Abstract: The presented work examines terrorist violence at the subnational level, taking into account the fact that the regions of residence of politically excluded ethnic groups are exposed to a higher terrorist risk. Moreover, this risk may be exacerbated by the high population density of the region, the level of economic development and the type of political regime of the country. There is some reason to believe that the influence of political isolation may also be more likely to motivate cases of ethnic violence when this exclusion is combined with numerous local and country conditions that increase awareness of group competition and unequal distribution of socio-economic resources. The study uses geocoded incidents of terrorist attacks within States in combination with a set of data on ethnic groups' access to political power in the country and an additional set of control variables. The analysis focuses on the assessment of domestic terrorism incidents for 185 countries in 1970-2019. Logistic regression with random effects was used to verify the assumptions made. In general, it was found that ethnic political isolation is an important risk factor for local terrorist violence. It was also revealed that more densely populated and affluent regions are at much greater risk of violence if at least one excluded ethnic group is present in them. These trends are much more pronounced in democratic countries, in which cases of political isolation are deviations rather than the norm.

Abstract: This article is devoted to the analysis and prediction of the risk of terrorist acts based on a comparison of various machine learning algorithms. In order to determine the most important indicators, more than thirty external and internal risk factors are comprehensively considered by quantifying them and an initial set of initial data is built. The study analyzes multidimensional socio-economic and political data for 136 countries for the period from 1992 to 2020. Four indicators are also predicted, reflecting the expected success of terrorist attacks, the likelihood of socio-economic consequences and general damage from terrorism. In addition to the classical analysis models, the effectiveness of the other four machine learning algorithms that can be used to analyze multidimensional data is compared. To predict the risk of terrorist attacks, a random forest model is created, and the effectiveness and accuracy of the model are evaluated based on statistical criteria. To determine the most important initial indicators, the method of recursive elimination of features in a random forest was used. The main result of this study is to identify the most important indicators for predicting the risk of terrorism and to reduce redundant indicators, which makes it possible to improve understanding of the main characteristics of attacks. Meanwhile, the results show that it is necessary to take appropriate proactive measures not only in the form of forceful detention, intelligence and response operations, but also to improve the stability of the state, achieve social balance and improve the quality of life of citizens.

Abstract: The key goal of the article is to examine whether the domestic political instability associated with the “Arab Spring” caused the subsequent surge of global terrorism, which reached its peak in 2014. The author reviews six different types of domestic political instability: antigovernment demonstrations, national strikes, government crises, government repression, disturbances, and revolutions. Using the regression models, the author clarifies the impact of such factors as the level of education, Internet access, economic development, democratization indexes, and the degree of religious and ethnic fragmentariness. Analysis is conducted on the results of the models separately for different types of political regimes, forms of domestic political instability, and global regions. The results of construction and analysis a number of negative binomial regression models testify to the support of “escalation effect”, which implies that heightened intensity of domestic political instability leads to the surge of terrorist attacks. More severe forms of domestic political instability, namely repression and disturbances, generate a higher level of terrorism; however, revolution, as the most severe form of domestic political instability does not produce such effect. The formulated conclusions are also substantiated by the fact that certain forms of political instability have a different impact upon terrorism and its peculiarities, depending on the geographical region and the type of political regime.

Abstract: National terrorism is a complex issue, the cause for emergence of which lies in various factors and conditions that generate or are capable of generating it. The goal of this work consists in determining the key risk factors that contribute to emergence of terrorism based on expert polling of the members of academic community and law enforcement directly dealing with security of the Russian regions. The importance of this research is characterized by the fact that it allows assessing the main internal and external factors contributing to emergence and spread of national terrorism, causes thereof, and conditions that formed in Russia. The research is based on a social survey of experts in the area of security, containing questions on risk factors of terrorism. In the course of study, 72 causes for emergence of national terrorism were identified, which were later transformed into survey questions. The acquired results allowed establishing 18 main risk factors associated with the advent of terrorism. It was noted that the elimination of these risk factors will allow an overall reduction of the impact of less significant factors. The research results can be useful for countries and national regions experiencing high level of terrorist activity.

Abstract: This article explores the problem of assessing the terrorists’ choice of strategy for attacking. Particular attention is given to the practices of implementation of tactical innovations to the activity of terrorist organizations. Using the theory of art of destruction, the author provides a brief characteristics to the criteria of innovativeness of the means of carrying out attacks. The first part of the article examines the link between the assessment of tactical innovations, characteristic of weapons, and the purpose of each attack. The results of two-component research allow understanding the nature, difficulty and aspect of tactical innovations. In the course of this work, the author applied the correlation-regression data analysis; factor analysis of the processing of expert opinions; verification of reliability of the scales using Cronbach's alpha. The research results suggest basic assessment of tactical innovations, which may be used for estimating the innovative maturity of terrorist organizations, and serve as the foundation for development of the more adaptive counterterrorism strategies. The author underlines that execution of attacks with high level of novelty of the selected tactic were most likely with the use of explosives, rather than other possible types of weapons. The attacks with high level of tactical novelty and relevance most often target state objects.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to examination of the influence of the type of political regime upon the logics of choosing the targets of suicide bomb attacks. It is claimed that the choice by suicide bombers of the objects of attack for the purpose of coercing the government to adopt the profitable for terrorist decisions leans on the expectation of increasing the costs and expanses of conflict for the state.  The increase of expanses can request from terrorist to attack diverse types of objects depending on the type of political regime, through which can be attained the change of political course. The research is based on the statistical method, with application of regression analysis, particularly probit regression. The acquired results testify to the fact that the more authoritarian is the regime, the higher is the probability that the suicide bombers will attach the governmental rather than civilian objects. In an attempt to create the maximally possible pressure on the government, the logics of terrorism adjusts to the type of regime, affecting the choice of objects within the states being targeted.

