The article analyzes the influence of the foreign policy activities of Algerian and Tunisian leaders on the system of regional relations in the Maghreb. In the first part of the article, the authors consider the key characteristics of the Maghreb subsystem of international relations. They define it as deeply integrated with other regional subsystems, on the one hand, and as peripheral, on the other. They describe the transformation of this system in the 2010s, the influence of Western Sahara and Libyan factors on it, as well as relations between the southern and northern Mediterranean. It is further noted that in the early 2020s, key changes at the regional level were associated with the coming to power of Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algeria and Kais Saied in Tunisia. The second part of the article characterizes the foreign policy innovations of Kais Saied, who, within the framework of the conservative revolution, began to actively use the rhetoric of Arab nationalism in the foreign policy discourse. The third part of the article analyzes Algeria's foreign policy. The key principles of this policy are shown, the activities of the APDR in the Sahel, Palestinian and Maghrebian directions are briefly described. The main conclusion of the article is that the changes in the foreign policy of Tunisia and Algeria are mainly rhetorical in nature and do not change the essence of the Maghreb system of international relations, although they create a new design for it.

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of caliphate inArab-Muslim political and intellectual history in the context of the theory of state-civilization.Within the framework of the article, this problem is studied through a symbiotic political-historical approach.The political science part of the study is theoretical in nature.It discusses the content, strengths and weaknesses of the theory of state-civilization, criteria for identifying state-civilizations, the links between this concept and the concepts of nation-state and empire.This part is based mainly theoretical works byZhangWeiwei,MartinJacques,JamesDorsey,DominicLieven,EnriqueDDussel.The second, historical, part of the study examines the evolution of the caliphate as an idea and as a form of political organization with a focus on theMiddleAges andModern history.In the third part we analyze the concept of caliphate at the beginning of the twentieth century and the problem of the future of theIslamic world, discussed at all-Muslim congresses.This part is based onSoviet diplomatic sources, including those related to the participation ofSoviet representatives at theAll-MuslimCongress inMecca.The final part of the article shows how this idea of caliphate is perceived today, noting that it can be considered as a “dream-memory” of anIslamic state-civilization, opposed to the idea of a nation-state.

The article is consecrated to exploring the genesis and specific features of the Saudi political system, viewed as a variant of nationhood model, that was shaped in the 20th century in the Arab world and appeared to be in the grip of crisis over the second and third decades of the 21st century. The research is based on a hybrid historic-politological methodology that permits to trace the genesis and evolution of the political system throughout a protracted period in retrospect. The source base of a historic research section is made up of documents compiled by Soviet diplomats as well as diplomatic records of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which detail the steps undertaken by Ibn Saud with the aim of setting up the institutes of political power in the Kingdom and defining its administrative and territorial structure. Drawing on these documents, the politological section of this article identifies three clusters of elements pertinent to the Saudi political model: a universal cluster, whose analogues can be found in the history of diverse state formations, an Arab-Muslim cluster, which is in correlation with the appropriate political culture, and an Arabian one. Other examples are revealed, where the above elements of nationhood have played a crucial role. The Saudi specificity, as shown herein, embraces both traditional and contemporary elements of statehood. A thesis is advanced by the authors regarding the existence of a specifically Arabian model underlying the genesis of a multicomponent state, also the ramifications of such genesis for the development of political system are laid out.

The article focuses on the issues of political regime transformation in Algeria after the overthrow of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Describing the dynamics of Algerian political life, the author points out that the country's current regime can be characterised as hybrid and authoritarian. Nevertheless, the prospects for its further evolution remain unclear. The author opines that these prospects would be determined by the ability of the system to overcome the alienation between the public and the authorities. With this in mind, two key linking mechanisms need be analysed: electoral and direct political participation. When analysing electoral processes, the author compares the events and results of the 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2021 parliamentary campaigns, concluding that the mutual distrust between the public and the government constantly affects the social life of Algeria. Looking at direct forms of participation, he focuses on the “Hirak” Movement, which made the 2019 power transition possible. Indication of its specific traits shows why it did not facilitate the creation of a new social contract. The author concludes the article with the assumption that the alienation between the government and society has not been overcome because Algerian political culture was formed in the colonial and post-colonial periods. The article’s methodology is based on the hybrid regime and social orders theories. Furthermore, the author uses the typology of political parties proposed by Maurice Duverger. The sources and materials used for the study include official documents, media publications and results of the author’s field research.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the dynamics of relations between Syrian political authorities and ‘ulama’ in the period of independent development of the country. The primarily sources of the study were both official Syrian documents and media materials, as well as expert interviews of the author with representatives of the Syrian Ministry of Awqaf and civil society. The research methodology is based on approaches developed within the framework of the theory of social orders, the theory of the economics of religion and the theory of political systems. The article consists of three sections. The first section deals with the methodological problems of studying the relationship between political powers and religious elites in the Arab world. Here I propose a combined research approach. In the second part of the article, I test this approach in the analysis of the dynamics of relations between political authorities and ‘ulama’ in the second half of the 20th century. I show that, on the one hand, there was a gradual integration of the ‘ulama’ into the political system, an increase in the administrative rent received by them and a reduction in the resource rent, which led to a shortage of supply in relations between them and a wide circle of believers. This shortage of supply created opportunities for the promotion of alternative religious leaders. At the same time, despite the gradual strengthening of the government institutions, the ‘ulama’ retained significant independence in relations with the government and did not perceive themself as a simple part of the state apparatus. In the third part of the article, I consider the transformation of relations that have taken place in the context of the armed conflict, and analyze the new role of the Ministry of Awqaf. In conclusion, the question is raised about the independent role of the ‘ulama’ in the Syrian elite and the place of the Ministry in the political system.

