High-ranking Officials Research Articles

«Как бы то ни было, но судебная реформа скоро явится на свет». Неизвестный источник о подготовке в Российской империи Судебной реформы 1864 г.

The article and the published documents study the previously unknown documents on the judicial reform. Drawing on archival documents discovered in the Stasovs family archive (from the manuscript department of the Institute of Russian Literature) and in the secret archive of the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery (from the State Archive of the Russian Federation), including correspondence of D. V. Stassov with the chairman of the Yekaterinoslav criminal court chamber, A. S. Kuznetsov (1862–66), the publication reveals the unknown pages of the history of the judicial reform of 1864 in the Russian Empire. The sources highlight the activities of the commission for preparation of the reform under (initially) quite difficult conditions. The details of the judicial reform preparation are given against the background of constant struggles between conservative and liberal camps (with the gradual switchover of high-ranking officials from one camp to another, depending on the Emperor’s will), as well as between different groups and directions. Thus, the adoption of final decisions was delayed due to uncertain, evasive position of its members, as it happened during discussions of individual bills in the State Council. Attention is drawn to the reaction of officials of the Third Department, when perlustrating letters of the Councilor of State, Chief Secretary of the Governing Senate and Chairman of the Criminal Court Chamber of Yekaterinoslav containing quite immodest thoughts on the “behind-the-scenes preparation” of the Judicial reform. D. V. Stasov’s letters were actually weekly diary entries recording the preparation of the 1864 judicial reform, his tone picturesque, descriptions of ministers and high officials accurate and caustic. Such evidence from very authoritative sources provides a wealth of material on the attitude of the Imperial Court and the heads of state institutions (the Ministry of Justice, the State Council, the Senate, the Committee of Ministers, the Second Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery) involved in decision-making concerning judicial projects, which has not been adequately covered in historical and legal studies. Publication of D. V. Stasov's letters (from the archival materials of the Stasov family fond) can significantly expand the source base on the history of preparation of the judicial reforms in the Russian Empire in 1860–64.

Архивные документы Российского государственного архива социально-политической истории как источник изучения экономической преступности в годы Великой Отечественной войны 1941-1945 гг.

The article determines the value and prospects of using historical sources stored in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) for disclosing problems of economic crime in 1941–45. Understanding modern dangers of corruption, illegal enrichment, and malfeasance requires studying the historical experience of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. It was a time to confront not only a strong external enemy, but also internal challenges, including, in particular, activation of criminal elements in the economic sphere. Despite an abundance of legal and historical publications devoted to economic crime and combating it, a whole layer of archival documents remains outside the field of research. The study has been carried out on the basis of institutional methodological approach using source heuristics, source analysis, historical-comparative method. The documents revealed in the RGASPI consist of previously unpublished materials of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the CPSU, regional and city party committees (obkoms and gorkoms), and political departments of various agencies, through which transportation and distribution of food and industrial goods was conducted, as well as fragments of national leaders’ personal funds. The analyzed documents reflect criminal acts characteristic of the war period: speculation, embezzlement, bribery, malfeasance of high-ranking officials. The aforementioned delicts are reflected in the minutes of meetings, reports, certificates, and directives describing in detail the most common types of economic crime and measures taken by the authorities to curb it. The study concludes that the identified documents possess a high degree of objectivity and confirm the thesis of numerical growth and expansion in range of economic crimes in the context of a social wartime crisis. As main strategy for combating the growth of economic crimes throughout the war, the national leadership used a tough punitive policy, but these measures did not give tangible results. The effectiveness of domestic policy measures aimed at ensuring protection of state and personal property of citizens decreased due to deterioration in the quantitative and qualitative composition of the judiciary and political pressure from the party leadership, as well as selective nature of Soviet justice and use of unnecessarily harsh punishments, while deviance resulted from need and hunger.

