The article examines the main theoretical approaches to the study of the image of the country formed at the level of mass political consciousness. The article offers research models for studying this multi-component construct and adaptive methodological strategies for implementing the study in the context of the dynamics of the society psychological state, the emergence of new challenges and threats in social practice. The author draws attention to the specifics of concepts operationalization relevant for studying the phenomenon of country political perception, the logic of choosing research paradigms and interpretative research schemes, the prospects and limitations of the researcher's choice of methodological tools. The importance of using the tactics of triangulation in modern scientific interdisciplinary projects devoted to studying the features of the formation of citizens' ideas about their country is emphasized. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methodology in research into the characteristics of the political perception of the country seems to be a promising direction. It allows us to take into account social contexts, national research traditions, and to consider the political image being studied not in isolation, but in a mental and ideological context; not statically, but dynamically, taking into account changing trends in political perception. In substantiating this statement, the author discusses the merits and prospects of the political-psychological approach in the study of the image of a country, formed in mass political consciousness, under the influence of various factors associated with the object and subject of perception, temporal and spatial dimensions. The issue of considering both rationalized and unconscious aspects of citizens' perception of their country is raised. The importance of choosing this research perspective in the context of different scientific goals, the specifics of the formation of research models and methodological strategies under its influence are discussed. 

The article presents a methodological analysis of research of ideology within the framework of political psychology, as one of the subdisciplines that actively works with this phenomenon empirically. The interpretation of ideology as a set of interrelated beliefs and attitudes that organize individuals’ views on political and social issues, that is more or less conventional in the political-psychological literature, cuts off many components of the concept of ideology that are considered crucially important in other political subdisciplines, like a collective nature of shared beliefs, their connection with the social position of the group, its significance for establishing and maintaining relations of domination, etc. It facilitates focusing on what can be observed empirically – the degree of consistency of individuals’ political attitudes. The article analyzes the discussions about methodology of measuring ideological differences and validity of the left-right dimension in different contexts, about the problem of the “ideological innocence” of the mass public, and offers an overview of the main results of foreign studies of the psychological foundations of political ideology. It discusses how political psychological studies of ideology reinforce or problematize approaches developed in other areas of political science.

The article examines the representations of Russian youth about the ideal state of the state, society and man through the prism of the axiological concept of “silence”. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the authors’ research is the political and psychological approach, which allows analyzing values and ideas as elements of the political consciousness and worldview of young people. The interpretation of the traditional axiological concept of “silence” was carried out based on the developments of historians of socio-political thought. The empirical basis of the study was the materials of 31 focus groups conducted with Russian youth aged 14 to 30 in 2021–24, which were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative procedures.
The results of the study showed that the semantic framework of Russian youth’s representations about “silence” as an ideal socio-political state is a set of political values of peace, security, stability, order, legality, to which the non-political value of comfort is closely related. The paternalistic orientations traditional for the domestic political culture can be traced in the representations of young people: expectations of ensuring an ideal state and solving possible problems are addressed to an external entity, as a rule, the state. The significance of “silence” is determined by the age factor: it increases from younger respondents to older ones. At the same time, thoughts and experiences associated with the needs for security, peace and confidence depend not on the age of the individual, but on the degree of his or her inclusion in the system of social connections of modern society, which generally occurs as they grow older. The key axiological dominant of young people’s representations about the ideal sociopolitical state is “truth” (justice), which is interpreted contradictorily – both as a necessary condition for existence in “silence” and as a threat to this existence. 

The article presents the results of a series of studies conducted in 2023– 2024 in the new subjects of the Russian Federation (DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, as well as in the Republic of Crimea) on the state of civic identity of young people in the new subjects of the Russian Federation and their ideas about the future.

The article presents conceptual foundations for studying ideas about the future, including the author’s interpretation of the image of the future as a component of the subjective space of politics, which influences the organizational forms of political institutions and power relations, and includes constant (structure, levels, trajectories, status/subjectivity of the bearer of ideas about the future) and variable parameters (content of the structure, priority of levels, priority of trajectories, level of subjectivity of the bearer of ideas about the future), the content of which is determined by a combination of internal and external factors.

The possibilities of the political-psychological approach as a theoretical framework for analyzing the subjective space of politics are shown, in particular: the image of the future, its substantive and emotional components, subjectivity (locus of control), value and behavioral attitudes of the individual, civic identity.

Based on the understanding of empirical data, the article shows that ideas about the future are part of the life space of young people and describes the factors that determine the short-term or long-term planning of the future. The emotional component of the image of the future of the youth of the new regions is characterized, its contradiction and a set of factors that determine the spectrum of positive and negative emotions regarding the future are shown. The connection between the locus of control, readiness to take responsibility with the emotional coloring of ideas about the future is revealed.

The value component of the image of the future of the youth of the new territories is characterized, the most and least significant values for the youth of the new regions are identified.

Behavioral attitudes in ideas about the present and the future of youth in the new regions are described.

