Russian Civilization: Civilizational Approach in Political Theory

Abstract

Discussions about the applicability of the civilizational approach in political science correlate with methodological and discursive rethinking of linear philosophical and political interpretive projects. The search for new epistemological and ontological optics of modern political constructions is largely focused on the value-symbolic parameters underlying the civilizational approach. The civilizational paradigm is one of the conceptual schemes of political theory, which makes it possible to interpret political institutions, processes, and world politics through the lens of more stable and deeper factors - value systems and culture. Becoming the identifying basis of politics and the legitimizing ideological and semantic content of instrumental strategies, the civilizational approach appeals to the multiplicity and equality of the paths of historical and political formation. In political discourse, the relevant intentions are the plots of ensuring the completeness of sovereignty, historical memory and falsification of history, a common value-semantic space, national unity, and many others. The point of concentration of scientific and ideological-political search is the definition of the civilizational status of Russia. According to the authors, giving Russia a civilizational status allows us to offer adequate explanations of its socio-political ontology and phenomenology, stable and transient parameters, invariant and innovative characteristics. The emphasis is on the metaphysics of Russian statehood as determined by the specifics of civilization.