Metaphoric Conceptualization of Social Reality in the Language of News Media

Today, social reality can hardly be viewed as the one-state-one-nationone language ideological framework (Bauman and Briggs, 2003). The modern multilingual and multicultural communities are inclined to examine social reality in a multiple variety of socio-economic and political manifestations and forms. To understand how social reality can be explored through examining certain socio-political processes in a country, the present paper aims at analysing the role of conceptual metaphor in cases when political scandals, involving corruption charges of high-ranking officials in Latvia are considered. For this purpose, the present study has focused on the analysis of selected commentaries that deal with corruption charges which were revealed in December 2019 issues of the magazine IR. The Latvian-origin weekly magazine IR was selected deliberately because; on the one hand, it has an enormous influence on how social reality is constructed and perceived by Latvian citizens. On the other hand, it was important to reveal that the evidence-based theoretical premises on the relationship between metaphor and society in the English language are applicable and work cross-linguistically in Latvian. The research presents a case study type. With the focus on the conceptualization of corruption-related social problems, selected discursive practices that dealt with the corruption cases being revealed by the news medium IR were considered. The results demonstrated that the journalists of the commentaries tend to take a critical discourse perspective on the representation of corruption-related issues and political events, which can be represented at the levels of abstraction. Conceptual metaphors contributed to mental representations of political issues and communication of social reality by conveying additional negative evaluation of such an inherently derogatory concept as corruption. The metaphors CORRUPTION IS DIRT, CORRUPTION IS GARBAGE, CORRUPTION IS NUCLEAR DISASTER, CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE also fulfil a cognitive function, helping to understand the concept of corruption in terms of another more concrete concept. The use of metaphors in the commentaries may have causal effects such as bringing about changes in the readers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes.

A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac by Zachery A. Fry

Reviewed by: A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac by Zachery A. Fry Joseph T. Glatthaar (bio) A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac. By Zachery A. Fry. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. 336. Cloth, $45.00.) Until very recently, scholars embraced the idea that Union soldiers overwhelmingly endorsed Abraham Lincoln’s reelection bid in 1864. Soldiers despised the opposition Peace Democrats, applauded Lincoln’s unwavering support for victory, and embraced a belief that the confiscation or destruction of slavery and other Rebel property was both morally right and advantageous to the cause of reunion. In 2014, Jonathan W. White challenged that notion in Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln. In it, White argues that Republican authorities suppressed Democratic opinions, persecuted those who openly opposed emancipation, and ultimately drove large numbers of Democrats into leaving the army when their term of enlistment expired in 1864, rather than reenlisting. White insists that 60 percent of the soldiers actually voted for Lincoln (20 percent were too young, and a few states prohibited soldiers voting in the field), and many of them were coerced. In A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac, Zachery A. Fry challenges White’s arguments. Fry attempts to develop the formation of political culture in the ranks of the Army of the Potomac by framing it with the theories of Mats Alvesson and Edgar Schein, business and management scholars whose work translates readily to the armed services. Although Fry draws on a range of sources, he relies principally on manuscripts, memoirs, and published materials of officers. Fry is particularly adept at tapping published letters by officers in dozens of local newspapers, a vastly underutilized source. [End Page 288] Fry’s thesis is that while high-ranking officers battled to shape the politics of the army, it was the junior officers, the lieutenants and captains, who converted enlisted men to the Republican cause. He explains how Major General George B. McClellan and his high-ranking associates tried to build support for the Democratic Party by preventing Republican and abolitionist newspapers and tracts from circulating in the army. When Major General Joseph Hooker, a regular army officer and Republican, took command in 1863, he blocked Democratic literature from the army and promoted the distribution of pro-administration material. Hooker’s successor, Major General George G. Meade, confessed a lack of expertise to determine what type of published literature came to the army. By then, Fry argues, the demand for pro-Democratic literature had declined owing to its increasingly strident antiwar position. This is unquestionably Fry’s strongest contribution. Fry agrees with White that there was some harassment of Democratic voters in the ranks in 1864, but he dismisses that as largely insignificant, arguing that there were also officers who made it explicitly clear that soldiers were free to vote their conscience without any repercussions in their units, and 20 percent of the troops did vote Democratic. Fry concedes that campfire discussions, experiences in war in the slave states, a need for more manpower, and the extremist views of Peace Democrats all helped convert the troops to Republicanism. What he underplays is the trust that soldiers developed in the Lincoln administration. By targeting slavery, authorizing the confiscation and destruction of goods and property of secessionists, providing essential manpower by enlisting Black men and imposing a draft, soldiers believed that the Lincoln administration would take any measures to aid them in winning the war. Fry also places too much emphasis on the role of junior officers in building Republican support among the ranks. Here his approach with regard to sources fails him. By relying heavily on officers and newspaper articles as sources, he does not capture the true sentiments of enlisted soldiers and strips them of their agency. Many soldiers expressed a surprising level of animosity toward their officers at all ranks, including their captains and lieutenants. Moreover, 53 percent of all soldiers in the Army of the Potomac at the time of Lincoln’s reelection had never been able to cast a vote...

