The Russian academic journal

8-13

Authors: Victor Apryshchenko

The article deals with role of historical memory in the context of two referenda which have been held in 2014 — in Scotland on the 18th of September and in Catalonia on the 9th of November, although not recognised by the Spanish government. Both of them reflect the issue of how the imperial past influences current political debates about independence. In spite of the different political and cultural contexts, the two referenda have been deeply connected with history and memory and have exploited imperial settings to explain the ‘security choice’. This article argues that traumatic experience of transition between the imperial and national contexts has been the decisive factor in the process of securitization of memory. Although memory has been considered as a strategic recourse in the two regions, the way it has been utilized is different. The memory of the past was shifted from the sphere of politics to the sphere of security, and memory has been utilized as a means of securitization. Desecuritization of the national memory in the Scottish and the Catalan contexts is connected with its politicization as well as with placing it within the cultural context. British and Spanish imperial pasts have been sublimated in the form of cultural symbols and memories.

20-22

Authors: Olena Kaminska

The aim of the article is studying of the theoretical approaches to the Ukrainian economy and its regions modernization. In the article historical aspects of definition of concept of modernization, the main priorities of modernization of the Ukrainian economy are analyzed. Preconditions of modernization of the Ukrainian economy and its regions are defined. It is defined that the new mechanisms of modernization of economy of Ukraine shouldn’t be based on neoliberalism. Firstly, the real practice and consequences of neoliberalism are quite obvious. Secondly, neoliberalism was under construction round improbably stylized version of an Anglo-American way of development with which such details as steady factiousness in policy, high duties during start of modern economy, possession of the colonial empire or the colonized continent in case of the USA dropped out. All this needs to be considered, considering a question of today’s modernization. The conclusion is drawn that on character modernization has to be organic. In this case the probability to avoid bloody revolutions and command state mistakes increases. It is noted that the main sense of modernization of the Ukrainian economy will pass on its regional components at the level of which the main network and regional structures of innovative economy, first of all in the person of small business and which have opportunity to get effective support from the management institutes which will allow them to use the interbudgetary transfers, regional funds of compensations and separate powers of public authorities of regions of Ukraine are created. It will promote formation of regional space of the new multilevel economic relations.

26-31

Authors: Igor Ivanov, Vadim Volovoj

Article analyzes geopolitics of Kazakhstan, examines how it should look like in accordance with classic geopolitical theory and how it does look in practice, in particular in case of Kazakhstan membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which reflects Kazakh geostrategy in relations with Russia and China as the main factors of stability in Central Asia. Additional value of the article is that it is purely geopolitical while geopolitical method (theory) is usually misunderstood in the discipline of international relations, used rather freely often being confused with realistic paradigm. Also Central Asia as an object of analysis is not in the centre of global academic discourse and any additional study in the field of CA geopolitics broadens understanding of the external and internal political process in the region. The study showed that Kazakh geopolitics is predetermined to be continental, Heartland oriented, because Kazakhstan is located in the closest neighborhood of Russia and is a steppe land with the conservative identity totally different to the one of see powers. Therefore its geopolitical gravitation towards strategic alliance with Moscow is very strong and even more strengthened by its president Nursultan Nazarbayev as a consistent partisan of the Russian geopolitical theory called Eurasism. Kazakhstan membership in EEU, initially initiated by Nazarbayev, supports the idea that geopolitical union with Russia is the essence of Kazakh geostrategy. At the same time Kazakhstan has good relations with China, but they are of secondary importance for Astana in comparison to cooperation with Russia. SCO is a comfortable platform for Kazakhstan to find its place in geopolitical dialogue of Moscow and Beijing. The problem is that nobody knows how Kazakh foreign policy will look like after Nazarbayev leaves the office, but classic geopolitical theory says that geopolitical orientation of Kazakhstan will hardly change in the long run because its c onservative land identity is too strong.

35-38

Authors: Mykhailo Gedz

The purpose of the study is to develop suggestions to improve the government structural policies in the economic sphere. World experience shows that during the restructuring the role of government in regulating the economy is growing. Its high effectiveness in practice has been proven by the approach, according to which structural changes in the country should start from primary industries. Export revenues of those industries are specifically used for the modernization of industries following next in the technological chain, and the expansion of high-tech production. High and stable results were achieved in economic development of those countries, which pursued the policy of dosed liberalism. This enabled them to not only maintain the current level of domestic production, but also improve its international competitiveness according to the principles of dynamic (not static) comparative advantages. The current technologies in Ukrainian government and public administration are not effective and seem to be inappropriate. Result of comprehensive liberalization and loss of control over economy was the lack of a meaningful strategy during the transformation of the national economy. Accordingly, at the level of individual enterprises in the region there is no strategic vision of the problems. Thus, during the years of reform there emerged an objective conflict between strategic management (which is missing) and operational management. This point of view makes it impossible to answer the question, which of the many options offered by structural reform has a historical perspective, also this point of view contradicts to all experience about ways to get out of structural crisis. Studying the experience of implementation of structural change in many countries has shown that despite the theoretical recognition of monetarism as the primary and most effective means of resolving most of the economic problems, and despite the long and strong market traditions in most developed countries, during the period of structural changes and the formulation of targeted structural changes, the role of state becomes more significant, the government structural policy is actively used, the main objective of which is to accelerate the transition from recession of production to growth and improve national competitiveness at the global level. The main areas of mechanism of structural policy implementation in Ukraine should be: 1) optimization of sectoral and technological structure of the economy 2) providing progressive structural changes by means of organization of investment breakthrough. Only in terms of the investment boom by creating own innovative products and supporting demand for those products, there may be progressive structural changes. The efficient implementation of structural changes in the economy of Ukraine, which is a set of measures aimed at restoring the sphere of material production and diversification of the real economy sector, is not possible without deliberate government regulation. Methods: dialectical, Economics and Statistics, abstract and logical