The article is dedicated to tribes and tribal narratives in the political life of contemporary Libya. While it is widely acknowledged that the tribal factor is crucial in the Libyan history, its role in the political process of the last 10 years remains unclear. The tribes do not seem to become key military and political actors, they remain at the fringes of various reconciliation projects. Their political subjectivity itself brings out a number of controversial interpretations. Considering all that, the author aims to research the role of the tribal factor in social and political processes and discover manifestations of tribal narrative among non-state actors, particularly so-called militias. The following research is based both on published sources and author’s interviews with Libyan informants. The first part of the article looks into historical dynamics of the tribal factor. The second one analyzes the transformation of this role in the conditions of social modernization. The third part demonstrates specific traits of tribal strategies in the 2010s. The fourth one identifies elements of the tribal narrative in the actions and agendas of urban militias that have emerged after the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. The article shows that even though the urbanization process of the 1970-80s indeed led to the downfall of tribes as main socio-political structures, it has not yet fully replaced the tribal narrative by the times of the Arab Spring. As a result, the decomposition of statehood brought out the reconstruction of tribal structures according to the new social conditions.

The following article discusses issues of electoral participation and street protest activity in 21stcentury Algeria. The work is based on the materials on Algerian election campaigns and results ofthe author's field research in the country. Describing the current political situation in Algeria, theauthor points out that the long established alienation between the civil society and governmentinstitutions is one of the most significant challenges for the country's development. The roots of thisalienation are much deeper than the 2019 events when A. Bouteflika was overthrown due to massprotests and A. Tebboun became the President. Analyzing the electoral campaigns held since 2000to this day, the author discovers that mutual distrust between the political elites and the society hasbeen a characteristic trait of Algerian internal politics over the whole two decades. In this context,the Hirak movement founded in 2019 may be seen a an instrument of political transformation ratherthan merely a way to express popular discontent. However, even though this movement wassuccessful enough to change the political leadership in Algeria, it hasn't managed to transform theessence of the system and update the social contract. Looking into the reasons for this failure, theauthor concludes that they stem from the specific traits of Algerian political culture formed in thecolonial and early post-colonial eras

This article is dedicated to the issues of relations between the state and Islam in Arab countries (Algeria, Egypt, Syria) and in Russia in the contemporary era. Despite the fundamental diff erences between political systems and diff erent experiences in relations between the state and religion, all these societies are facing similar threats and challenges in recent years, causing certain parallels between policies towards Islam. This work is based on both published materials and around 20 interviews with experts, politicians and religious leaders from the researched countries recorded by the authors. The research allowed to defi ne common and diff erent traits of implemented political strategies, made it possible to show the infl uence of such processes as securitization of religion administrating, growing individualization of faith practicing, integration of religious institutions in the civil society structures on the transformation of StateIslam relationship models.

