The aim of the research presented in this article is to develop an institutional approach for analyzing the prospects of formation of modern politics in Russia. The research task is set to study the possibilities and conditions for constituting of a political field / space as a sphere for deployment of political practices. Institutional problems that impede implementation of modern-type politics are shown. The status, prerequisites, conditions and criteria for constituting of a political space in modern Russia are considered on the base of the ideal-typical construct of political field and the notion of «zone of power» developed by the authors. The possibility of a strategic turn of today’s authorities towards a new development model is being discussed.

The article analyzes the relationship / interdependence of politics and gender. According to the reception of reflections of classics of political sociology, such as H. Arendt, P. Bourdieu and others, the mechanisms of differentiation between structures of «political field» and «zone of power» are described in terms of public - masculine, where freedom, equality, voting rights exist, and private - feminine, dominated by need, inequality and violence. On this basis the author shows how gender polarisation and subordination become acts of symbolic violence that ensures the stability of social hierarchies even when social and political changes call into question their very existence. As an example, gender redistribution of political field is considered, which became relevant in the modern era and has recently acquired a special relevance and significance for the development of social practices of those who seek political subjecness.

The article examines the understanding of the political by Neoclassical Republicans as an institutionally organized space in which moral order, civil norms and rule of law prevent the possibility of lawlessness of power. The political in this interpretation is an event that occurs under a combination of certain circumstances. The subject of analysis are the possibilities and ways of arranging such a political order, offered by Neoclassical Republicans. These are revealed in freedom as non-domination - the key concept of the theory of neoclassical republicanism. The Neo-Republic project of constituting of a political field in Russia highlights the following priorities: creation of a non-manipulative and corruption-resistant system; observance of law as the main citizen virtue; preference of a contestatory form of civic activity over a mass participation of citizens in the process of political decision making; entrusting the state with the role of a subject of social justice. The implementation of this policy is hampered by the negative consequences of the marketization of society: expansion of market ethos and principles into the political sphere; reducing citizen’s status to the consumer’s position; erosion of the foundations of social cohesion and solidarity; growth of inequality and political poverty; loss of skills in democratic citizenship; redefinition of civic virtues.

The article analyzes the main theoretical approaches to the study of deliberation and deliberative democracy as a new paradigm of modern democratic theory and political theory in general. The article considers the main normative principles of the deliberation as a new mode of political participation and concludes that the deliberation is a model of modern politics; the conditions under which the implementation of such a model is possible in contemporary Russia are formulated as well.

The article examines the possibility of using «politicization» and «depoliticization» concepts in a theoretical analysis of processes of constituting and structuring of a political field. Different interpretations of politicization and depoliticization are conditioned by different understandings of the essence of politics / the political. The author, using an ideal-typical model of a political field, includes conflict, availability of choice, goal-setting and universality of norms into a definition of political. Thus, politicization denotes emergence of opportunities for articulation of social contradictions and realization of political subjectness in an area of choice and goal-setting, while depoliticization denotes denial of conflict, eradication of choice, and destruction of rules of political interaction. As a process of a political community’s formation out of a proto-political, politicization determines horizontal structuring of a political field. In this process alternative strategic projects are being formulated, which contain the basic principles of society’s organization, goals and directions of its development. These projects ensure the actualization of the political, and their competition serves as a mechanism for (re)production of a political field. It is necessary to discover and analyze such projects to assess the prospects for constituting of a political field.

Understanding politics as institutionalised, rule-based, not violence-based, competition of oriented to common good projects and decisions in an unlimited number of free citizens, concepts of quasi-politics forms are formulated, which can exist «instead of» politics. These are unfinished politics (flickering politics and proto-politics) and inhibitors of politics (pre-politics and anti-politics). Considering dynamics of some concepts mentioned we came to the conclusion, that there was hardly any distinct formation of political space in last decade’s Russia - due to social and political ignorance of Russians and their unwillingness to know, persistent infantilization, adherence to super-valued ideas and cult of authoritarian consciousness, a systematic «departure from reality» into a «toy» sociality, with growing dissatisfaction with this sociality, but instead the absolute majority cannot offer anything because of low civil and political competence.