Abstract: Under the conditions of rapid development of the market of further educational services, multiple universities show interest in attracting the students to education upon the program of further professional education. From such perspective, it is extremely important to identify the significant social factors that greatly affect the representations of students regarding further education and their role in creation and establishment of motivation to continue education. This work focuses on analysis of the role of social representations on motivating students to receive further professional training during studying in the university. The research leans on the results of sociological surveys that involved 452 of the Russian students. The results were analyzed using the factor analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, k-means clustering, and regression analysis. The authors examines the attitude of the Russian students towards further education using the six scales: 1) informedness about such programs; 2) social representations (content, conditions, price); 3) idea of the necessary characteristics of the programs and expectations; 4) desire to receive further professional training currently and in the future, as well as the impeding factors. The four basic representations about the further education have been determined in students’ consciousness. The results of the research demonstrate that social representation have a poor impact upon students’ desire to acquire further professional training during studying in the university, however have substantial effect in long-term perspective.

Abstract: This article examines the influence of age and type of political regime upon the amount of terrorist acts in the country. An opinion is provided that majority of “young”, as well as “old” democracies are more subject to the influence of terrorism than all types and age groups of the non-democratic types of regime. The author thoroughly review how the age and type of political regime affects the various types of terrorism: international, national, and overall level of terrorism in each separate country. Special attention is given to the differences in immunity to terrorism of the young democracies and non-democratic regimes. The article revises the interconnections between the level of terrorism, type and age of the regime with the use of updated information, regression analysis, modelling, and large timeframes. The main conclusion of the conducted research consists in the thesis that the young democracies have more risk to face terrorism that the old democracies. It was also determines that the non-democratic regimes in any age experience lesser influence of terrorism than any other type of political regime.

Abstract: This article reveals the character of establishment of the social capital of students and educators in the context of personal or academic communication as a resource of increasing the quality of education. The relevance of the concept of social capital is caused by the following circumstances: firstly, the professional success of students will depend mostly in the level of development of their communicational qualities and social capital; secondly, the support of civic and social activeness depends on the ability to establish the interpersonal and intergroup trustworthy relationships; and thirdly, mutual assistance within the educational environment does not always attract sufficient attention. For realization of the goals of the research, was created a survey consisting of 60 questions and involving 250 students and 86 educators. The authors determined the purposefulness of joint communication between the students and teachers, as well as characterized the level of trust alongside the level of readiness to provide mutual assistance within or outside the educational environment. The article reveals the key mechanisms of formation of the social capital: constant resolution of contradictions in the process of educational and extra-curricular communication within the existing level of trust between the students and educators, as well as readiness to provide help.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the role of party careers in vertical integration of state-territorial levels in binary and joint federal systems. A significant amount of the Western political parties has strong influence upon separate political careers of its members. The author also detects the meaningful differences in qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the models of impact of the parties upon the political career. The article examines the main distinctions between the models of political career in joint and binary federal systems on the regional and federal territorial level. The author gives characteristics to the models of party political careers in the four federative systems: Canada, Australia, Austria, and Germany; eight fairly influential national parties that have divisions on the regional level were selected for the comparison. In the context of this research, the author reviews the following: 1) vertical connections within the framework of the federal leadership of the party; 2) vertical connections within the framework of the regional leadership of the party. The scientific novelty lies in the detection of the differences in quantity and quality of the vertical integration, which confirms that for the joint and binary federal systems there is no unified pattern of political career or a single political role of the parties in federal processes. In analysis of the vertical cumulation of the party and state institutions, the more integrated modes of career were detected among the European parties, rather than non-European partners. The party structures not only define the model of the political career through interpretation of the institutional incitements, but also create the specific organizational connections between the institutions on various political levels.

Abstract: This article reveals the influence of the social factors upon the character of the terrorist activity. In particular, the attention is given to the question why the level of social capital in the society plays an important role in explanation of the regularities in terrorist activity. The author defines size of social capital as a combination of social connections, networks, information flows, and institutions, which contribute into political activeness and play an essential role in consolidation of trust, cooperation, as well as in establishment of the universal norms in specific society. During the course of this research it was determined the social capital can put a multi-vectoral pressure, which simultaneously restrains and encourages terrorism, causing various consequences. As a result, the forces that stimulate the formation of terrorist organizations can restrain their activity or the savagery of the used by the terrorist strategies, methods, as well as the number among civil victims.