ՀԱՆՐԱՅԻՆ ԿԱՌԱՎԱՐՄԱՆ ՔԱՂԱՔԱԿՐԹԱԿԱՆ ՈՒ ՔԱՂԱՔԱԳԻՏԱԿԱՆ ԿԱԶՄԱԿԵՐՊՄԱՆ ՀԻՄՆԱԽՆԴԻՐՆԵՐԸ

CIVILIZATION AND POLITOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF THE ORGANIZATION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Logically, according to historical experience, the security of the statehood of each country (nation), the efficiency of public administration are conditioned by the degree of development of the political-state administrative thought and by the level of civilization achieved. If the former is inferior to the latter, then under the influence of that factor the efficiency of public administration is significantly reduced. The statehood, the fate of the people, the possibility of living safely in its homeland are endangered. Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize the increase of public administration efficiency, in particular, to introduce scientific principles in the system of state and local selfgovernment, to develop the political culture of the society and the level of analytical thinking, to attach essential importance to the training of personnel in the fields of political science, diplomacy, international law, to conduct scientific reasearch in those areas with the aim of using the results obtained in making strategic management decisions to clarify the distribution of powers between the branches of government, and to enshrine in the necessary restraint and counterbalance structure. The so-called deep state is a guarantee of state security, effective management in the conditions of generalization, a counterbalancing factor directing the activities of the civil society. In the Republic of Armenia such a role can claim the Armenian Apostolic Church, the intellectual-mature business elite, the high-ranking officers of the army and the National Security Service.

ПОЛИЦЕЙСКАЯ ЗВЕЗДА ИНДОНЕЗИИ BINTANG BHAYANGKARA

The award system of Indonesia has formed since the War of Independence against the Netherlands. The first Order — Bintang Gerilya, or the Guerilla Star — was instituted in 1949. Several years later, the Indonesian Army managed to suppress separatist and autonomist movements in various parts of Indonesia. The Indonesian military obtained control over nationalized businesses of the Dutch in the later fifties. It gave the Army a leading role in social and political spheres of the Indonesian state. In 1958, the Indonesian Government instituted two military Orders — Bintang Sakti, or the Sacred Star, and Bintang Dharma, or the Military Distinguished Service Star. In 1959, the Indonesian Government instituted the highest Orders of the State — Bintang Republik Indonesia, or the Star of the Republic of Indonesia, and Bintang Mahaputera, or the Star of Great Son of Nation. The National Police of Indonesia was formed in 1945 or, formally, in 1946. It obtained its own professional Order — Bintang Bhayangkara, or the National Police Meritorious Service Star — in 1961. A year later, the National Police turned a branch of the National Armed Forces of Indonesia. The National Police became separated from the National Armed Forces in 1999, during the democratization since the fall of Suharto’s ‘New Order’ in 1998. The paper focuses on the statute of Bintang Bhayangkara and its functioning among current Indonesian elites. The President and Vice-President of Indonesia have this Order ex officio. Bintang Bhayangkara is regularly bestowed to the high-ranking officers of the National Police and National Armed Forces of Indonesia.

