The transfer of presidential power in a democratic regime is carried out through the institutional mechanism of public competition in elections. In this case, the phenomenon of «democratic uncertainty» arises, since it is not known who will be the winner and take the office of president. Under a regime with a democratic deficit, the political leader and the ruling elite seek to ensure a controlled transfer of presidential power in order to maintain their dominant position in politics and the economy. The article analyzes the main models of controlled transfer of power of the head of state in presidential systems. First, the president can «transfer» power «by inheritance» to one of the closest relatives, thereby creating authoritarian political dynasties outside monarchies. Secondly, it is possible that the president, due to his old age or political considerations, leaves his post and moves to another government post in order to control the political situation. A reliable successor is selected for the presidency. Thirdly, the restriction on the replacement of the same person’s office as president and the reluctance to change the constitution lead to a rare scenario in which the president prepares a reliable and faithful successor to his office for one term, and after it expires, returns to the president’s office. Fourthly, the transfer of power to the successor can occur along with complete retirement of the outgoing president. At the same time, strong institutional guarantees are created for the outgoing president and members of his family. Finally, fifthly, the outgoing president may initiate a change of the form of government: presidential - to parliamentary or semi-presidential with a very weak president or parliamentary to a presidential system. The goal of this transition is to change the balance of power in favor of the strengthened prime minister or the strengthened president. The article also considers the institutional mechanisms that ensure a controlled transfer of presidential power: the constitutional change of the «second person» in the state; decreasing age or canceling the lower age threshold for a presidential candidate; the creation of new posts; Mexican practice «dedazo»; change of the form of government; institutional guarantees to the outgoing president.

The article studies main theoretical approaches in the field of managing ethno-cultural diversity in divided societies - consociationalism and centripetalism. The presidential semi-presidential and parliamentary systems are analyzed through the lens of these two approaches. The article shows on the Turkish example that new states often apply nationalizing strategies of ethnic diversity management aimed at minority assimilation. This strategy in Turkey led to ethnicity politization, ethnic conflicts and ethnic terrorism. Turkish elites have never raised the issue of the Kurdish segment participation in the decision-making process as a separate recognized segment. Institutional transformations, i.e. from parliamentary to premier presidential and then to presidential systems were also aimed at maintaining the nationalizing strategies of ethnic conflict management. The article analyzes the prospects of application of consociational and centripetal institutional arrangements. The consociational mechanisms application are hindered by the dominance of the Turkish segment, nonrecognition of the Kurdish segment and disunity among the Kurds. The article concludes that the present presidential system sets structural conditions for centripetal model of conflict management. The Justice and development party is the only party which could become the moderate center for this model. The article concludes that the solution to the Kurdish question could be proposed before the next parliamentary and presidential elections. In order to win the elections in 2023 the party and president Recep Erdoğan will have to set the course for integration of Turkish kurds simultaneously with strengthening border security.

The article deals with the cases of early termination of the president powers in the post-Soviet space. The constitutional norms of early termination of the head of state powers and their implementation in political practice are analyzed. Cases of early termination of the president powers are divided into four groups: 1) resignation on the initiative of the president for the purpose of early elections, transfer of power to the successor and preservation of guarantees; 2) resignation under the threat of unconstitutional removal from office in a situation of political crisis, conflict or coup; 3) death of the president; 4) removal from office. The greatest number of cases of early termination of the president powers is the resignation of the president under the threat of unconstitutional dismissal in a situation of political crisis, conflict or coup. In violation of constitutional norms, the presidential power was transferred in 11 cases out of 16. Most of the presidents who terminated their powers ahead of time had no influence on political decision-making after their resignation. The two-dimensional typology of regimes in the post-Soviet space based on the criteria of the statehood index and institutional foundations of democracy index can serve as an explanatory model of different outcomes of the early termination of the president’s powers. All cases of early termination of powers as a result of crises and coups belong to the group of states with a low statehood index and the majority of them - to the group of states with a low institutional foundations of democracy index. The cases of successful power transfer to the successor belong to the group of states with a high statehood index and a low institutional foundations of democracy index. The statehood index can explain why in some cases the resignation of the president is accompanied by a political crisis, while in others it leads to the continuity of power. The resignation of the president in conditions of low political institutionalization and the level of statehood in most cases is accompanied by destabilization and a general crisis of the political regime. This makes it possible to make a forecast regarding future cases of early termination of powers in the post-Soviet space: in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, the form of transfer of power through succession can be reproduced further, it can also be successfully implemented in Belarus as well. In other post-Soviet states the legal power transfer can only occur when the statehood index or institutional foundations of democracy index increases.