43-45

Authors: Natalja Chorna

Ways of attainment of the competitiveness are different for each enterprise, but, at the same time, they have a mutual feature, i.e. an enterprise cannot become a competitive one without the implementation of strategic plans of its development. Despite the diversity of strategies enterprises frequently choose the strategy of external increase, which includes a type such as the vertical integration strategy. A purpose of the research is the determination of the main priorities of development of vertically integrated structures and the examination of the main directions of enhancement of their efficiency. The vertically integrated structures creating the complete technological cycle “production — processing — realization” is the most effective and adjusted to modern conditions of the market economy. The application of vertical integration enables to overcome the apartness of producers of raw materials and processing companies, trade and other companies, to eliminate the competition between producers and distributors of products of the same type. All of this is very important for the formation of the single price policy. Moreover, the application of vertical integration allows the optimization of prices and conditions of production and distribution of products, taking into consideration the application of damping policy regarding the foreign competitors. Due to the creation of vertically integrated structures a system of taxation of final products may be put in order. Simultaneously, the practice of double or triple taxation in the process of movement of products from suppliers of raw materials to processing and distribution companies is eliminated. The incentive reason of the vertical integration is, firstly, the savings in transactional costs related to, in particular, the preparation and drawing up a treaty. The decrease of transactional costs also occurs in the process of usage of highly specialized resources, since the market of these assets is factually monopolized, and a company-producer deals with the uncertainty regarding the timely delivery of such resources. The vertically integrated structures is an important element of the company development, which enables to significantly decrease costs for additional legal aspects of a commercial activity, to save resources, to enhance the quality of a finished product due to the deeper specialization of some treads of a structure, and to completely detect the economic potential of a state. The advantages of these integrations together with the incentive reasons of vertical integration create a synergic interconnection, which prevent disproportions of production and provide a maximally possible income under the high quality of products.

49-51

Authors: Yevhenii Kharlan

Goal of the study is to identify the trends and characteristics of the formation of food security in the territory of Ukraine. In the article the essential meaning of food security, described the key indicators which are offered which make advisable to assess the level of food security. Indicators of food security of Ukraine are determined according to the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of 05.12.2007 № 1379 “Some questions of food security,” which defined level of indicator sufficiency of food consumption, represented regions with the incision consumption of main types of food in 2012, made calculation the dependence on imports of food groups. The main factors that affect the state of the agro-industrial sector and the level of food security in Ukraine are determined. It is concluded that the Concept of food security should cover satisfaction the physiological needs of the population in a protected, multifunctional, high quality food products in accordance to the medical advice, environmental conditions and individual human condition.

56-59

Authors: Svetlana Savina

The article contains a study of the dependence of the enterprise on the competitiveness of its innovative activity. Experts highlight factors refraining the innovative development of production: the absence of financing (85.7%); high expenses (40.3%); considerable credit rates (38.7%); a significant economic risk (24.1%); problems concerning raw materials (29.2%); the imperfect legislative framework (31.5%). In Vinnytsia region there has been a tendency of the decrease of a general amount of innovative expenses of light industry companies during the last years. As a result of the innovative activity next structural forms may be highlighted: the reduction of transactional and operational costs; the re-projection and the expansion of the nomenclature of company products; the optimization of an organizational and managerial structure of a company; the creation of a quality system; the certification according to appropriate standards. The formation of innovation development mechanism of light industry companies contemplates the complex implementation of the topical achievements of science and techniques (innovations) in a production and managerial activity and should be based on such conceptual principles: — resource provision: the existence of an appropriate amount of material, labor, technical, applied, and infrastructural opportunities of companies for implementation of innovations and realization of system changes; — efficiency: the dynamic reduction of non-production costs, the increase of incomes of realization of products manufactured on the basis of new technologies; the expansion and strengthening rival positions of a company in a market; — balance: the existence of balanced system of the quantitative and qualitative estimation of a finance and economic activity and of the estimation of efficiency of innovation implementation and system changes; — controllability: the compliance of a factual state of an innovative process with a project one, which is planned after processes of the management system change; — coherence: the synchronization of implementation of innovative processes and technologies with essential organizational changes according to time, terms, and resources. Taking into consideration the done research the author may conclude that the provision of high competitiveness of a light industry company is possible in terms of the formation of effective management system of its innovation and investment development with account for all essential requirements and principles.

