The article presents an overview of key trends of research on Russian politics in Western political science after the Soviet collapse.
It is focused on analysis of major achievements and shortcomings in academic studies on Russian politics over the last two decades. To what extent this scholarship improves our understanding of contemporary political developments in Russia, what are the major frameworks for analyses, and which political issues needs more in-depth research in the future?

The article studies basic directions of research on Russian politics presented in three political science journals: «The Polis», «The Politea» and «The Political Science».
The most and the least investigated themes of Russian politics are revealed by means of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Special attention is paid to scientific genres of articles on politics in Russia in the three journals analyzed. Moreover, the correlation of the themes of articles with modern Russian «agenda» is considered.

In Viktor Kovalev's article «2012 as 1984» possibilities of a transformation of the political mode in modern Russia are analyzed. Parallels between the present «neo-stagnation» and the situation in the USSR in the mid 1980s are drawn. To illustrate the comparison A. Amalrik's well-known work «Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984?» is chosen.
According to the author of article, in the conditions of the curtailing in the Russian Federation of mechanisms of public policy and competition, the role of the 2011 and 2012 federal elections is not very considerable. The greatest influence on the political conditions in the country will be exercised by non-political and external factors. In its present condition the Russian political mode will not be able to respond to those challenges.

The article explores the consequences of current transformation of Russia's political system within the context of global turbulence. The new configuration of power after the 2011 and 2012 elections will not so much determine a radical change in Russian foreign policy, but indicate whether or not Russia will become a new source of global turbulence. In the author's view the evolution of domestic policy will steadily stir demand for particular doctrines on the part of interest groups. At the same time global turbulence collisions might significantly alter daily foreign policy and conceptual interpretations of its key objectives.

The article is focused on the Russian political process during the 1990s - 2000s, analyzed in the light of the hypothesis of the formation of a new presidential political cycle in Russia. The mechanism of the change of the President teams by means of presidential elections, which was being formed in the course of 1999-2008, is understood as a new institutional element of modern Russian politics. The author shows that some political events, which took place in the autumn of 2011 and are connected with the 2012 presidential elections, cast doubt on the hypothesis analyzed and call for new theoretical concepts to be sought.

The article analyzes methodical problems of the construction of political ratings. The author discusses possibilities and restrictions of their use in an election campaign. The urgency of researchers' efforts to create political and electoral ratings decreases in a situation where the level of political competition declines and election turns into a mechanism of achieving the «preset result».

The article is devoted to the issue of regional representation in Russian parliament. The level of regional representation did not decrease, but even slightly increased in the State Duma of the fifth convocation. The author tries to answer the question how the change in the electoral system can influence the configuration of elites in the party lists and how parties' opportunities were changed by loopholes in the law, also why the «United Russia» won the 2007 electoral campaign.

The article analyzes why on the eve of 2012 one can derive an idea of the political situation in the country not from academic political science journals, but rather from observations of everyday life in Russian society.

Everyday life in Russia goes on in specific social and economic conditions which determine their world attitudes and values. These conditions and categories are elucidated on the base of statistical data and numerous polls.

The author examines the evolution of political institutions in post-Soviet Russia, points out the role of the choice of institutions
in the 1990s, analyzes prospects of a change of political institutions in the light of the «2012 problem».

The article considers processes of the recruitment of heads of regional legislative assemblies in the context of the institutional transformations which have taken place at the federal and regional level in the last two decades. When analyzing recruitment mechanisms we focus on the consideration of informal practices, with particular attention paid to the place and role of party tools in the process. This paper presents the results of the empirical study based on the analysis of the head staff of CFD regional legislative assemblies in the 1993-2011 period.