The article discusses the main trends in the evolution of the interaction mechanisms of the president, government and parliament in semi-presidential systems. The political systems of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Republic of Turkey are presented as comparative referees. The authors draw attention to the combination of internal and external factors of changes in these political systems that influence the nature of relations between the main institutions of state power. We used the methodology of index analysis of semi-presidential systems. An analysis of the data suggests that in the period under review only the Turkish system demonstrated a progressive concentration of power in the hands of the President within the «President - Parliament - Government» triangle. In the Turkish case, there is a transition from a parliamentary model with a «strong President» at the first stage to a full-fledged mixed form of government, the index of which is identical to the index of the prime-presidential model of Ukraine under the 2004 Constitution. At the second stage, the Turkish mixed form evolved towards strengthening presidentialization based on the results of the 2017 referendum. Ukraine has demonstrated the unstable dynamics of the evolution of relations between the President and the Prime Minister. The presidential-parliamentary version of the model established by the 1996 Constitution was abolished at the first stage as a result of the political agreement of V. Yanukovich and V. Yushchenko in 2004. This transition is characterized by parliamentarization and the strengthening of the Prime Minister within the framework of the Premier-Presidential system of interactions. At the next stage in 2010, there was a return to the constitutional model of 1996, expressed in the concentration of powers of the head of state and reverse presidentialization. At the third stage, as a result of the «revolution of dignity», the interaction between the President and the Prime Minister returned to the 2004 format. Analysis of the parameters of the Russian system within the framework of the index approach leads to the conclusion that there is no dynamics in the evolution of the form of government. The only adoption of the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2008 did not lead to a change in the foundations of the dualism of the executive (the amendments in principle do not have parameters analyzed by the index model).

The objects of study are 14 relatively holistic political systems located today in Central and Southeastern Europe. Socio-political processes in these polities occur with varying intensity, causing one or another image of their institutional design. One of the main problems of post-communist Europe to this day remains the question of the interaction and effectiveness of various institutions of power, first of all, the president, the parliament and the government. There are at least three major critical points of the institutional development of the polities under study in the twentieth century: the constitutional process of the 1910 s - 1920 s, the formation of «people's democracy» of the 1940 s. and the post-communist transformation of the late 1980 s - early 1990 s. Institutional import «from the past» for various reasons prevails. From the standpoint of the theory of rational choice at the critical points of institutional development, the main competitors were the republic and the monarchy, presidential and parliamentary systems, dictatorship and democracy. Analysis of the transformation processes of constitutional legislation in the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe makes it possible to identify two models: reconstruction and dismantling. The article presents the results of comparing the volume of presidential power using indexes according to the Krouwel-method. Institutional choice in post-communist Europe is limited not only by the transit situation, but also by the impossibility of going beyond the limits of republicanism, the theory of parliamentary and semi-presidential rule. This is explained not so much by the rationality of choice, as by cutting off alternatives that increase the transaction costs of political actors. The institutional interests of actors in the context of post-communism turned out to be directly related to the desire to achieve, maintain or strengthen their privileged position. Hence, the wide practice of manipulating institutions. The manipulative possibilities offered by the institutional design of post-communist countries in Europe are inversely proportional to the rootedness of the most important institutions of political democracy.

Discusses the genesis of the institute of presidency in the USSR in 1990, identifies the political factors that led to the establishment of the post of the President in the Soviet Union, analyzed the authority of the President of the USSR, the usage by the President of USSR M.S. Gorbachev of the practice of issuing decrees for carrying out his policies for the solution of acute socio-political problems, the preservation of the integrity of the Union state, the support of science, education and culture. The practice of application by the President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin of rule by decree is also considered. Yeltsin of the decree right in carrying out a course of «shock therapy», during the so-called August coup of 1991 and the October political crisis of 1993. The constitutional and legislative base of the Institute of presidency in the USSR, the RSFSR and the Russian Federation is studied. Particular emphasis is placed on comparing the original draft Constitution of the Russian Federation, submitted by Boris Yeltsin to the Constitutional Assembly in April 1993, and the final text of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted by referendum on December 12, 1993. The further development of the legal basis of the Institute of presidency in Russia at the present stage is traced.

