Russian political sociology in the New World Order: Discontents of globalization responding to hegemony challenges?

The name of the 45th Annual ISA Convention reminds of Joseph Stiglitz’s well-known book Globalization and its Discontents and makes one wonder whether globalization is synonymous, or is leading to, hegemony - of who, over whom, of what kind? The ongoing debates in the Russian social sciences are focusing on these issues, but the discourses they produce remain cloaked largely in mystery for much of the scientific maintream. This paper, based on the results of several large-scale research projects conducted at the initiative of Mikhail S. Gorbachev and his Foundation for Socio-Economic, International and Political Studies and carried out by a prominent group of Russian scholars, analyses the responses Russian political sociology and sociology of international relations provide to the challenges of globalization considered in the context of the New World Order, the transformation of power relations in world politics, and the emergence of new centers of hegemony in global governance. The paper demonstrates that the main thematic lines of analysis of the complexities of globalization in Russia are influenced by the need for the country which used to be a former world superpower to reassess its current position and role and to adjust to the drastic global transformations of which it has been one of the major causes. It provides evidence in support of the claim that the concepts of national sovereignty, self-determination, and political self-determination in particular, are the key instruments in the analysis of Russia’s role and place in the globalizing world. Drawing parallels between the Russian globalization studies and the seminal writings produced by Western authors, it addresses the issues of academic preponderance and diversity, domination and exclusion in the currents of international political sociology, considering the ways in which relations of ruling shape scholarly discourses. The three parts of the paper outline the major questions, or thematic blocks, connected to the study of globalization in Russia. The first part presents how globalization is defined, how it is linked to the issues of power and hegemony in global governance, and what are its main characteristics and contradictions as perceived in Russian contemporary social thought. The second part reveals the theoretical reaction to the globalization challenges resulting in the development of the concept of Russia’s political and economic self-determination, which is applied to the analysis of the country’s behavior in the globalizing world. The third part presents the critical analysis of Russia’s role and place in globalization. It elaborates on the theoretical debates about the forced integration into the international economic, political and informational structures, making an enormous effort and jumping into the wagon of the current winners, versus a messianic attitude declaring Russia’s necessity to take the lead of the losers of globalization, the discontents opposing the trends of global hegemony. Stressing the increasingly significant role of corporations and corporatism, which in Russia takes the form of oligarchic rule, it considers the impacts of Russia’s choice of authoritarianism or democracy on the future world order according to various scenarios developed by the Russian scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]