Volume 10, Nº 5 (2020)

The purpose of the research. The research is aimed at identifying specific features of the process through which stereotypes influencing the image of the authority as perceived by the society, in particular, by the legal community, are formed and manifest themselves. The Mass Media play an essential role in fixing and multiplying the stereotypes that people have about state bodies and key directions of their activity. The authors have undertaken to specify and illustrate unintentional negativization of the authority’s image deriving from neutral informative publications in the Mass Media as a result of frequent use of words naming negative and undesirable aspects of the state bodies and structures’ activity. The research that has been based on Mass Media publications has focused mainly on verbal representation of the already formed stereotypes and relied heavily on the results of the association experiment with the involvement of legal community members. According to the authors, identifying patterns of how negative stereotypes of the authority at large and its specific bodies and structures are formed may lay the foundation for further solutions aimed at neutralizing the Mass Media’s negative effect. Conclusions. The results of the research lead to the conclusion that in some cases ordinary consciousness reflects unintentional negativization of the authority’s image as a result of frequent use of words verbalizing negative and undesirable aspects of the state bodies and structures’ activity. It is deemed rational to further develop strategies meant to minimize and neutralize the Mass Media’s damaging effect taking into account the results of the research. It is regarded desirable to work out recommendations for higher education syllabus that would help counterbalance possible negative influence through strengthening students’ trust to the authority. The methodology and method of the research. The commonly accepted dialectical method of studying societal processes and social and legal phenomena as well as their interconnection and interdependence has been used as the methodological basis for the research aimed at determining the ways through which stereotypes that influence the image of the authority come into existence. Alongside the dialectical method, the following private scientific methods have been applied: the formal logical method helping to study the notion, essence and significance of the negative stereotypes; association experiment based on a social research and carried out in the form of an interview that has helped to reveal reactions to the stimulus word; content analysis of the Mass Media materials.

Introduction. The socio-political and legal prerequisites for enhancing the coordinating role of the state, its budgetary policy and financial and legal regulators to counter the negative consequences of the coronavirus infection pandemic (PKI) are considered. International financial organizations (IMF, World Bank, OECD and others), supporting states in the fight against CRP, propose new standards of fiscal and investment policy developed by them on the basis of financial planning and budgeting with the involvement of budgetary funds and public financial reserves for social and economic support of the population from the consequences of CRP. States use these post-CRP international stability standards as part of their fiscal and development strategies. Materials and methods. The report of the UN Department of Global Communications on measures to counter the destruction of economies as a result of COVID-19 and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals 2020 was used. The conceptual provisions of the Analytical Summary of the Department of Fiscal Policy of the IMF (April 2020) with recommendations to government agencies on the restoration of economies destroyed by the CRP were considered. The article provides the norms of the Russian budget, tax, banking legislation, adopted in the implementation of the provisions of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 02.04.2020 No. 239 on measures against CRP. The Federal Law of the Russian Federation of March 18, 2020 No. 52-FZ on budgetary policy for 2020 and for the planning period of 2021 and 2022 was considered in connection with the CRP. Used a document of the Bank of Russia dated 08/10/2020. on measures to limit the consequences of the coronavirus infection pandemic and other acts. Results. The international recommendations of the IMF on supporting the public sector of the economies in the context of countries overcoming the consequences of the CRP through budget loans, guarantees, fiscal risk management, and coordinated fiscal stimulus are considered. A steady tendency on the part of states and international financial organizations (IFIs) to strengthen the budgetary law of states and promote “soft law” international legal regulation of standards for the implementation of the planning, coordinating and supervisory functions of states, which should be strengthened as overcoming the destroyed CRP economies, finance, education, culture, social sphere. Discussion and conclusions. IMF in their reports emphasize that international financial and other cooperation of states in the context of the fight against CRP should move to a new level of trust and mutual assistance. It is shown that the new financial and legal norms in the budgetary, tax, and banking legislation of the Russian Federation in 2020 act as a set of anti-crisis regulation measures in the face of countering the CRP with the involvement of budgetary funds from the National Welfare Fund (NWF) and other sources of budgetary financing under control by the method of treasury support.

The article examines the issues of parliamentarism, which is a special system of public administration, structurally and functionally based on the principles of separation of powers, the rule of law with the leading role of parliament in order to implement the constitutional consolidation of the sovereignty of the people. At the same time, the principle of separation of powers occupies a central place in matters of public administration. The purpose of the theory of separation of powers is to create an effective mechanism for the functioning of state bodies, to create security of citizens from arbitrariness and abuse of power, to ensure political freedoms. The purpose of the study is to analyze research materials and legal regulation of the parliament as the bearer of state power. It should be noted that the role and importance of the parliament in the constitutional mechanism for the implementation of state power, based on the theory of popular sovereignty of the majority of modern states, is reflected in the legislative basis for the functioning of these higher representative collegial bodies. The development of the legislative framework leads to the formation of parliamentary law. Thus, parliamentarism today is a complex structure of legislative power, a multifunctional subsystem and an integral part of an extensive political system. At the same time, the essence of parliamentarism, following changes in its historical functions and structure, was often expressed by isolating and emphasizing any of its individual elements. Based on the study, the author comes to the conclusion that it is quite obvious that branched, well-organized and effectively functioning representative structures, both at the federal and regional levels, are necessary for Russia today, when we have embarked on the path of building a rule-of-law state, creating a civilized and a democratic society. It is the parliament that acts as a collector and spokesman for the interests of groups and structures that form civil society, melting these interests into state will. Effective public administration in a market economy not only does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes the development and improvement of parliamentarism. Only under this condition can one count on the formation at the federal and regional levels of a powerful legislative base, adequate to the new historical conditions. It goes without saying that without such a base, further reforms in the economic, financial, social, political and other areas are unthinkable. The source of such a base is parliament.

