The article represents an attempt to apply G. Hofstede’s typology of cultural dimensions to analyze international relations in a constructivist view. The study sheds light on competing and cooperating interaction of traditional and rising powers. The methodology implies to implement the list of cultural variables such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/ femininity, short-term/long-term orientation, indulgence/restraint to map the position of states with a focus on great powers.

The constructed diagrams made it possible to reveal the differentiation of cultural dimensions that characterize traditional and rising powers. This differentiation is one of the factors that may contribute to the increase in the potential conflict in the international relations at present. The overall cultural representativeness of the Global North leaders, i.e. traditional powers, is lower than that of the representatives of the Global South leaders, i.e. rising powers. The results of the study generate the conclusion that the current disorder as transitional stage of the international relations is more likely to be replaced by a multipolar rather than a bipolar world order architecture.

The aim of the article is to reveal the intention of “strategic culture”, which has a significant cognitive potential for studying the political course of the main players in the modern world. In modern-day Russia, the study of this phenomenon is characterized by inconsistency and ambiguity, which has disorienting consequences and makes it difficult to use the concept to identify political phenomena and processes. The situation is further complicated by the lack of clarity about what a political strategy is. The article gives the author’s vision of the strategy and reveals how the strategic culture is determined by the historical past of the nation, including its military experience. Therefore, the concept of “strategic culture” refers to the dependence of the subject’s political behavior on their perception of security. This perception is determined by the historical experience of the use of military force and the attitude towards it. Therefore, in practice, strategic culture is expressed in preferences when choosing ways and means of the subject’s response to changes in the environment.

The comprehension of a specific strategic culture is complicated by the fact that, while existing and being insufficiently studied and explained, it can be perceived as an irrational phenomenon. Understanding the strategic culture requires the perception of value meanings, symbols, and motives of political players. It leads to increased requirements for the choice of methodology and research methods. The study of strategic culture and related phenomena involves the complex use of applied and specific methods. Among them, discourse analysis and content analysis, cross-cultural, semantic and semiotic analysis, study of documents, analysis of performance results should be singled out.

The article attempts to summarize the approaches to study the interrelation between culture and economy. On the one hand, it is about the cultural impact on the economy as a life-support system, i.e. about the role of cultural factors in economic development and ensuring sustainable economic growth. On the other hand, the article pays attention to the cultural factor in the context of economic science and its reflection in certain areas of economic thought (institutional economics, behavioural economics, development economics, etc.): (1) culture as an explanation of residual phenomena; (2) culture as a restriction of economic behaviour; (3) culture as a preference of economic agents. Finally, it also deals with the cultural economics as an independent branch of economic science, which studies the economic problems of culture that is responsible for the cultural engagement of the wider population and the improvement of the cultural component of human potential in general. The article justifies the necessity of incorporating of cultural factor into modern economic research as culture not only influences economic behaviour and choice of economic entities, but also determines the quality of institutes, thus forming the vectors of modern social system development.

Nowadays mass culture is becoming a significant tool for influencing the consciousness and behavior of the masses, especially young people. The commercialization of mass culture leads to a noticeable decrease in the quality of its content, as well as to the loss of any regulatory control in this area. This fact requires a serious study of what images and content of mass culture dominate in the minds of the Russian youth, how the mechanism of worldview creation and how the formation of their own social identity work. Within the framework of this article, the main approaches to determining the role of mass culture in the process of political socialization of youth in Russia are highlighted starting with studies emphasizing the purely targeted nature of the impact of cultural orientations on young people, to works stating the comprehensive nature of mass culture. It is concluded that modern approaches to the study of mass culture are largely focused on conceptualization and the search for universal explanations of the principles of its functioning (commercialization, contextuality, accessibility, the formation of conventions in the framework of communication, etc.). At the same time, the work records the main intergenerational differences in leisure activities and the choice of its specific forms, different for the generation of “fathers” and the generation of “children”. This fact also significantly affects the information and cultural consumption of representatives of different generations. At the same time, for young people, the consumption of certain cultural samples is mainly determined by the availability of relevant artifacts and social influence (fashion, environment, social contacts, etc.).

The article presents the results of an empirical study conducted in 2022 and devoted to the study of the symbolic images of the past, present and future of Russia, formed in the mass consciousness of the Russians. In their study, the authors rely on a political and psychological approach, use the method of individual focused interviews in combination with projective techniques. For a more detailed analysis of the symbolic content of the image of the country, the drawing method “Russia in the form of a non-existent animal” was used when collecting data. The study made it possible to test the conceptual model proposed by the authors and prove its research potential. As the result of data analysis, several important perceptual tendencies were identified and expressed in symbolic representations. The authors establish mythologization of perception and hypersensitivity of modern perception to the changes in the foreign policy context that are covered through the media, as well as the increasing importance of the parameter of strength in the image of Russia. Significant incongruity, imbalance of the image of the country with respect to the spatial and temporal components, and the components of the people and the state were revealed. The study showed that even with symbolic poverty the images of the present, past and future are closely intertwined. The data demonstrate a growing trend of retro-oriented perception of the present and blurring of images of the future.

