the post-modern are intertwined in it. In the process of cognition, co-evolution of embodied mind as an autopoietic system and its surroundings takes place. The perceptual and mental processes are bound up with the structure of human body. Nonlinear and circular connecting links between the subject of cognition and the world constructed by him can be metaphorically called a nonlinear cobweb of cognition. Cognition is an autopoietic activity because it is directed to the search of elements that are missed; it serves to completing integral structures. According to the theory of blow-up regimes in complex systems elaborated by Sergey P.Kudyumov and his followers, the idea of co-evolution is connected with the concept of tempoworlds. To co-evolve means to start to develop in one and the same tempoworld and to use the possibility – in case of a proper intergation into a whole structure – to accelerate the tempo of evolution. The cognitive activities of the human being can be considered as a movement (active walk) in landscapes of co-evolution when he cognizes and changes environment and is changed himself by the very activities. The similar conclusion can be drawn from Francisco Varela’s conception of enactive cognition.
The recent decade has witnessed remarkable success in various aspects of socioeconomic development in Tropical Africa. However, contrary to the “development is the best contraceptive” expectations, fertility in many countries remains stalled, frequently at very high levels of 5 and more children per woman. This actualizes the risks of population explosions, which are particularly sharp, and can bear truly dramatic consequences for national and even regional development, in the largest countries. In order to foresee such risks, valid population projections are necessary. The only widely recognized comprehensive series of such forecasts is currently developed by the UN Population Division; however, the method underlying their forecast has a number of limitations. We offer a different method for modelling the scenarios of demographic future of a given country. We apply this method to the case of Mozambique and reveal that the population projections calculated for Mozambique by the UN Population Division in 2012 – 2013 seem to be overly optimistic.
In this paper are studied the problems of legal development in the modern societies. This development is examined in the perspective of globalization and modernisation which lead the lawyers to the new understanding of communicative and social dimension of law. In author’s opinion, the contemporary theory of law needs a new approach to law which takes into account social possibilities of the interhuman behaviour and the social reality of law. Introducing such a theory implies a self-referent, operative and normative integrity of law and of the legal communication
Main concepts and models of the modern theory of self-organization of complex systems, called also synergetics, are generalized and formulated in the book as principles of a synergetic world view. They are under discussion in the context of philosophical studies of holism, teleology, evolutionism as well as of gestalt-psychology; they are compared with some images from the history of human culture. The original and unfamiliar (to the Western readers) research results of the Moscow synergetic school which has its center at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences are expounded in the book. The heuristic value of the synergetic models of evolution and self-organization of complex systems in epistemology and cognitive psychology, education and teaching, futures studies, social management activities and systems of global security is shown in the book. The book is addressed to a wide circle of readers: students, teachers, scientists who are specialized in different fields of natural sciences and the humanities as well as to all readers who strive for using recent results of science for reflections and achieving success in their own life.
The article deals with the processes of building the information society and security in the CIS in accordance with modern conditions. The main objective is to review existing mechanisms for the formation of a common information space in the Eurasian region, regarded as one of the essential aspects of international integration. The theoretical significance of the work is to determine the main controls of the regional information infrastructure, improved by the development of communication features in a rapid process.The practical component consists in determining the future policies of the region under consideration in building the information society. The study authors used historical-descriptive approach and factual analysis of events having to do with drawing the contours of today's global information society in the regional refraction.
The main result is the fact that the development of information and communication technologies, and network resources leads to increased threats of destabilization of the socio-political situation in view of the emergence of multiple centers that generate the ideological and psychological background. Keeping focused information policy can not be conceived without the collective participation of States in the first place, members of the group leaders of integration - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Currently, only produced a comprehensive approach to security in the information field in the Eurasian region, but the events in the world, largely thanks to modern technology, make the search for an exit strategy with a much higher speed. The article contributes to the science of international relations, engaging in interdisciplinary thinking that is associated with a transition period in the development of society. A study of current conditions in their relation to the current socio-political patterns of the authors leads to conclusions about the need for cooperation with the network centers of power in the modern information environment, the formation of alternative models of networking, especially in innovation and scientific and technical areas of information policy, and expanding the integration of the field in this region on the information content.
This special publication for the 2012 New Delhi Summit is a collection of articles by government officials from BRICS countries, representatives of international organizations, businessmen and leading researchers.
The list of Russian contributors includes Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, Maxim Medvedkov, Director of the Trade Negotiations Department of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, Vladimir Dmitriev, Vnesheconombank Chairman, Alexander Bedritsky, advisor to the Russian President, VadimLukov, Ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, and representatives of the academic community.
The publication also features articles by the President of Kazakhstan NursultanNazarbayev and internationally respected economist Jim O’Neil, who coined the term “BRIC”. In his article Jim O’Neil speculates about the future of the BRICS countries and the institution as a whole.
The publication addresses important issues of the global agenda, the priorities of BRICS and the Indian Presidency, the policies and competitive advantages of the participants, as well as BRICS institutionalization, enhancing efficiency and accountability of the forum.