Abstract: The subject of this research is the peculiarities of civil-political activity of youth. The relevance is substantiated by instability of meaning-forming ideals, loss of identity (including civil) by young people, change of values in public and individual consciousness in the conditions of social transformation and sociopolitical contradictions. Emphasis is places on people’s interaction with the dynamic and rapidly changing world in the era of digitalization, globalization, and sociopolitical instability, which entails the emergence of destructive manifestations in various forms of civil-political activity. The goal lies in determination of the peculiarities of civil-political activity and examination of the motives and methods of engaging youth in offline and online practices of civil-political activity. The empirical base of this research involves 639 university students in the city of Tomsk. The acquired result elucidate a range of important issues regarding the desire of young people to be engaged in political life of the country and show interest in political events. The article outlines the main forms of civil-political activity, most common of which are voting in elections, participation in online petitions and online protests. The article considers the most effective practices of online civil-political activity from the perspective of youth: creation of content on political topic, involvement of young influencers to political issues, inclusion of youth in solution of socially and politically important issues of society and rewarding them for being active, establishment of independent youth communities for free communication on political topics, etc.

Keywords: values, motives, political attitudes, youth, civic position, civic competence, civic and political activity, Internet, digital environment, development ways

Abstract: The subject of this research is the analysis of factors, trends and forms of political participation of youth. From the perspective of the theory of political participation, the author examines the problems of engagement of youth into political activity, as well as gives assessment to the state of channels of political mobilization of young generation at the present stage of development of political system. The comparison of the motive and method of involvement reveals the differences between the two groups of politically active youth, their specific features as a subject of political participation. Particular attention is paid to studying the impact of social feeling of youth upon the selection of form of political engagement and participation. The empirical framework contains the polling data of the two subgroups of young activists (N=600) of political organizations. The first group includes the activists of pro-government political parties, as well as the members of regional youth parliaments, governments and civic chambers (n=300). The second group of respondents (n=300) includes the activists of “non-systemic” political organizations, serving as the core of modern youth protest. The author’s main contribution consists in the description and comparison of factors defining the choice of strategy for political participation of the activists of sociopolitical organizations. The revealed peculiarities of ideological-political orientations, motivations and indicators of social wellbeing of the young activists demonstrate two different paths – political participation in form of support of the existing government institutions, and oppositional participation, reflected in protest actions.

Keywords: protest participation, participation-support, politically active youth, channels of political involvement, social well-being, political participation, conflict, conformism, opposition, motivation for political activity

Abstract: This article examines the questions associated with establishment of the vectors and causes of changes in the German party-political system. The author underlines the influence of sociocultural factor upon the formation of political preferences of German electorate. The author comes to a conclusion that by the time of completion of the new election cycle, the “classical” centric parties will lose dominance in Bundestag. Within the framework of the new party-political model, will increase the role of non-systemic parties that adhere to the anchor (right or left-wing) ideology and are supported by the protest electorate. Methodological foundation combines the descriptive political analysis and secondary processing of sociological data. The author also applies the sociocultural method that allows viewing the political processes in a more extensive range, where the world of the political harmoniously coincides with the socioeconomic and spiritual development. The trends towards regionalization of the establishment of political preferences are demonstrated. The rapid increase in the importance of such electoral group as the Russian-language voters, whose political culture was formed under the influence of post-Soviet reality, is recorded. The majority of its representatives support the non-systemic parties, first and foremost – the “Alternative for Germany”.

Keywords: religious identity, political culture, political behavior, ideology, electorate, election, Germany, political party, party system, russian emigration

Abstract: The object of this research is the political consciousness of American society. The subject is the types of knowledge that affect the political consciousness the most. One of the key characteristics of society of the late XX – early XXI century is the knowledge, which results in the acute need for studying the nature of knowledge dominant in modern society, its main forms and functions, one of which is the establishment of public opinion. Fritz Machlup is an Austrian and American economics, whose typology of knowledge underlies the foundation of this article; its detailed description is provided. The scientific novelty lies in application of F. Machlup’s typology in modern realities of the American society, determination of the types of knowledge that affect the formation of political consciousness in the United States as well as the extent of such impact. Fritz Machlup highlighted the five types of knowledge: practical, intellectual, entertaining, spiritual, and undesirable. Each of them to one or another extent affects the social consciousness; but only three of them (intellectual, entertaining and spiritual) produce impact upon the establishment of political consciousness in the United States.