The course of urbanization in India and China is notable not only for the scale, but also for the different role of the state. Despite the abundance of materials, comparative studies are scarce: local urbanists only passionate about national processes, while foreigners could lack a deep knowledge of the context. The pace of urbanization of the two countries, which was on a par for a long time, diverged drastically after the beginning of market reforms. According to official data, the share of citizens in China is almost twice as high as in India, though due to the differences in the criteria, the real gap could be less. Each country possesses six megacities larger than 10 million people, but the Indian urban system as a whole is less structurally balanced. The standards of living, infrastructure development and global integration of the Chinese urban centers are higher than those of the Indian counterparts. In accordance with international practice, both countries have adopted guidelines for the cities development. The Indian “Ten Urban Sutras” (2018) are advisory recommendation, mainly devoted to urban planning and management. Their implementation depends fully on the state governments. The coverage of China’s “newtype urbanization” (2014) is much wider. Its main goal is to increase the number of urban residents while limiting the size of the largest cities. The main tool is the reform of the registration system (hukou). This is a comprehensive national program: implementation is coordinated by the high-level interministerial working group, the goals are mandatory for local authorities. The differences in the regulation of urbanization correspond to differences in political systems, and their analysis is important in the context of studying the modernization pathways of developing countries.

Modern Turkey is actively developing the world-power image, and it has been striving for a little over ten years to get that status. The authors identify and do research in the article on the crucial media technologies in the process of constructing and promoting the image of the Republic of Turkey under the guidance of R.T. Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party. The source base for the study is the publications on the official YouTube channels of the Communications Department of the Presidential Administration of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party, of the state news agency “Anadolu”, as well as the speeches by R.T. Erdogan at the sessions of the UN General Assembly. The methodology of the study is represented by semiotic approach, monitoring, discourse analysis, qualitative and quantitative content analysis and case study. The conducted study has made it possible to conclude that the Turkish world-power status is directly related to the president’s personality of R.T. Erdogan, who plays an essential part in promoting the new image of strong Turkey. The Turkish media represent the Turkish president as a supporter of a fair world order, as well as a leader and defender of the Muslim world. The content of the studied information resources is professionally verified and consists of many symbols that latently transmit certain ideological attitudes. Turkey is positioned as a state that has a significant influence on the world and regional politics throughout various historical eras. The particular attention of the Turkish media scene is given to demonstrating the continuity of the imperial and republican period. At the same time the Ottoman discourse not only re-establishes historical continuity with the modern period, but also creates the image of new great Turkey that evokes a sense of national pride, both among its citizens and in the international media space.

The article studies the discussions of various Belarusian social and political actors on the role and place of national culture in the process of national and state building in the Republic of Belarus. Due to a number of historical issues, the formation of national identity on the Belarusian territory began relatively late and, in many ways, has not been completed yet. Furthermore, the territory of present Belarus was originally a frontier region where a variety of cultures, ideologies, social and political projects developed and coexisted. This situation has largely contributed to the fact that there is a lack of common sense of the Belarusian national culture, and sometimes the debates about its characteristics occur to be hot. In this context, two main political discourses of modern Belarus, conventionally marked as “nonconformist” and “governmental”, are evaluated. Each time their supporters promote their own visions of national culture, striving to use them as a political tool. In the first case, national culture is understood within the framework of “European civilization”, together with “old” national states of Europe, their historical background and current social development. However, the Belarusian ethnic heritage is noticeably being reducing, sometimes up to the language. On the contrary, in the second case, the main national idea is the state sovereignty gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which at the same time symbolizes the manifestation of national culture. A deep analysis of both discourses reveals their structural similarity and ideological incompleteness. The desire ofboth groups to offer a functioning national idea faces a number of serious problems, such as outdated ideas about the processes of nation-building as well as operating with speculative categories in political theorizing. 

The paper is devoted to the phenomenon of the “communist shift” in the mass Orthodox culture of the late USSR. The author analyzes the pro-Soviet rhetoric of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the peculiarities of the consciousness of ordinary believers which allowed the community of Orthodox-oriented citizens to remain part of the Soviet society in the cultural dimension. The paper shows that the Church made significant efforts to form a social concept consonant with the ideals of the communist party in the post-war period. The basis of this concept was Soviet patriotism, the struggle for peace, equality and fraternity of peoples, social justice and progress, respect for personality together with criticism of the vices of the capitalist system. In the 1950s and 1980s, the corresponding values were repeatedly proclaimed in official speeches, sermons, publications of the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, they tried not to touch on the fundamentally insoluble in the Soviet realities contradiction between religious and atheistic worldviews.