Entry of the Russian Embassy to Isfahan and Diplomatic Receptions in the Safavid State (according to the Memoirs of John Bell)

The article is devoted to the ceremonial ritual diplomatic practices adopted at the Persian Safavid court during the reign of Shah Sultan Hussein (1694-1722), described by the Scottish physician John Bell, who was a member of the Russian embassy of Artemy Volynsky in Isfahan (1717). It is noted that John Bell, with varying degrees of detail, captured the order of entry of foreign diplomatic missions to Isfahan, the movement along the streets of the capital and the consistent structure of the entry of the Russian embassy. The fact that there was an elaborate ceremony and etiquette for receiving foreign embassies in Safavid Persia is shown in the article. The author believes that the capital of Isfahan itself, its suburbs, the main Shah’s residence Talar-i Tawila, and the Shah’s country residences acted as the ceremonial space. It has been proven that the Safavid ceremony involved a magnificent meeting of the embassy at the entrance to the capital, her escort to the place of accommodation, a solemn entry into the capital, a reception with the Shah with the presentation of credentials and a meal. A comparative analysis of the receptions of the shah and high-ranking officials, differing in their degree of representativeness, led to the conclusion that the shah’s receptions were exclusively ceremonial, while important political issues could be discussed at receptions of high-ranking officials. It is noted that the receptions of senior officials could surpass the receptions of the shah with pomp.

『교정 기본계획』의 필요성과 미래 교정정책의 방향 : 교정 고위직에 대한 심층면접 결과를 중심으로

『교정 기본계획』의 필요성과 미래 교정정책의 방향 : 교정 고위직에 대한 심층면접 결과를 중심으로

Коли гуманітарій плакав або Криза гуманітарної освіти в Україні: симптоми і шляхи лікування

This article may be completely devoid of academic pathos and full of everyday irony, but such an approach can probably be justified by the situation that has developed in the educational space of the country today. The situation itself is so glaring that speaking in the "exemplary language" of high-ranking officials and extensive constructions of wordplay like the "bright future" of our education does not arouse any desire. Under these conditions, in this article we try to analyze some problems that exist in the system of humanitarian education in Ukraine. In particular, we address the issue that the country's educational strategy (if it exists at all) is a continuous "experiment" based on the continuous testing of various educational strategies in the world on the Ukrainian education system and in which children and teachers are subjects. Such experiments, even in experimental sociology or psychology, are called "inhuman." After all, only "our" education system adopts a new strategy, as soon as the next Minister of Education appears with his innovations and his own vision of the situation; it lacks either logic or any relationship between higher and secondary schools; it is there that the level of state funding of the humanitarian bloc is declining and depreciating, which could lead to complete cultural degradation. We focus on the latter. Because it is the humanities education, and the same humanities, at any time, in any country have been leaders and indicators of the level of social and cultural development in general. The purpose and objectives of the study are to identify and analyze some of the problems that exist today in the field of humanities education and which cause the symptoms of its "disease"

ЕКОНОМІЧНЕ СТАНОВИЩЕ ДВОРЯН БЕССАРАБСЬКОЇ ГУБЕРНІЇ ПІД ЧАС ПЕРШОЇ СВІТОВОЇ ВІЙНИ

After the annexation of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire, a noble class of the representatives of local elite was formed on its territory. Due to the deteriorating economic situation of the upper class of the Bessarabian governorate during the First World War, only 590 people participated in the political and economic life of the governorate and the country. The reason for this was the decrease in the number of land ownership among the nobility of the governorate. In the early twentieth century, the land plots that belonged to the landlords were the symbol of prosperity for them, and they gave the opportunity to the hereditary nobles to participate in the deputy nobility meetings and the election of members of the town council to the County Zemstvo Assembly. During the First World War the Bessarabian governorate nobles played a social role not only of the landlords, officials and the army men, but also teachers, doctors and engineers. Therefore, their incomes were different, in accordance with the established salaries.The purpose of the article is to study the economic condition of the Bessarabian governorate nobles, depending on their activities. Using a comparative method, it became known that the share of nobles land ownership in the Bessarabian governorate during the First World War was declining, which led to the mastering of new professions for the nobility of the Russian Empire. The most affluent were high-ranking officials, such as ministers and deputies of the State Duma, as well as the governor and senior officers. The least well-off in terms of income were the landlords with land ownership of up to 100 acres, representatives of the professions inherent in the intellectuals.

