Новые вызовы для политической науки

Политическая наука. 2024. № 2. С. 16–36.

Melville A. Y.

This article deals with some new theoretical and methodological
challenges for contemporary political science to wait for consideration. These
challenges are ontological and epistemological; on the one hand, they derive from the
objective dynamics the political, economic and social reality and, on the other hand,
from the emerging dilemmas of political science itself. The first type of challenges
comprises the following ones: the collapse of the post-Cold war world order, the
absence of the new theory of political development, the new conservative wave and its
consequences. The question of key drivers of political development – socio-economic
vs. cultural and value-based – is among academic issues to be addressed. The
significant variability of both authoritarianism and democracy is also a essential
challenge. In relation to democracies, there is now almost a crosscutting topic of more
or less gradual and smooth erosion of democracies “from within” (in contrast to
undermining of democracies “from the outside” in the 20th century). The issues of
capacity and resilience of modern states are also actively discussed by researchers;
there is a possibility that these discussions will help to overcome the long-established
focus on regime characteristics in the assessment of modern states. Among
epistemological challenges, it is worth mentioning the balance of quantitative and
qualitative methods, the problem of multidisciplinary approach, etc. This article
concentrates on the first type of challenges.

Keywords: демократия, устойчивость, state capacity, государственная состоятельность, democracy, development, развитие, мировой порядок, world order, resilience, theoretical and methodological challenges, “new authoritarianism”, теоретико-методологические вызовы, «новый авторитаризм»