The article is devoted to the relevant issues of international relations in the Maghreb subregion, which became especially acute after the rupture of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco in August 2021. The authors analyze the general parameters of the Maghreb subsystem of international relations and identify key trends in the internal political development of its member states. The growing tension in the bilateral relations between Algeria and Morocco is only a symptom of the general crisis of the regional subsystem. The study is based on the analysis of a wide array of information and analytical materials and documents, as well as the authors field research in the border regions of Morocco (2019) and Algeria (2018, 2019) and interviews with Maghreb politicians (2020, 2021). The first part of the article highlights the key parameters of the Maghreb subsystem, describes its internal architecture, reveals the interconnections with other regional subsystems, and identifies the development trends of the Maghreb that took shape in the 2010s. The second part analyzes the internal political dynamics in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The current situation in each country can be described as an impasse, both in terms of the development of the democratic process and the possibilities for national consolidation on an authoritarian basis. The political elites of the region are unable to offer realistic strategies for state development and it leads to the growing alienation of societies. The third part of the article reveals the implications of political development crises for the regional relations. The authors conclude by putting forward a scenario of a partial reorientation of a number of Maghreb states from a deeper Mediterranean integration to finding other allies. They also identify prospects for rebalancing relations of Maghreb states with their Arab partners. In the framework of these processes the elites can use conflicting foreign policy agenda for the national consolidation of some countries. Finally, the authors raise the question of seeking new models of state and regional development in the Maghreb.

Alexey Malashenko is one of the most famous modern Russian Arabists and Islamic scholars. He is the author of numerous Russian, English, French, and Arabic works on political Islam, political processes in the Middle East, and the post-Soviet space. Among them: “The official ideology of modern Algeria” (Moscow: Nauka, 1983); “Islamic Renaissance in Contemporary Russia” (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 1998); “My Islam” (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010) and others. His career in academic research started at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For many years he was a member of the scientific council and chairman of the “Religion, Society and Security” program of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Today he leads scientific research at The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute. In connection with the anniversary of the scientist, a representative of another generation of Arabists, head of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS Vasily Kuznetsov, decided to talk with Aleksey Malashenko about his teachers, colleagues, and students, about Arab and Islamic studies, about the development of Russian oriental studies over the past few decades.

On April 23, 2021, an outstanding Russian Arabist, Doctor of History, Principal Fellow of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Bagrat Garegionovich Seyranyan celebrated his 90th birthday. His works on the recent history of Egypt and Yemen and the general problems of the socio-political development of the Arab countries in the 20th century have long become classic. Many of them were translated into Arabic and received well-deserved recognition abroad, and such books as “Egypt in the Struggle for Independence, 1945–1952” (Moscow, 1970) and “Evolution of the Social Structure of the Countries of the Arab East. Land Aristocracy in the 19th Century – the 60s of the 20th Century” (Moscow, 1991) entered the golden fund of world academy. The contribution of Bagrat Seyranyan to the training of new generations of orientalists is colossal. Under his leadership there were prepared more than 40 Ph.D. theses, he participated in authoring of numerous textbooks and teaching materials on the history of the Arab world. In this paper friends, colleagues and students address the hero of the day with words of recognition and gratitude.

This paper explores the possibility of considering neo-modernism as a framework concept for studying political processes in the Middle East.The study starts with an analysis of the notion of neo-modernity as a new way of treating reality that emerged out of postmodernism as a reaction to its totalizing criticism.A comparative analysis of the main publications on the matter has revealed key features of neo-modernism: the ability to avoid postmodern fragmentariness, problematization of values and meanings, and return to metanarratives.In the political realm, these features manifest themselves in five ways: the search for new political unities; the growing demand for projects of the future and for ideology; the creation of a new political mythology; the use of postmodern tools in political practice; and awareness of the fundamental instability of the current state of affairs.The main features of neo-modernism have been scrutinized with reference to the specific Middle Eastern political reality at the regional, national, and social levels.This approach has revealed the search for new regional, subregional, and national unities in the Middle East, as well as the creation of new ideologies, often directly related to attempts to devise new national development strategies, and the emergence (and sometimes deliberate engineering) of new elements of political mythologies.

This article is dedicated to the social and political fragmentation of contemporary Arab societies and the ways to solve this issue. The theoretical foundation of the research is based on the neomodern concept developed by the author. According to it, one of the key elements of the neomodernity era, which is currently replacing the postmodernity, is overcoming the total fragmentation tendency of the recent years.