ФОРМУВАННЯ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО МЕМОРІАЛЬНО-МОНУМЕНТАЛЬНОГО ПРОСТОРУ В КАНАДІ

The article is devoted to the study of the process of formation of the Ukrainian memorial and monumental space in Canada. The study is based on written (information leaflets, programs of events, materials from the Government of Canada, documents of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine [CP(b)U]), pictorial (photo images of monuments), electronic (materials from the official websites of Ukrainian embassies in Canada and Canadian embassies in Ukraine, public associations of Ukrainians in Canada) sources. They showed that in Canada, more than twenty monuments are dedicated to the iconic subjects of the Ukrainian history. They are located in five provinces – Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, which are places of compact residence of Ukrainians. It is shown that the monuments are dedicated to important events of national history, namely: emigration, the Holodomor, as well as prominent writers and poets. Six memorials commemorate the victims of the Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, and four monuments honour the figure Taras Shevchenko. All, except one memorial, were installed in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The culmination of the activity of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada took place at this time. The initiative to erect monuments in most cases belonged to the Ukrainian community. Funding was provided by private donations, which indicates the existence of an internal need to create their own symbolic space. The unveiling of each monument was accompanied by the mass of people, and Canadian high-ranking officials were often present, which demonstrates the organic fit of the Ukrainian memory into the all-Canadian one. It is noted that several monuments were donated to the Ukrainian Canadian community by the Soviet government on behalf of the Ukrainian people. Such actions testified to attempts to expand the Soviet Union’s influence on the Ukrainian diaspora. Thus, the community of millions of Ukrainians in Canada has not only preserved its language, religion, and traditions, but also outlined the visual space of its own history through the installation of monuments. This strengthened their self-identification with the Ukrainian people and their ethnic homeland.

A Study on Human Rights-Friendly Investigation of Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials(CIO)

A Study on Human Rights-Friendly Investigation of Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials(CIO)

ПРАВАСЛАВНАЯ ЦЕРКОВЬ ГРУЗИИ И ПАНДЕМИЯ КОРОНАВИРУСА

2020 was unusual for entire world. Corona Virus was announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and it became the key challenge for the world. Unexpectedly pandemic changed a political, economic, social life, it also put the issue of changing religious rituals up on the agenda. It made a dramatic change, changing not only lifestyle thoroughly but also it influenced public values and fundamental principles. Georgia, as the part of the global space was not able to avoid the problem. In order to prevent dissemination of the virus, Georgian government closed the borders of Georgia for the foreign citizens, it announced the emergency condition, closed trading facilities, stopped functioning of the enterprises, enforced curfew, prohibited gathering of more than three people and set charges for violation of the rule. For prevention of the virus, different confessions were forced to introduce changes in their services. Georgian Orthodox Church was an exception together with several churches of the world (Poland, Greece, Serbia). The patriarch of Georgia decided not to change the service rule despite high risk. It became the reason for excitement and criticism of clergymen, theologists, politicians and citizens in general. There were different positions and opinions inside the church itself, among the clergymen. The society had different opinions regarding the fact. This step made by the church was evaluated by some people as anti-social and anti-human decision. In the country, where the belief and traditions are closely connected, change of eucharist rule and close churches for the prayers are very sensitive issue. This is why due to respect to the Georgian church and Synod, as well as for high interest of the society, we decided to learn problem deeper. Actually, the following questions were asked, like what was the cause for the decision? Why the opinion of the churchmen, as well as parish and society were divided? What is the role of the state in solution of such problem? The article is focused on two key problems, one is receiving eucharist by the same spoon and the issue of social distance in the churches. In order to learn the issue deeper we got known with the opinion of the clergymen and theologist. The Goal of the Study: Objective assessment of the latest developments, understanding relationship between the state and the church, analyzing the issue of freedom of belief. The Methodology of the Study: The study is mainly based on the historical study method: description, comparative-historical method, empirical analysis, causal-historical analysis. Observation of the publications, analysis of the statements and opinions of the Patriarch of Georgia and high-ranking officials of the Patriarchate, as well as state officials, the representatives of the opposition parties, checking of the disseminated information and sources detecting method. Analysis of the governmental and opposition TV data and official versions.