Five types of civic identity of the youth of the new subjects of the Russian Federation are identified, correlated with ideas about their country (Russian, hybrid, Donbass, escapist and Ukrainian) and their representation (according to the results of quantitative studies) among the youth of the new territories is determined; the specificity of psychological identification mechanisms for each type of civic identity is shown.

The article presents the results of an empirical study of Russians' ideas about the future development of Russia, conducted in 2023–2024. The findings were obtained by processing the texts of in-depth interviews, as well as graphic material from projective drawing tests using political psychology methods. The scenarios of Russia’s future development that dominate in the minds of the population are described: “mobilization”, “inertial”, “innovative” and others, with special attention paid to the formation of the “stabilization” scenario. Imagining the future of Russia in a variety of ways, describing positive, negative, neutral in their emotional and event orientation plots, respondents demonstrated difficulties in understanding any of them as the most probable. The main problems in this case, according to the respondents themselves, are the high uncertainty of the future, the dynamics of modern life, growing anxiety about the possibility of deterioration of its conditions, the unpredictability of changes in the economic and political spheres both within the country and in the world. The search for a zone of psychological comfort by the mass consciousness occurs in various interpretations of stability. At the same time, the formation of ideas about the stability of the future is influenced by factors of a subjective nature, mainly related to the age of citizens, factors of the political context and media manipulations related to understanding the future through the prism of current events and their coverage by the media. An analysis of these factors allowed us to conclude that binary plots of the future, including “World War III” and “world peace”, “technological paradise” and “technological prison” exist in the ideas of Russians as if simultaneously and are associated with the desire to achieve a “stable” future, in which there will be no such complex contradictions. The main obstacles to the formation of a stabilization scenario for the future are the differences in the understanding of stability by various social groups and the search for examples of such in the recent or distant past. It is noted that the stabilization scenario performs the same function for all social groups of psychological protection from the fear of uncertainty about the future.

The article analyses the emotional aspect of national identity in Russia. The author asks how citizens experience and express their sense of belonging to the Russian nation during periods of significant political change. The article’s theoretical framework lies at the intersection of several research areas, including everyday nationalism, identity politics, affective citizenship and the role of emotions in collective action. The article views emotions relating to the nation as a complex phenomenon, shaped by the actions of political figures and the daily practices of ordinary citizens. The study’s empirical basis comprised 32 semi– structured interviews with Russian citizens conducted from winter to spring 2024. This enabled the identification of both short-term emotional responses to political events and more enduring sentiments towards the national community. The results revealed the complexity, ambivalence and variability of emotions towards the nation. People experience many feelings simultaneously, some of which may be contradictory. At the same time, the same emotions (such as pride or fear) can be associated with different phenomena and have positive or negative connotations. Additionally, emotions were considered in relation to the behavioral practices of Russian citizens. The study demonstrated the non-linear nature of this relationship, showing that the same emotions, when manifested in different combinations, lead to opposite practices. The author's proposed explanation links the variability of how emotions are converted into everyday practices with the citizens' experience of political socialization and political activity, as well as the pursued identity politics.

The increasing level of personalization of politics after 2000 is seen as a harbinger of threats to democracy from populist leaders introducing irrational elements into politics. The article gives an overview of the state of contemporary debate on personality traits of populist leaders. It examines political-psychological and psychodiagnostic approaches to the analysis of the personalities of populist presidents, using psychobiographical methods and methods of content analysis. The article reviews the potential of psychology and clinical psychiatry in the field of studying the personalities of politicians and the tools for remote profiling of their personalities. Current studies of the personalities of populist leaders and their supporters on the basis of socially desirable traits of the Big Five Inventory and the aversive traits of the Dark Triad are analysed. The sentiment analysis of populist speeches confirms the main negative populist emotions to be fear and anger. The article evaluates the potential and limitations of using chat GPT to analyse politicians’ speeches in order to identify positive and negative personality traits. The article reveals that the personality of a populist leader matters, and the electoral success requires not only a “thin-centered ideology” but an extraordinary individual presenting it. The research confirms that populists differ from mainstream politicians by the presence of pronounced traits of the “Dark Triad”, disagreeableness and emotional instability. The article concludes that scholars need to reevaluate the populist personality as a pathological norm (in Mudde’s logic), in which extreme manifestations of aversive personality traits distinguish populists from mainstream candidates and ensure voter support.

The issue of content and change of Russian identity remains to be actual as Russian nation continues its formation since 1991. This article continues the investigation transformation of the semantic content of «Russianness» and incorporates new sources from 2020–2024. The data consists of 166 essays written by students from a regional university on the topic «What does it mean to be Russian?». The analysis relies on a constructivist approach and the methodology of discursive practices. Big data analysis methods (Python, Pymorphy2) with processing by the large language model Grok 3 Mini were used for analysing data. The work aims to find main identity markers and their dynamics in 2020–2024.