Keywords: mass media, post-industrial society, Fritz Mahlup, forms of knowledge, knowledge, American society, political consciousness, society consciousness, intellectual knowledge, entertainment knowledge

Abstract: Turnout has been widely used to operationalize a large number of variables, from the level of support for political institutes to the degree of electorate consolidation. In recent years, yet another application emerged: statistical distribution of turnout as an indicator of electoral fraud. This application, however, rests on a weakly substantiated assumption that in absence of electoral fraud the turnout distribution should be Gaussian (normal). The goal of this paper is to find out whether there is a certain distribution that describes most cases of elections, and whether deviations from normality are indeed anomalous. Eastern Europe appears to be a promising testing ground for these assumptions, providing an array of countries which started developing electoral democracy at almost the same time, after decades of sharing similar political regimes; the properties of electoral competition are similar as well. This study corroborates the hypothesis that elections are usually exhibiting the same turnout patterns, but shows that the most regularly found distribution isn't normal: the values of skewness and kurtosis do not match those expected of a Gaussian distribution. Finally, it reveals that the deviations from said distribution are indeed exceptions from the general rule, and are accompanied by unusually frequent and/or rapid changes in turnout shape between the elections.

Keywords: comparative political science, electoral anomalies, presidential elections, parliamentary elections, electoral forensics, statistical analysis, Eastern Europe, turnout distribution, turnout, democratization

Abstract: The research is devoted to vote splitting (i.e. voting for a list of one candidates of one party or a candidate of the other party) in mixed electoral systems with the two ballot papers when single-member electoral districts are mostly used. The analysis is made based on the example of the three countries, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Russian Federation (including regional elections) and Ukraine. The authors of the article study elections held in different time periods and analyze votes for a large number of political parties as well as geographical differences within the aforesaid countrires. For each party in each campaign the average index of a rupture of voices, asymmetry of distribution of an index of a rupture of voices, an index of superiority of candidates, an index of influence of candidates and correlation between results of candidates and the party list were calculated. Also for each campaign the general index of a rupture of voices and an index of a specific rupture of voices considering only voluntary splitting of voices by voters were calculated. It is established that parties are divided on at what results of candidates it is generally best of all than results of party lists, and at what results of candidates are worse, and these distinctions generally remain in various campaigns. The authors make a conclusion about distinctions in behavior of voters in Germany, on the one hand, and Russia and Ukraine, on the other hand. 

Keywords: electoral engineering, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Germany, vote splitting, mixed electoral system, political parties, election, single-member electoral district, 'strategic' voting

Abstract: In the present article the role of the Komsomol organizations in carrying out the grain procurement campaign of 1930 is investigated. The author considers Komsomol as a sociocultural phenomenon, reveals factors of its versatile influence on the society and tries to summarize both positive and negative experience in that sphere. The author focuses on participation of young people in compulsory withdrawal of bread from peasants. Based on the case study of the Central Black Earth Oblast (CBEO) the contradictory attitude of Komsomol members to procuring policy of the state is shown. Special attention is paid to cases of performances and speeches of Komsomol members against grain collection. Evolution of the mechanism of grain collection is also traced. Objectivity of the author's approach was shown in his aspiration to overcome ideological stereotypes both in studying the social and economic situation and Komsomol, in his search for methods of historiographic analysis allowing to overcome biased submission of information in official documents. As a result of the research the author comes to a conclusion that the compelled participation of Komsomol members in grain procurement campaign created the opposition between them and other people living in the village. The party used the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League to perform political campaigns and thus putting young people in line of fire. Passive behavior of young people in carrying out this campaign was the most widespread form of resistance to the plunderous policy.

Keywords: peasantry, right bias, history, prosperous peasant, communist party, collectivization, youth, grain-collection, Komsomol, sociocultural phenomenon