The “communist transformation” of the Church as a community of believers was not just a survival strategy. Socialization in the Soviet cultural environment led to the formation of a large stratum of the priests who sincerely shared the ideals of building a “new world”, believed in the compatibility of religion and communism, as well as the great historical mission of the USSR. The Soviet patriotism of the clerics was also stimulated by the spiritual demands of the Orthodox-oriented citizens who were increasingly accustomed to consider themselves Soviet people. The work demonstrates that a significant part of the population saw the practical embodiment of the Christian values in the socialist transformations, turning a blind eye to the atheism of the dominant ideology or viewing it as a misunderstanding, the existence of which must be reconciled. At the same time, the mission of the Church was often associated with spiritual support in new social conditions and assistance to the state in its good endeavors by adherents of Orthodox churches.

Corporate communications existed long before the formation of the theory of marketing and management. Even in Rome industry guilds prescribed ethical rules of conduct between representatives of different professions which can be called protocol relations. At that time, the formation of patriotism began, as a manifestation of heroic love for the society, country, family, suzerain, and as a result, in the 17th century, it took shape in the manifestation of love and devotion to the state. Prior to that, state patriotism did not intersect with corporate communications and most often they denied each other, as evidenced by the works of the Davos Forum, the Club of Rome and other supranational structures, which did not gain anything from supporting corporate communications aimed at the benefit of state interests. The present paper is one of the first works that consider patriotism as motivation for the efficiency of work in companies, and corporate communications as a tool for the formation of this type of motivation. The study contains not only an extensive theoretical base of the epistemology of understanding the concept of pentabasis, but also an empirical part (survey), including an assessment of the impact of pentabasis values on the formation of corporate values of the Russian medium and large business companies.

The article, based on the theory of field of P. Bourdieu, examines the complex evolution of the Soviet diplomatic culture in the interwar period. The idea of dismantling the diplomatic field as such dominated the minds of the Bolsheviks for a relatively short time and was quickly replaced by aspiration for a deep reformatting of the diplomatic field by introducing new practices and ideas about the legitimacy of social and symbolic capital into it. The Bolsheviks’ disillusionment with the prospects of the world revolution started the process of gradually embedding the Soviet foreign policy service in the diplomatic field and adapting to its structures. The assimilation of the appropriate habitus led to the formation of a special ethos among the diplomatic corps, which brought it closer to the Western behavioral model. At the negotiating level, this trend was reflected in the formation of diplomats’ desire to establish long-term relations with capitalist states, even at the cost of political concessions. The corresponding signs were clearly manifested during the Genoa Conference, and fully made themselves felt after M.M.  Litvinov came to the leadership of the NKID (People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR), under whom the Soviet diplomatic corps acquired the visual features of a special socio-professional group. The most profound integration of the Soviet foreign ministry into the diplomatic field took place in the first half – mid-1930s during the implementation of its collective security policy. However, after 1936, Stalin’s desire to take full control of foreign policy against the background of the general failure of Litvinov’s course in the international arena launched the process of restructuring the NKID, which ended with the formation of the foundations of a new diplomatic culture.

The paper focuses on presenting the role of international exhibitions in the political life of various countries as spaces where cultural and political dialogue is organized. As the main examples the cultural cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Paris-Moscow and Moscow-Paris exhibitions organized on the joint initiative of France and the USSR in 1979 and 1981, as well as the exhibitions of American post-war art in the Tate were considered. The article also examines several more examples of such events in order to support the idea that such events were indeed the flow of political dialogues on many levels, from the search for common points in art on the exhibition scene to the covert processes of negotiation and correspondence that made these exhibitions come to fruition. At the same time the paper presents the specifics of cultural relations between the United States and the USSR, and directly within the Western community, without using the comparison of Europe and the USSR as the only obvious political confrontation and antithesis. 

The article presents an overview of the books by Danish (Brian Russell Graham), Indonesian (Harijono Djojodihardjo), Romanian (Liviu Warter) and Irish (Sean Crosson) authors. The books cover the problems of the relationship between national culture and innovation (H. Djojodihardjo), national culture and business ethics (I. Warter, L. Warter), national and popular culture (S. Crosson), as well as national culture as the basis for national identity (B.R.  Graham). The review takes into account the appeal of the researchers to the Russian national cultural experience and its influence on the policy in the field of mass culture, innovation and economic cooperation. The abstracts from the articles and books are supported by the data from the Google Trends analytical service for the search queries of the Internet users such as “business ethics”, “cinema”, “general culture” and “innovation”. The correlation of scientific findings in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and public interest in certain topics makes it possible to show the popularity and significance of the chosen issue, to clarify the national and geographical features of the content under study.