The analysis revealed the main markers mentioned in essays: culture (72,29% of texts), language (69,88%), positive personal characteristics (50.6%), history (38,55%), and the «Russian soul» (31,33%). It was revealed that the essays’ authors preferred flexible markers that allow to expand «Russian World» in opposite to rigid markers: language, appearance, ethnicity, geography. The growing importance of culture reflected in defining the broadly interpreted «Russian soul» and separating

«true» from «non-true» Russians. The dynamics of characteristics ascribed to Russian, judgments in regard to other nations, and the emotional exposure in the essays indicated a strengthening of consolidation sentiments in the context of confronting external hostile influence (generalized «external enemies» and the West). Thus, by 2024, characteristics like «resilient», «patriotic / solidary» had significantly strengthened, while emotionally, feelings of «pride» has grown with almost disappearance of such feelings as «shame/embarrassment» and «calmness/comfort». The essays revealed predominant references to V.V. Putin and his quotes as well to Russian classics: F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.S. Pushkin, which showed increasing influence of official meta-discourses after 2022. Overall, the analysis results proved aligned with public opinion polls but revealed a complex attitude towards the issue of patriotism and its role in «Russianness». The conducted study could add to methodology of studying Russian identity among youth by new methods of data analysis of local sources.

he article aims to understand the prospects for using the concept of quasi-narrative in the methodology of political science. The starting point of the author’s reflections is a discussion about the specifics of political narrative caused by the competition between essentialist and relativist approaches to its interpretation. Noting the role of the concept of “narrativity index” developed in the tradition of the Narrative Policy Framework, the author raises the question of the need to understand the role of quasi-narratives in political discourse. “Quasi-narrative” is an umbrella concept for all types of unusual narrativity that somehow do not fit into standard definitions (concepts) of narrative. The article notes that the conceptualization of unnatural narratives actualizes the question of the boundaries of storytelling as such. The author agrees that one of the essential features of the standard narrative is the representation of events in time, as well as the presence of a significant connection between them. Quasi-narrative plays on the borderline of the so-understood narrative, but remaining in its orbit, it differs from pseudo-narrative, which only imitates the narrative’s main distinguishing features. Based on the works of well-known narratologists (Brian Richardson, Gerald Prince, Robin Warhol, etc.), the author provides an overview of the main types of quasi-narrative discourse, including the unnarrated, the nonnarrated, the denarrated, the antinarrative, and the unnarratable in several of its varieties as well as the categorical pair of the undernarrated and the overnarrated. The article formulates several considerations and hypotheses regarding the methodological potential of quasi–narrative categorical grid in such research fields of political science as the explication of implicit power (ideological) attitudes and strategies in discourse, cognitive–emotional games with media audiences, discursive games with censorship, the construction and deconstruction of political identities, and the potential of quasi–narratives in predicting socio-political crises.

The author chose the topic of the article due to the need for a more in- depth study of the research area “processes and mechanisms of political perception”, only recently included in the new passport of the specialty 5.5.2 “Political institutions, processes, technologies”. The research question can be posed as follows: are there specific political mechanisms and political processes of perception? The analysis of Russian and foreign publications made it possible to identify understudied areas in the problem field of political science on this topic. A unified “theory of political perception” has not yet been developed; there is a set of concepts that allow one to form an idea of the research direction. The most widespread direction is studying the “perception of the political”: images of political leaders, ideas, events. This study is based on the concept of “political perception”, and not “perception of the political”. A review of publications showed that in political science the concept of the “mechanism” of perception, in contrast to the concept of the “process” of perception, has not been adequately developed. In the context of the theoretical problem posed, the goal of the work was to analyze the mechanism of perception as a subject of political science. To implement it, an analysis of the complex of basic theoretical approaches and methodological techniques available in the arsenal of political science for studying the concept of “political perception” was first conducted, and then its comparative analysis with the concept of “perception of politics” was carried out. The concept of “mechanism of political perception” was proposed, describing the elements of its structure and the relationships between them. Practical recommendations on the use of the concept for developing technologies for managing political perception were given.

As a rule, studies on the role of visual imagery in politics either focus on the morphology and aesthetics of images or on their political content, leaving behind a comprehensive consideration of the emotional component. This article examines political emotions as an integral part of visual political artifacts and proposes a specific methodological approach for their analysis. As a basis, the article proposes a synthesis of two fields of research - political studies of visual communication and sociology of emotions. This allows us to break down disciplinary boundaries. The central concept of the solution is that of a “political emotive”, which widens M. Scheer's model for emotional communication. A political emotive is a visual expression that conveys a specific political emotion. There are five types of political emoticons: manifesting, solidifying, mobilizing, differentiating, and sublimating. These are illustrated with examples from various political symbols, such as posters, cartoons, memes, and movies. It is emphasized that visual political artifacts should be considered as political actions, with emotion as one of the main intentions. The proposed approach allows for the logical contextualization of images in their socio-political environment and opens up opportunities for further research into multimodal and dynamic forms of visibility. In conclusion, the potential of combining political theory on emotions with the analysis of visual artifacts is established to expand the field of political science.