This article is aimed at understanding the current state and necessity of transformation of traditional mechanisms for protecting the competitive environment under the influence of networking and the place of blockchain in the regulatory system in the context of applying new competitive tools (aggregators price algorithms) based on the experience of foreign countries, including the perspective and approaches of newest law enforcement (judicial) practice, taking into account the fact that its knowledge allowed and allows to successfully solve current problems of legal regulation in our country. The starting point of the research is network communication as a non-market type of communication. Based on analytical reflections on the information gathered from sources and literature from the list of references the author analyzes legal framework of competition protection developed in the new technological reality, takes into account the approaches of foreign countries and the Russian Federation that determine the acceptability of the application of blockchain in the field of legal protection of competition. The relevance, theoretical and practical significance of this research is due to the emergence of new tools (aggregators and price algorithms) of competitive market struggle in the light of application of a blockchain technology that might influence the competition. The author’s results are presented, among others, in the idea of the possibility of “transfer” of anti-competitive actions (price manipulation and collusion, unequal sale / distribution of information / advertising, etc. conditions) to the niche occupied by price algorithms and aggregators of information, and the need to establish a new legal framework of these new market factors.

This article is aimed at studying of theoretical issues of implementing network contracts (smart contracts) on the example of Russia and foreign countries, based on the fact that its knowledge allowed and allows to successfully solve current problems of legal regulation in our country. The starting point of the research is network communication as a non-market type of communication. The article analyzes the provisions of approaches to the legal regulation of network contracts (smart contracts) developed in the new technological reality, taking into account the experience of foreign countries and the Russian Federation that determine the acceptability of the use of blockchain in the field of legal regulation of such a type of interaction between the parties to the contract that is updated according to present technological era. The relevance, theoretical and practical significance of this research is due to the emergence of new tools for interaction between the parties to the contract in the context of using blockchain technology. The author's results, among other things, are presented in the idea that the ability to compile codes by software tools that ensure the fulfillment of obligations under contracts (smart contracts) that are used in the blockchain network not only expands the latter's utilities from simple information storage to participation in the system of economic transactions, but also is an excellent tool for automatic fulfillment of the obligations stated in them.

The publication presents the results of a study devoted to the study of images of Russian protest political figures in the representation of young people. In the course of an empirical study conducted in the spring of 2020, students of higher educational institutions in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg were interviewed. Both the leaders of the liberal non-system opposition (A. Navalny and L. Sobol) and the leader of the Communist party of Russia G. Zyuganov were taken as objects. We used the method of semantic differential (SD), factorization of data by the principal component method, as well as the method of free associative experiment. The categorical structure of the semantic space of ideas about protest political leaders was determined. The General categories identified on the basis of factorization of SD data include such axes of evaluating political leaders as “intellectual and leadership qualities”, “aggressiveness”, “hypocrisy and corruption”, and “honesty and kindness”. These categories reflect the structure of young people's political thinking. Based on these semantic universals, the images of Russian protest leaders were reconstructed and their main characteristics in the representation of young people were revealed. Analysis of the results showed the presence of many common structural components in the political consciousness of young people in different cities of Russia. Young people use roughly the same basic categories for evaluating political leaders. The images of protest leaders in the representation of the youth of the two cities also turned out to be almost identical. The results of the study can be useful for researchers, political forces, political and civil leaders.

The subject of the research is the degree of influence of Sunni and Shi’ism on political processes in Arab countries. The object of the research is Islam as the legal basis of the state. The authors examine in detail such aspects of the topic as the historical analysis of the origin of Islam, the reasons for the division of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites, a comparative analysis of the two branches of Islam, the peculiarities of the legal schools of Islam, the interaction of Sunnis and Shiites with state power. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of interpretations (kalams) of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The study is fundamental and is aimed at the historical and political analysis of Islam in the XXI century. The relevance of this topic is confirmed by numerous studies of the described problems. The main conclusions of the study are that one of the key problems in the Arab states is the issue of the origin of power, which remains relevant even in the XXI century. The authors’ special contribution to the study of the topic is the hypothesis that the radicalism of Islam is associated with its short history in comparison with Christianity. Thus, Islam in the XXI century. is still at an active stage of formation, which leads to the emergence of Islamic terrorist organizations. The novelty of this scientific study lies in the consideration of historical processes in the political discourse of the XXI century.