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Aim. The purpose of the presented study was to correlate the results of the scientific conference “State policy in the context of global challenges of our time” (20 November 2020) with the actual needs and challenges of the political sciences development, the current state of the civilizational direction of political science analysis.Methodology. The methodological basis of the study was a civilizational approach to understanding political processes and correlating with it the content of the reports of the scientific conference. The article provides an overview of the reports presented at the conference, considered in the general context of the development of Russian political science.Results. The main result of the study was the statement that modern Russian political science has reached the level of developing the concept of “state-civilization” and its application to the realities of state administration in Russia. A number of key problems of applying the civilizational approach to various spheres of social life are identified.Research implications. The presented results have the prospect of further use in the development of the direction of civilizational analysis in Russia, the implementation of theoretical provisions on the state-civilization in the practice of Russian public administration.

The article is devoted to the problems of conceptual understanding and theoretical reception of soft power in Russian political science. There are typical moments in the circulation of concepts in the world political science, which are reflected in the Russian developments of the concept of soft power. The following phases of the circulation of the concept of soft power in Russian political science are considered: the creation of a concept with its subsequent popularization; acceptance of the concept by the academic community, its adaptation to the tasks of the country's foreign and domestic policy, including the inclusion of the concept in the discursive field of scientific disciplines, as well as the process of its legitimation through figuring in official political documents; critical understanding of the concept and its update with new methodological approaches and the development of new subject-specific fields. The article highlights the main problem areas of the conceptual analysis of soft power in Russian political science.

The article analyses the state of the art and the prospects of the Russian political science in terms of scientific communication. Political science develops through discussion on key problems of its subject matter: political power, legitimacy, justice, political regimes, etc. The quality of the discussion shapes the development of political science. The basic medium of the discussion remains an article in a scientific journal. Editorial policy of the leading journals is a key instrument for shaping the discussion and defining its norms and standards. There are few challenges for the Russian political science with respect to the development of a dialogue among its authors and scientific schools. First, it still has a form of a monologue rather than dialogue. There are a number of attempts to establish a dialogue with the leading foreign authors and a deficit of discussion among Russian political scientists. Second, double blind peer review still remains a rear practice. It is the only means for ensuring the high quality of scientific communication. Third, the quality of the discussion directly depends upon the differentiation of political science in the form of scientific schools. The Russian political science has a low degree of school differentiation. And the few schools that did manage to get established evade a dialogue on constitutive questions on theory and practice of political science. The author suggests that coordination of the leading journals’ editorial policy through different forms of institutional interactions including the Russian Political Science Association and the Russian International Studies Association might be an effective tool to encourage the discussion in the Russian political science and dialogue among its schools.

This article gives detailed analysis of five basic stages of development of the Russian political science researches works on the rights of the Russian-speaking minority living outside the Russian Federation. The author displays asynchrony of the development of foreign policy of the Russian Federation concerning the Baltic States and actualization of the theme of ethnic minorities in the countries of the former Soviet Union. This article also offers the typology of the Russian research centers which are engaged in this work. Work of structural divisions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analytical structures at classical universities, formally independent non-commercial research centers, actively supported by the state structures of the Russian Federation, as well as work of independent analytical centers existing mainly at the expense of Western grants, activity of which is connected with projects on ethnic minorities in the Baltic states, is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]