65-67

Authors: Natalja Zamkovaya

Current article is dedicated to the issues of racism as one of the most important factors of language-cultural discrimination. Basic ideas of postcolonial racism and the phenomenon of post-modernism in racism study have been analyzed. Foreign and Ukrainian scientists’ views upon the modern phenomenon of multiculturalism and its place in the modern philosophy have been evaluated. Natural-biological and theoretical characteristics of the category of “Differences”, including the total bellicose culture of relations between the “majority” and “minority”, have been scrutinized. In this article it has been studied that fixation of “racism” definite autonomy from “nationalism” gives possibility for creating the assumption of the “nationalism’s” probable existence without racism. Besides, the possibility of double identity within nationalism has been examined.

73-76

Authors: Hryhorii Melnychenko

The aim of the research is to identify the problems and peculiarities of implementation of environmental investment in Ukraine. The determinants of modern social development are presented in the article, the principles of modern strategies of social and economic development of the country are formed, the trends, which are reflected in modern structural macroeconomic dynamics and which have a significant influence on the development of investment processes are identified. It is also determined that the current state of environmental investments in Ukraine can be assessed as unsatisfactory. After a noticeable increase of environmental investments in the 80’s, it was a dramatic decline in the 90-ies of the XX century and this trend stayed in the new millennium. The part of environmental investments in the total structure of investments doesn’t exceed 1 %. The principles that reflect the system of values of the civilization of the XXI century, including environmental progress are disclosed, it is proved that the ecologization of the investment process is a complex task of the entire system of economic management, the principles of the state policy in the field of environmental investments are formed.

84

Authors: Alexey Fedorov

In the autumn of 2014 in the city of Rostov-na-Donu, under the auspices of the Rostov Scientific Elitological School, a milestone scientific e vent — international conference “Leader, Elite, Region” — took place. The editorial stuff of the Russian Academic Journal closely followed speeches of scientists and from dozens reports choose only a few which are able to give to the global scientific community, which takes interest in Russian elitology, a sight of line of elitological thought in regions on the South of Russia the North Caucasus to the fullest extent.

88-90

Authors: Yakov Plyays

These theses represent some thoughts and ideas cast by the analytical review of doctor’s and master’s theses on the elitological subjects of the recent two decades. As of now, elitology has not been well developed in Russia. Perhaps, the only full-fledged elitological school of thought is functioning in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Not all other centres and research groups engaged in this problematics are organised, active or independent enough. Meanwhile, modern Russia is in a desperate need of development of the theoretical basis and accumulation of practical knowledge in elitology. The first reason thereof is the pressing need to create political and administrative elite of a new-type, develop standards and criteria of belonging to an elite group and establish effective mechanisms of control of elite development processes by the society. Under the conditions of a transit society, a closed mechanism of vertically integrated elite development has proved to be ineffective. At the moment, country leaders are attempting to make the elite development process more open. At the same time, the elite of any transit society face permanent opposition from not only the counterelite but also the antielite. Under these conditions, coming of the antielite to power is a serious danger, while existence of the counterelite contributes to democratization and development of a civil society. In the Russian society, all these three forces have had their own configuration from the early 1990s and up to now, which is quite specific as compared with other countries. To have a firm grasp of this field and provide a competent conduct of an elite development policy, Russian authorities need a domestic theoretical elitological foundation based on the recent experience of Russia, concerned about its specificity and developed with account of national interests, first of all.

94-99

Authors: Alexander Ponedelkov, Alexander Starostin, Sergey Zmiyak

The submitted research is devoted to estimation requirements to a leadership component of political management in modern Russia generated as realized by experts and in popular consciousness. This paper presents and analyzes experts and public opinion poll findings in several regions of Russia. Following the results of survey the leadership and elite configuration, in the Russia of our modern age represented by a triad “President – Heads of territorial entities of the Russian Federation – municipal authorities”, is described. Analysis of desirable and available leadership style of representatives of the Russian establishment of different levels, criteria of selection of political leaders have been performed; stability of the modern Russian elite, its key positive and negative features in the eyes of expert community and in popular consciousness have been evaluated. Timeliness of this research is arising from changes in foreign policy status of Russia, extension of its political and economic clout, increase of its significance in the international stage. These positive trends not least result from leadership skills of the leader of the State and his team officials both at national and at regional levels. And the contest for the support or discrediting of the country’s leadership starting under these circumstances requires a thorough valuation of actual position of the leader and his environment in the context of the resource of their authority. Based on the research data, authors of the research note a linkage between rates of leadership and elite skills of Leader of the State and efficiency of political management.