Build an Anticoruptive Generation

Corruption has become a classic case that is commonly encountered in everyday life. The perpetrators are no longer high-ranking officials in the elite, but have penetrated every level of society. This form of corruption is no longer just the theft of an extraordinary amount of money, but corruption is anything that is rotten and detrimental. Corruption has a massive impact on the sustainability of the country, including having an impact on the economy. If corruption continues, the motivation for economic growth will decrease or disappear from society and lead to widespread poverty. The construction of government facilities will also be slow and not optimal, the costs incurred are greater than the amount of money owned by the community so that these facilities cannot be enjoyed by them. Those who do not enjoy these facilities then look for ways to feel it by justifying various means including criminal acts including corruption. To eradicate corruption and its various impacts, the most effective thing is to change the mindset of all Indonesians. All citizens must be provided with insight into corruption so that they can understand the dangers of corruption and can adopt an anti-corruption attitude. This anti-corruption attitude will eventually form a generation with an anti-corruption culture.

From schizophrenia to sainthood - Tajuddin Fakir.

This paper discusses the case of Tajuddin, a patient in the mental asylum of Nagpur towards the end of the 19th century. Discussions are based on hospital records and annual reports and relevant literature review of the life and times of Tajuddin. Hospital and associated records indicate that Tajuddin was thought to be suffering from cannabis psychosis. He was released from the British army for inappropriate behaviour and was admitted to the Nagpur Mental Asylum, currently a Regional Mental Hospital. During his inpatient stay Tajuddin was believed to have special powers and was considered a saint. The hospital, its staff and patients continue to pay homage to Tajuddin to this day. Religious Trusts established in his name extend all the way up to Mecca. His followers include high ranking officers and Bollywood celebrities. Tajuddin was a charismatic leader, despite suffering from what currently may be considered schizophrenia. His case reflects a curious contradiction of the cultural understandings of psychosis and the shifting sands on which psychiatry's diagnostic foundations are built.

The Anti-corruption Discourse of China: Cracking down on “Tigers”

Fighting corruption has been a signature theme in the governance of China since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) in 2012. Among the extensive attention from academic and policy discourse to this unprecedented anti-corruption effort in CPC’s history, there are studies that take the one-sided view that the effort under way is not anti-corruption in its strict sense as it relies on the Party mechanism rather than the legal system, scripted, and calculated for the narrow self-interest of factional power enhancement. Reviewing contemporary fundamental anti-corruption discourses, anchored in critical discourse analysis, and assisted by 134 circulars of intra-Party disciplinary punishments of corrupt high-ranking officials (“tigers”, dalaohu), this interdisciplinary study reveals that, by contrast, China adopts an integrated approach to corruption, which incorporates republican and liberal-rationalist beliefs and values. Specifically, it is characterized by CCCPC as leadership, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection as political agency, both following a mentality of the rule of law, and by the coordination between intra-Party disciplinary rules and state laws. This approach is appropriate because it conceptualizes corruption by targeting the main feature of the corruption-related problem. This study contributes from a discoursal perspective to the understanding of China’s anti-corruption in the Xi Jinping Era.

I Know What You Mean: Information Compensation in an Authoritarian Country

How do people address information deficiency caused by rigid control of information in authoritarian regimes? We argue that there exists an internally oriented information compensation approach through which people can glean extra information from official messages domestically. This approach does not violate state regulations directly and allows people to retrieve information not explicitly publicized by the government. We delineate the circumstances of internally oriented information compensation using the case of China. We conduct trend and text analysis on the data of millions of individual-level actions of Chinese Internet search engines and social media users during a large anticorruption campaign that conspicuously claimed to crack down on influential corrupt leaders without naming who exactly. We show that some Chinese netizens were able to identify the unnamed high-ranking officials targeted by the campaign based on negative official reports about their family members. Some of the netizens even correctly predicted the downfall of the officials months before the government’s announcements. As the existing literature is increasingly concerned about the threat of digital authoritarianism on throttling the free flow of information, our findings indicate that some authoritarian citizens, instead of passively accepting the government’s information control, acquired their own arts of information self-salvation. This, though not directly challenging the government, constitutes an everyday politics under digital authoritarianism.