The article deals with the modern specifics of digitization of the fundamental library functioning in one of the leading Russian scientific institutes for social sciences – Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INION). It is shown that after the fire in January 2015, the INION’s library never stopped to work. Nowadays, more than 3 million books and journals are available to readers in 18 departments at academic institutions in Moscow. INION receives mandatory copies of Russian publications and new foreign books and journals due to international exchange. Other funds are still preserved in the warehouse due to insufficient funding from the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education, but after moving to a new building on the historical site on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in Moscow, the INION’s library will expand its opportunities for readers. In preparation for this move, several digitization projects are being implemented at once in INION – from the development of famous bibliographic databases, which are still in commercial demand not only in Russia but also abroad, to the digitization of books and the creation of electronic catalogues of the library. The authors draw parallels between the modern objectives and methods of the modernization of the INION’s library in accordance with the challenges of the digital era and specifics of creation of the Library at the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences (which after several reorganizations in 1969 originated the INION) by difficult financial and political conditions of 1920-30-ies. It is concluded that any steps towards digitalization should be focused primarily on the needs of readers (postgraduates, researchers and university teachers) and not based on the proposals of technocrats who have little idea in which direction social and humanitarian sciences are developing. The ultimate goal of the development of the INION’s library should be to increase the competitiveness of scientific products of Russian social scientists in the world.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the socio-political transformation of the Arab world in the 2010s. The author analyses its changes through the concept of neo-modernity, which was already developed in a number of his earlier publications. The key thesis is the idea of a new turn of society to metanarratives, or “big stories” after postmodern relativism led to attempts to abandon them. In the first part of the article, the problem of metanarratives is considered at the theoretical level. The author proposes a methodology for studying socio-political processes and determines the influence of the condition of neo-modernity on political reality. The second part of the article highlights the main modern (liberal, left, nationalist, conservative) and premodern (tribal, Islamist) “big stories”. These “stories” determine the content and nature of public and political life in the Arab world in the 2010s and problematize new aspects of social relations. It shows how the actualization of metanarratives affected the course of the political process in Arab countries, as well as the organization of political systems, building new relations between societies and states. The third part of the article is devoted to the analysis of international political processes in the region. The influence of “big stories” on the configuration of the regional subsystem, armed conflicts, the composition of key actors, the specifics of their strategies, their identity and the identity of the region as a whole is revealed. In conclusion, the author shows a possibility of gradual harmonization of the system of regional relations in the case of the formation of hypertext, which makes it possible for the coexistence of actors guided by different narrative strategies.

The paper examines the European Union's democracy promotion policies in Tunisia and Egypt in the 2010s, aimed at promoting democratization. After the Arab Awakening, the EU has undertaken considerable efforts to help both states in the process of democratic transition, but the actions of Brussels had a different effect. In Tunisia, whose authorities after the 2011 revolution expressed their commitment to democracy, the EU assistance played a very constructive although not a decisive role. In Egypt, where the EU found itself in an extremely competitive environment, Brussels failed to promote the country's democratic development and advance its own agenda. Thus, the EU had to return to a pre-2011 model of relations, based on cooperation with the Arab governments, which were not democratic but capable of ensuring stability in the neighboring region the problems of which tend to spill over directly to Europe.

This article is dedicated to an analysis of the current situation in the Arab world within the framework of Neomodernism theory and to the detection of the religious component of the socio-political process. According to Neomodernism theory, contemporary human society is at the point of transferring from the postmodern stage to a new one. This stage is characterized by the combination of three elements: the need for a new positive message, the archaic content of this message, and the use of postmodern tools to construct it. The religious factor plays a special and very important role in the socio-political process, which can be discovered by means of secular and post-secular ideas. After making some general observations the author tries to apply them to Middle Eastern reality and Arab-Muslim culture. As a result he outlines the principal traits of "Islamic secularism" and reveals the common post-secular trends of Middle Eastern and Western society. At the end of the article the author analyzes links between Neomodernism and post-secularism at the regional and global levels.

The round-table addressed the question of research methodologies for those trends now observable in the Islamic world, as well as conceptual approaches for understanding current developments there. Such frameworks as Islamic reformation, a neo-modern age, and the search for a political Islamic identity were proposed. Participantsd id not agree about the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism and modernity. Some of them considered fundamentalism as potentially a modernist movement, and others saw it only as antimodernist and archaic. In this respect, the question of balance between declared goals and real impact on social development was raised, in other words, can those groups that call for a return to the past in reality facilitate movement forward? Much attention was paid to terminology. There was also an active discussion on the issue of language for scientific analysis and the language of self-presentation of different Islamic movements, and whether they should be interconnected or could be fully autonomous.

This article analyzes international relations in Western Asia and North Africa (WANA) amid the ongoing reformatting of the modern world order.The emerging new world order is examined through the transition from post-modernity to neo-modernity.The analysis of theoretical works on post-modernity helps to study the phenomenon of neo-modernity, identify its key features, and compare possible characteristics of the new world order with those of neo-modernity.The second and third parts of the paper explore neo-modernity with regard to WANA.Two options for WANA's political self-identity and two ways to build a regional system of relations are discussed.One of the options suggests looking at WANA from a modern perspective as the Middle East; the other views it as pre-modernistic and part of the Islamic world.The composition of actors, the