The author focuses on fragmentation of the meanings space of a «ethnopolitics» with a help of the semantic analysis elements - distinguishing the subject related to the status of denotation (referent), on the one hand, and to the status of signification (intellectual image), on the other hand. Ethnicity is analyzed in the semantic areas of policy (as a course) and politics (as a field) and also from the view of semantic valency in the combination with the concepts of «conflict» and «mobilization».

Ethnocultural pluralism has caused new political realities, including a politics of a recognition, multiculturalism, etc. and also raised a new challenge for political and academic communities. Among a number of problems demanding the decision the author has allocated for discussion two the idea of support of ethnocultural groups rights and too wide and free uses of the term ethnic (ethnocultural) community.

The article analyzes various models of the textbooks and teaching aids on ethnopolitology. It discusses theoretical bases of this models and the construction principles. The author argue that differences in the models are stimulated by general situation in ethnopolitology and the theoretical disputes.

This article focuses on three countries where the debate on national identity has been particularly intense. France, Germany, and the USA share a number of features: the weakening of traditional authority, the challenge of multiculturalism, and the decline of the majority religion. These developments have posed threats to national cohesion and led to the rise of «identitarian blocs», which have taken the lead in opposing the growth of ethnic and/or religious minorities. The article discusses similarities and differences in the tenor of the debate, the evolving views of the nation, and the relationship between ascriptive and constructivist approaches to membership in the political community.

The core argument of this paper is that the problematization of national minorities stems from the rise and implementation of the doctrine of national self-determination. It identifies two specific ways national minorities are problematized related to the rise and implementation of this doctrine: 1) national minorities challenge the now solidified juridical nature of state boundaries (in theory and practice); and, 2) national minorities challenge the key tenets of the modern doctrine of legitimate political authority (i.e. congruence between «the people», «the nation» and «the state» and the authorization of rule via a contract between the governed and the governor). By drawing out these two related points, the piece puts forth the implicit argument that national minorities do not necessarily have to be viewed as a problem to be solved, but rather, can be managed in a more an effective and defensible way.

Across Europe, economic anxieties, ideological disorientation and the anger resulting from perplexed insecurity have fuelled the rediscovery of ethnicity as a source of belonging and of ostensible certainty. One activist xenophobic ideology bent on overcoming liberalism and the Enlightenment heritage is the self-styled European New Right (ENR), originally of French origin, but inspired by the interwar German «conservative revolution». In the concept of ethno-pluralism, the ENR's anti-egalitarian and anti-universalist stance has found its pointed expression. Defining pluralism in terms of the external diversity of internally homogeneous - never pluricultural - societies, the ENR opposes «concrete» homogeneous cultures to the «abstract» liberal agenda, labeling the latter «totalitarian» for its universalist creed. «Culture» emerges as a medium to establish «identity», which in its turn is constructed as ethnic identity. Ascertaining mutual diversity as unchangeable, stigmatizing the mixing of cultures and ethnicities as the supreme evil, ethno-pluralism requires exclusivity of cultures in given areas. Such «differentialist» racism is intended to legitimize preserving the supposed «integrity» of European cultures against immigrants with differing cultural backgrounds. Its analysis provides an additional opportunity for a closer look at some of the problems - including the pros and cons of consociational democracy - which a non-racist, non-assimilationist «politics of inclusion» is facing.

Diversity is one of the most contested issues in domestic and international politics. This paper explores how institutions and ideas have helped accommodate ethno-linguistic or religious diversities, empower ethnic or linguistic minorities, manage conflicts, and establish a legitimate, stable, and cohesive order in twelve federal countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States of America.

The article proves the thesis according to which the ethnic conflicts management potential of federalism is realized not so much in the separation of powers and autonomization mechanisms but in the stable reconciliation practices that are settled in the process of permanent interaction of federal and regional (ethnic) elites. In time the complex of such practices is capable to acquire a sufficient level of stability which can allow this complex to be independent of the both elites changes and transformations of formal political institutions configuration. In conformity with the author the settlement of such complex of practices in the relations between ethnic region and federation is able to predetermine to a great extent the negotiation process running with the further influence on strategies and preferences of the both conflicting parties.

The article is focused on evaluating of the relations between Centre and national territories. Historically, they developed on the basis of a combination of the various unified and differentiated approaches. Misbalance in these relations conducts to threat of disintegration of the country, or to the latent increase of contradictions and ethnic intensity. The main criterion of development of these relations should become increase of potential and a role of region in an economic and cultural life of the country and growth of social well-being of the population.

In the article an analysis of both the place and role of language of «title nations» as like as the language policy of post-soviet countries in process of formation of national statesmanship is exercised. The author concludes that all the countries of both the CIS and Baltic states undertake measures (on the different levels of stiffness) directed to displacement or restriction of Russian language by using languages of «title nations» as the tools of political consolidation and formation of national identity. This conclusion is based on comparative investigation of two predominant «cases» - Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

This article is devoted to the transfrontier language communities as political projects. Russkiy mir (Russian world) and Finno-Ugric world are examined as an example by author, who holds the constructivism. The researcher notes that belonging to the one language or one language group and practices of political elites are a base for creation of the community. The question is about purposes and institutional design of the communities.