States that are dependent on world oil prices are especially vulnerable during the economic crisis. However, many petrostates retain stability. If the sources of stability of authoritarian petrostates during the period of high oil prices are well studied, the basics of the political survival of such regimes in crisis conditions remain unclear. This article analyzes Russia's political processes in the period 2012-2018 to study the main factors of the political sustainability of the regime in a crisis. I argue that political stability during this period was conditioned not only by the presence of oil rent, preventive government measures to create state reserves and other favorable economic factors of the past years. Strategic actions of the president played no less a role, aimed at 1) adjusting the economic course of the government to take into account political interests and accomplish the electoral objective of 2018; 2) maintaining a stable (self-enforsing) ruling coalition. I demonstrate the course and political consequences of decision making in Russia on the issues of spending state reserves and privatization of the largest state corporations. I show also that the specific direction of these decisions was conditioned by the intervention of the president to protect their political interests. The analysis of personnel policy and elite interactions with the help of formal modeling allowed to reveal the logic of transformation of the ruling coalition and to reveal the significance of this process for maintaining the stability of the political regime.

Presidentialism is a specific type of political system, which entails the direct mandate for the head of state in policy development and implementation. Chief executive under presidentialism has an entire control over the government. The direct mandate also implies direct accountability: negative policy outcomes and consequences should affect the president’s rating and ultimately - electoral survival. Russian case defies this logic - despite the protracted economic downturn in 2010 s and perceived central role of the president in governing the country, Vladimir Putin maintained high approval rating and was successfully reelected in 2018. Using the models of responsibility attribution and focus-group discussions on the origins and consequences of economic crisis in Russia as an empirics, we argue that the lack of institutional clarity / institutional complexity explains this phenomenon. Divided political responsibility between the president and the parliament invokes the blame game between the branches of power ; as a result, the government and the State Duma act as «lighting rods» in Russian political system. Moreover, the transitional character of Russian economy with frequent downturns and drawbacks hinders the adequate evaluation of its state by the citizens and complicates further the responsibility attribution. This study helps to situate the economic voting and responsibility attribution models to the complex political contexts beyond established Western democracies and points to the importance of institutional complexities, which might help or hinder the citizens to hold governments accountable for the economic misfortunes.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the religious factor of Russian presidentialism and the mechanisms of communication between the President and religious organizations. The author distinguishes two typical communication algorithms: algorithm «A» (development of mechanisms of articulation of religious organizations' interests and the formation of institutions of their representation in order to influence decision-making by public authorities) and algorithm «B» (the state uses the religious factor in the implementation of state policy, using existing or creating new mechanisms of communication for interaction with religious organizations). It is shown how these algorithms were implemented in solving specific problems facing the state and religious organizations (development and adoption of the law «On freedom of conscience and religious associations», the transfer of ownership of religious buildings to religious organizations, etc.). In the article the analysis of the institutes of the communication of the President with religious organizations. Special attention is paid to the evolution of the functions of the Council for interaction with religious associations under the President of the Russian Federation and their evolution. It is concluded that the Council is the most important institution that allows religious organizations to articulate their interests in their interaction with the President, that membership in the Council is a de facto criterion of the traditional character of a religious organization, which in turn opens up opportunities for its joint activities with state institutions. At the same time, the President's direct communication with the leaders of religious organizations outside the framework of state institutions is also important. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the mediation function of the President in resolving conflict situations in the religious sphere. The importance of this function in the period of V. Putin's power is shown. The mediation mission of the President is analyzed on the example of overcoming the conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and in a number of other subjects. The symbolic aspect of interaction between the President and religious organizations is also considered; it is shown that the religious factor is manifested in the inauguration ceremony of the presidents, and belonging to the Orthodox religious tradition is one of the components of the image of Russian presidents. The conclusion is made about the peculiarities and evolution of the interaction between the President and religious organizations: the formation of their institutional foundations by the end of the 1990 s, the predominance of the algorithm «A» until the early 2000 s and its gradual replacement by the algorithm «B» in the subsequent period; and also that their key actor is the Russian Orthodox Church, which realizes most of the opportunities available to religious organizations to build interactions with the President of Russia.

