Paper analyses current state of art in the field of comparative world politics and figures out the reasons why this is still a subfield, not the mainstream. Authors of the paper also discuss some research articles which study world political phenomena using comparative metho- dology.

The article compares the main factors affecting the development of the science of international relations in Russia and China, leading research trends in both countries, the model of the future world order. The Russian vision problems more pluralistic and less regulatory. In China, where is more demand and support for such research, scientists were able to quickly fit into the global scientific landscape of international theory and further progress towards the formation and establishment of their own «big ideas».

The article is written on globalization and its various models on successive historical stages. The idea of growing one type of peace was premature. Draws attention to the systemic nature of the global financial and economic crisis. It complements and complicates the crisis of world civilization, exacerbating global problems. Describes the major trends characterize contemporary globalization. Fixed segmentation of the global space into several competing systems integration. Highlights the difficulty of forming a new world order in the absence of a recognized global leader and the importance of the environment for the emergence of viable leadership Institute.

The article is devoted to theoretical aspects of integration policies, States that participate in the development and implementation of projects that create economic and political framework of the Northern route of the «Economic belt of the Silk road». Examples of application of indices characterizing the potential of integration policy.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the international political strategies of the United States, Russia, China, India and the European Union in Eurasia. The study identifies the key trends in the transformation of the Eurasian political space, study their impact on the internal dynamics of these strategies. Prospects of maintaining sustainability on the continent are bound to Russian-Chinese multilateral integration initiatives.

The author analyses in this article emergence of newest Eurasian integration concepts, Russian-lead Eurasian Economic Union and inspired by China «Economic belt of Silk road». The differences of economic and ideological approaches, of national leader’s political aims and content of Russian and Chinese official documents, as well as their geopolitical competition in Central Asia are taken into account.

The article discusses methodological solutions to the “n = 1” problem, otherwise known as a sui generis problem in the study of the EU that seemingly leads to inability to conduct comparative research. Yet, engagement of the EU scholars both with comparative politics and new regionalism has produced a surge in number of articles based on comparative method. Research investigation into four academic journals shows that this trend is distinctive of English-language journals but not of the Russian ones.

The article describes the major issues of the European Higher Education Area development in the context of the Yerevan Ministerial Conference and the Fourth Bologna Policy Forum (May 2015), and the policy of Russia toward the European Higher Education Area.

The article summarizes preliminary results of the discussions about «the Other» and the nexus «Self / Other» in the studies of international relations and world politics in the 2000-2010 s. It is particularly focused at analysis of the research tools for comparative empirical study of othering in different concepts - models, scales and classificatory schemes that could help to reveal different modalities of inclusion / exclusion and othering in the process of identity construction. In conclusion the author suggests the range of issues for further empirical study and theoretical reflection.

The article presents a look at national development strategies from the perspective of post-structuralist and critical discourse analysis. The author analyzes two major discourses of development in world politics - the discourse of high technology and the discourse of sustainable development in their relations with the counter-discourses. Comparison of discourses is carried out through a comparison of the specific strategies that social forces use in struggle for discursive hegemony.

Paper analyses current trends in development of communication technologies as a major driver of transformation of information policy models and the whole field of political communications. Author makes an attempt to forecast the development of communication technologies and its political consequences. He concludes that the trend of visualization will persist while new trend of conceptual content of the messages emerges.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the arctic strategies of Russia and the USA for the XXI century. Special attention is paid to consideration of national interests, goals and objectives of the arctic policies of both countries. An important place in the study is given to evaluate the resources with which both the arctic powers to master the region. Also provides information about the key projects that could be implemented the USA and Russia in the Arctic region in recent years. In addition, the priority directions of development of the arctic policy of Russia and the USA over the next decade.

The report analyses and compares the EU strategic program Eastern Partnership and Mediterranean policy which are the part of wide initiative called European Neighbourhood policy. Positive and negative sides of program, attitude and intentions of program's actors, history of creation and the result of initiative today are shown and compared in the research.

The article considers the process of foreign multinational corporations entering into the Caspian region in early to mid-1990 s - the period that became a starting point for a determination of regional energy policy. The comparative analysis of foreign companies’ involvement is carried out to oil and gas industry of the coastal states. The author objects to exclusiveness of an economic aspect as a reason of foreign business activity and tries to define a political pretext of regional and non-regional actors.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the integration policy of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union. The conclusion is that today EEU experiencing serious financial and economic difficulties. The author believes that the existing political agreements, dynamic policy in the future is the basis of the EEU transition to the next stage of integration.

The author proposes an approach to the comparison of renewable energy politics between EU member-states. Besides, the historical and legal frames of renewable energy support politics are researched. The special focus is made on the analysis of historical and legal frames, on the statistical key figures regarding the effectiveness of the renewable energy politics in the EU member-states; in addition, some key features and differences are shown.