\u201cThe architecture of the state was transformed in favour of the interests of companies\u201d: corporate political activity of the food industry in Colombia

BackgroundIn Colombia, public health policies to improve food environments, including front-of-pack nutrition labelling and marketing restrictions for unhealthy products, are currently under development. Opposition to these policies by the food industry is currently delaying and weakening these efforts. This opposition is commonly known as ‘corporate political activity’ (CPA) and includes instrumental (action-based) strategies and discursive (argument-based) strategies. Our aim was to identify the CPA of the food industry in Colombia.MethodsWe conducted a document analysis of information available in the public domain published between January–July 2019. We triangulated this data with interviews with 17 key informants. We used a deductive approach to data analysis, based on an existing framework for the CPA of the food industry.ResultsWe identified 275 occurrences of CPA through our analysis of publicly available information. There were 197 examples of instrumental strategies and 138 examples of discursive strategies (these categories are not mutually exclusive, 60 examples belong to both categories). Interview participants also shared information about the CPA in the country. The industry used its discursive strategies to portray the industry in a ‘better light’, demonstrating its efforts in improving food environments and its role in the economic development of the country. The food industry was involved in several community programmes, including through public private initiatives. The industry also captured the media and tried to influence the science on nutrition and non-communicable diseases. Food industry actors were highly prominent in the policy sphere, through their lobbying, close relationships with high ranking officials and their support for self-regulation in the country.ConclusionsThe proximity between the industry, government and the media is particularly evident and remains largely unquestioned in Colombia. The influence of vulnerable populations in communities and feeling of insecurity by public health advocates is also worrisome. In Colombia, the CPA of the food industry has the potential to weaken and delay efforts to develop and implement public health policies that could improve the healthiness of food environments. It is urgent that mechanisms to prevent and manage the influence of the food industry are developed in the country.

BRICS Group in Contemporary China’s Policy

This paper discusses the place of the BRICS group in contemporary foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China. The author analyses China’s foreign policy documents, statements of Chinese high-ranking officials, and publications of Chinese expert community, mainly political studies. The paper demonstrates that at present stage, BRICS group is not a top priority to China, however, China sees BRICS as one of its foreign policy instruments and one of formats of interaction with the countries of the Global South. Consequently, the PRC is aimed at strengthening its leadership in BRICS, particularly in the New Development Bank, in order to foster economic cooperation according to its foreign policy interests.

POLITICAL ACTORS IN UKRAINIAN DIGITAL DISCOURSE: WAYS OF REPRESENTING

Problem setting. In Ukrainian media sphere, the attention towards a political actor may be constructed specially, with the help of the so called «jeansa» (covered political advertisement) dissemination. To understand processes within a political discourse of the country, the mechanism of the texts identification should be designed.Recent research and publications analysis. Several professional NGOs has been monitoring Ukrainian mass media to detect «jeansa» (IDPO (2019), IMI (2019). However, in the times of journalism crisis the problem of media independence and transparency remains a crucial one. Thus, commercial model of journalism should be changed and the reality of «hybrid media system» (Chadwick) should be taken into account.Paper objective is to test a formal method of the «jeansa» materials detection and to define the ways ofpolitical actors representing. Period of research is January-February 2019 (the beginning og the presidential pre-election campaign). Materials of the popular newspaper Segodnya and independent media «Ukrajins’ka Pravda» were compared. For the defining of the non-transparence placement materials a computer program (Python language) was designed.Paper main body. According to the data received, the two ways of political actors representing in Ukrainian digital discourse are defined: with specially created, made attention towards an actor («jeansa») and with an ordinary one. Cases of Ukrainian politicians (presidential candidates, officials) are taken into account.Conclusions of the research. For the first way constant, regular mentions ofa political actor (one-two per day) are typical. In that case the existence of non-transparence placement materials of a news site may be stated. However, for the complete picture it is recommended to consider other data: number of mentions and polls results comparison, coverage of a political actor activity in different mass media analysis. For the second way several options were found. The first one - without breaking news occasions (court hearings, resonant statements, scandals, insults etc); in that case small number of mentions per day (one-two) is also discovered, however, there are significant silent periods, when there are no mentions at all. However, there is a concentrated placement of the mentions, near the certain news occasion. The second one with single irregular mentions there are splashes of attention and more concentrated placement of mentions (near the occasion as well). However, the analysis has some limitations, for instance, it is problematic to define the specially created attention towards the high-ranked officials (presidents).