Subject of the article is Presidential term and attempts of autocrats to extend it as longer as possible. There are discussed advantages and negative aspects of unlimited opportunities for presidency. In author’s view, unlimited long presidency have to be identified rather with personalist regime as a variety of authoritarian one. Essence of that regime is a personification of power and its concentration in hands of one person - the President under authoritarian regime, the General Secretary of dominant party, the Caudillo, leader of nation etc. Author discovers some other features of personalist regime and its incompatibility with principles of democracy: sovereignty of the people, separation of powers, political competition, freedom of oppositions, civic and political rights and freedoms and others. Main part of the article is devoted to reasons why Presidents or other subjects of supreme power go out from their office and to analysis of means to continue presidency by manipulation with constitution: including norm on presidency for life, extending president term, appointment of successor, transformation of political system from presidential one into parliamentary, and some others. In conclusion it is pointed out on problem of transit of power in Russia.

This article analyzes the growing problems of the functioning of the institution of presidential power in the United States in the first third of the twenty-first century. It is emphasized that the modern features of the search for the role-playing model of the president are determined by two main factors: the historical tradition of the emergence of the «great» American presidents and the gradual increase in the role of the US president as the world leader of the «collective West». The latter role dramatically expands the sphere of responsibility and the scale of assessments of the effectiveness of the president’s activities as head of the executive branch of government. As a result, the general result of the activities of many US administrations and presidents was the growing dysfunctional syndrome of the institution of presidential power, expressed in the inability of the White House to simultaneously solve the increasingly complex of internal and external problems facing the United States, especially in the context of globalization. As a consequence of the inability to maintain a balance of domestic and foreign policy problems in the XXI century. the phenomenon of the «imperial presidency», which is defined as the systematic exit of the institution of presidential power beyond the limits established by the US Constitution, begins to play an increasing role. The phenomenon of the «imperial presidency» was especially pronounced during the years when President D. Trump was in power (2017-2019). It is concluded that by electing the presidency with the model image of the president of the first third of the XIX century. E. Jackson (1829-1837), D. Trump relatively quickly found himself in a situation of chronic crisis of his presidential identity due to the need to become at the same time the «great» American president and the most authoritative American World leader of the newest historical period. As a result, D. Trump found himself in a kind of historical trap, having managed to carry out only one large-scale reform in the field of federal taxation during the first years in power, and simultaneously entered into serious foreign policy conflicts, far from being resolved, with all the centers of world politics, including even the closest geographic neighbors of the United States - Mexico and Canada.

In a framework of the general typology of presidential regimes the classic American model of presidential system of government traditionally played the role of an ideal type and an instructive pattern as based on the strict separation of power’s principle, to be more compatible with democratic values and institutes, and having possibility to avoid the authoritarian backslide of the presidential rule in other regions of the world. But how this system could function in a new dramatic situation of the deep value conflict, divided society, growing political polarization and partisan interpretations of the basic constitutional norms as demonstrated after the US presidential elections of 2016? Having in mind this dilemma the author sketches the role of the current constitutional debates in American society, the evolving deformation of the checks and balances system showing the shifting balance of power relations under the Imperial presidency new modification regarding such issues as the US president’s prerogatives, executive orders and emergency declarations. Among the important author’s conclusions is the idea that in a new cultural and political situation the formally effective methods of the extralegal regulation could be used by the presidential power for the potentially undemocratic transformation of the American political system.

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation is an institution of a dual political and legal nature, but the existence and admissibility of the political motives in the Court’s decisions are often questioned. This article offers a political analysis of a concrete judicial act - the Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation for the existence of political motivation in its legal justification. As an object of the analysis was chosen the Resolution meaningful for the legal and political sphere, which enshrines the right of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in certain cases to allow non-execution of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights made against Russia. The analysis of the judicial act was carried out within the framework of Michael Freeden’s theory of political thinking. Consistently testing the signs of political thinking highlighted by Freeden, the author comes to the conclusion that there are political motives in adopting the Resolution, which is due to the special status and role of the Constitutional Court in the political system of modern Russia. Making a final decision regarding the issue of the legal force of international legal acts, highlighting the principle of state sovereignty as a priority, demonstrating a conflict of interest between the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights, striving to mobilize public support to the Resolution, empowering itself with an additional authority to decide on the enforceability of acts of the ECtHR and implementation of legal policy are signs of political thinking, which allow to make a conclusion about political motives of the Constitutional Court of Russia. Taken together, these features confirm the political nature of the Constitutional Court of Russia. The analysis shows that the theory of political thinking of Michael Frieden has a sufficient degree of universality to apply to different political concepts.