THE CONCEPT OF “WORLD EMPIRES” IN RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSES: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

The purpose of this work is a political scientific understanding of the concept of world empires. The article specifies the concept of “empire” in the context of building a new world order in the context of globalization. The understanding of imperial strategies in domestic and foreign scientific discourses of the 20th-21st centuries is analyzed. To achieve this purpose historical, comparative, dialectical approaches, as well as the extrapolation method, were used. The article systematizes the basic scientific ideas about the typical features and essence of the political subjectivity of an imperial-type state in the context of the development of the international geopolitical process. The authors substantiate the idea that the relativistic position of the expert and scientific communities represented by ideological Atlanticists is due to the political mythology of the Cold War period, as well as to the attempts to artificially form the image of an “evil empire” based on the results of a biased understanding of the foreign policy of the USSR. Currently, such developments continue with the desire to prove the traditional nature of “Russian imperialism”. Along with this the focus of researchers in Russia and foreign countries towards an objective understanding of the phenomenon of imperial tendencies in the international process of formation of a post-bipolar world order is argued. As a result, a conclusion is formulated about the possibility of a scientific explanation of the phenomenon of empires in narrow and broad meanings. Firstly, empire in science is understood as a special type of autocratic statehood. Secondly, an empire should be considered a specific type of international political subjectivity which involves the promotion of expansionist foreign policy projects based on ideological doctrines of a messianic orientation.