Abstract: This work is devoted to the main theoretical and methodological aspects of the concept of electoral authoritarianism in both foreign and domestic contexts and the study of electoral behavior of citizens both in the theoretical aspect and on the example of the upcoming presidential election in 2018. The aim of this work is to study the electoral activity of the population of modern Russia. The subject of the study is the electoral activity of the population of the Russian Federation in conditions of electoral authoritarianism. The work used a number of methods of scientific research, such as: analysis, synthesis, a method of sociological analysis. The authors pay special attention to typological features of electoral authoritarianism, their own definition and signs of electoral authoritarianism are given. In the work, the connection between political technologies and instruments used in regimes of a similar type – co-optation, repression, legitimation, electoral clientelism, and the electoral behavior of citizens, is distinguished through the synthesis of foreign experience. Based on the methods of scientific research it was found that the decrease in the level of electoral activity of citizens is due to the lack of representation of all groups of the electoral process during the elections. The scientific novelty of the work consists in a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical aspects of the concept of electoral authoritarianism by the example of the electoral process in the Russian Federation, the generalization of the results in the form of some conclusions: electoral clientelism leads to the unrepresentation of large groups of voters, which increases the level of social tension and the level of protest sentiments; the policy of populism is applied to a limited number of persons, does not provide sufficient legitimation of power and should be applied to a wider range of voters. Theoretical propositions and conclusions of the work can be used to further study and search for political technologies and tools that stimulate the electoral activity of the population of modern Russia.

Abstract: This article presents various theoretical and methodological research approaches to the study of youth as a specific social community on the basis of modern socio-political thinking (complex, class, psychoanalytic, structural-functional, cultural, social system, integral). The article analyzes the theoretical elaboration of youth issues and highlights the factors for the definition of "youth" in political science.