The article analyzes the evolution of methods for the study of ideologies. The author demonstrates the limitations of the behavioral approach that has dominated in the 1950–1970. Development of critical discourse analysis discussed in the article as an opportunity to overcome this limitation. Special attention is directed to the contextual models of analysis of ideologies that allow for the variation in the values of ideological concepts, depending on the context. Highly evaluated the future of anthropological approach based on the theory of memes.

The article contains an attempt of analyzing basic philosophical and epistemological grounds of 2 doctrines, appeared in the 20^th century while studying political ideologies. The first is critical theory, based on such terms as interest, communication and explanation. The second is hermeneutics, which deals with traditions, prejudice, and comprehension. The author also explores possible variants of synthetic approach to ideology, which combines benefits of critics as well as hermeneutics.

The emancipatory potential of the idea of human rights in contemporary world is significantly limited due to the fact that it is often presented as a product of the Western civilization, which does not suit the political and cultural reality of non-Western countries. This article attempts to reassess universality of human rights from the point of view of poststructuralist hegemony theory. Hegemonic universality, which relies on Western dominance in world affairs, is indeed imperfect, and this is most evident in the peripheral countries, where the need to correlate universal norms with the particularity of Western hegemony dramatically distorts political process. This point is illustrated using the example of the inversion of the universal norm in the criminal case against the members of the Russian «Pussy Riot» punk band and the surrounding debate. Going beyond hegemonic universality necessitates a search for the new forms of the political. The article discusses one of the tentative ways to rethink human rights along these lines with a reference to Alain Badiou’s generic philosophy of the event.

The main aim of the article is consideration of modern ideas of nation and the ways of their implementation in contemporary Europe. Three ideas of nation had been elaborated to the beginning of the 20 th century-nation as a community of citizens, as a historical community, and as a separate community, and all of them are still relevant in spite of multiple predictions about the establishment of a post-national world order. The author concludes that in contemporary Europe the main factors changing not the ideas of nation, but the ways of their implementation are democratic norms and international law. Therefore a «strong» irredentism was replaced by «soft» one in a form of policies on compatriots abroad, and the complicated procedure of naturalization and integrative policies are used in substitution of genocide of «aliens». Moreover, the political autonomy of cultural and linguistic communities within the state and long-term constitutional reforms are now more common than the «pure» separatism.

In the article the evolution of Western-European social democracy in the end of the XXth and beginning of the XXI century is analyzed. The author considers the crisis of social democratic movement in 1980–90 es and the rise of «new» social democracy. The modernization of British Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair and the updating of German Social Democratic Party initiated by Gerhard Schröder are thoroughly examined in the article. The author also considers political and ideological processes proceeding in some of other social democratic parties. He comes to the conclusion that the global financial-economic crisis which began in 2008 interrupted European social democracy’s «driftage to the right».

This article examines key concepts (hegemony) and thesis (necessity to replace orthodox Marxism with radical democratic politics) of post-Marxist political theory. It also analyzes ideological discourse of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The article concludes with contention that left populism in Venezuela cannot be considered as a radical democracy because its priority was to tackle class divisions whilst neglecting other conflicts in private sphere.

The ideology of solidarism hasn’t been successfully developed in XIX century – in contrast to «full» ideologies of liberalism, social democracy and conservatism. However in a postmodern society solidarism has all chances to grow into more popular and attractive movement. The views resulted from the philosophy and ideology of solidarism (solidarity, trust, cooperation, subsidiarity, self-organizing, non-hierarchical interaction) are able to face the most urgent challenges of the present.

This article aims to examine the role of Russia’s «special way» concept in the country’s foreign policy debate in a historical-comparative perspective. It gives a brief historical survey of the exceptionalist ideology – in Russia and elsewhere (first of all, in the USA). Contemporary Russian political theories that are based on the idea of exceptionalism are analyzed. It is also studied to what extent the ideas of exceptionalism have affected the doctrinal basis of Russia’s international policies. It is concluded that, in the present-day Russian society, quite sustainable factors which cause a permanent reproduction of exceptionalist ideas in Russia’s political consciousness exist (and will exist in the foreseeable future).

The article examines the phenomenon of conspiracy theory as a tool of the populist rhetoric which is characteristic of political ideologies in contemporary world. Based on the current cases from American and Russian political history the author concludes that conspiracy theories are commonly used in political debates and ideologies of both of the countries. However, certain particularities in political cultures of Russia and the U.S. impact their development and further promotion in public discourse.

The article describes the trend of the strengthening of ideological functions of the public discourse of the leading think tanks in contemporary Russia. It argues that because of the deficit of supply of clearly articulated political alternatives, weakness of political parties, special features of media system and dynamics of the attitudes for collaboration of the power and expert community, since 2008 the leading Russian think tanks turn to become a major players at the ideological field and contributed to its structuring. The article is a preliminary result of collective project.

The article deals with the ideological content of modern public holidays. The author proposes the research model to analyze the ideology of public holidays. The ideology can take the verbal and non-verbal expression. It is focused at the idea of the holiday, which may be expressed as a narrative or a myth.

The article compares the conception of «conservative modernization» of Leo Tikhomirov (1852–1923) and the ideas of representatives of the German «conservative revolution» (the 1920s) The similarity of the projects is in the cultural and historical determinism, which led to absolutization of historical experience and, as a consequence, the creation of radical political project based on a retrospective utopia.