The purpose of the article is to develop theoretical and methodological tools for institutional research of political sphere. Two complementary institutional approaches are considered: the theory of organizational fields that allows to form the object of institutional research, namely, the area in which the institutional order arises, as well as the theory of institutional logic that allows to analyze the content of institutional order and to trace the interrelation between the material and symbolic elements of institutions. The author analyzes key problems and potential solutions in connection with the application of approaches and suggests principles for their application to the study of the field of political interactions.

The article analyzes some features and algorithms of public politics’ perception, characteristic for Russian political culture. It reveals the value basis of the «average Russian’s» distancing from politics and his incompetence in matters of state’s and political system’s institutional design. The interpretative schemes circulating in mass consciousness are analyzed, on this basis the prospects for the formation of a mass «spectator» - an interested observer, necessary for the constitution of a political field - are assessed.

The article discusses problems of fragmentation, unformedness, inconsistency of different population groups’ political identity models in contemporary Russia. The author is convinced that neither a political elite nor an active public can currently offer any attractive positive image of the «Russia project», therefore their ability to control such an attitude of mass political consciousness as political identity is considerably reduced. The author believes that researchers cannot build a universal classification of political identity models for different societies, despite having a basic matrix of state and political identity and some essential characteristics that set a spectrum of political assessments. Nevertheless, classical system approach of political identity models, assessing essential characteristics, influence factors, adaptation possibilities, political and social effects, provides a fairly accurate understanding of this phenomenon.

This article explores the Buryat policy description language generated in the public space. It classifies politicians into groups - clans, and the most frequently mentioned clan «semeiskie» is described as one of the strongest. The problem of the clan system existence is explored through the neo-patrimonialism theory. It allows us to examine whether a rational state really exists along with patrimonial relations, and whether these groups really are clans.

The article describes the phenomenon of citizen’s subjectness, an analysis of the conditions of its emergence and role in the formation of the political field. The author considers the importance of formal civil rights, empowerment and mobilizing actors to ensure the subjectivity of the individual. The empirical evidence (interviews, data of included observation and linguistic statistical analysis of texts) illustrates the possibilities of using theoretical ideas of the «political field», «power zone», «proto-political field» for studying political processes in contemporary Russia.

Today, a huge number of subnational actors are actively participating in international relations. The foreign policy of these actors is different in its objectives, formats and effectiveness. On the example of Pavlodar and Omsk regions development of paradiplomacy is shown in accordance with the signed agreements, the basis of which are the «Convention on cross-border cooperation of the states-participants of the Commonwealth of Independent States» ratified by Kazakhstan and the Federal Law of the Russian Federation «On Basic Principles of Cross-Border Cooperation». The role of subnational actors in conflict resolution and the existing contradictions in this issue are reflected. The factors influencing the strengthening of the role of subnational actors are identified.

The article describes the algorithm of contextual (semantic) ideologemes identification as a method of studying the products of the political field and shows the results of its approbation on documents of Nizhny Novgorod regional politics. By the results it is concluded that governing regional culture determines the aims of cultural politics while governing city culture represents cultural politics in the instrumental way, in the context of achieving the aims set by the region. The successful approbation of the algorithm renders possible its usage for contextual ideologemes identification and for solving various problems connected with studying the political field and its agents whose aims, objectives and activities are reflected in documents they produce.

The article presents a process-oriented description of de / re-politicization of rural protests in Chinese media by comparing the story line of protests and its representation in media. It shows that Chinese mass media not only downplay the «anti-system» radical nature of rural protests, but also embed protests into the frames of deepening reform, even though the protests in reality don’t quite fit into this discourse.

The article is an overview of the dissertations of domestic researchers whose scientific interest is centered on the theory of political space. Approaches to the definition and conceptualization, the need to rethink the understanding of the «political space» in the conditions of modern transformation processes is the central theme of the scientific papers presented in this review.