The article contains an analysis of the history of the relationship between institutions of government and religion and reveals the systemic interrelationships of these spheres of public life. Despite the existence of a formula of non-interference in each other’s affairs, the government and religion have constantly tried and are trying to influence each other. The author talks about the cyclical nature of competition and cooperation between government and religion over the millennia, about the penetration of religion into the value orientations of power, its ideological foundations, about the role of religion in legitimizing power, about the importance of religion in difficult periods of Russian statehood. Historical periods are described when the desacralization of public and political life was replaced by religiosity, and vice versa. According to the author, the secular government is responsible for the external well-being of people, while religion is responsible for the inner, spiritual world of a person. The author introduces the concept of sovereignty as the ability of a person to keep the arrival of evil on his section of the spiritual front, which is one of the factors of peace and social harmony. It is precisely the power, service, dedication and responsibility that representatives of the modern Russian political elite should possess. The article contains an analysis of historical and religious sources, numerous examples from the history of Russia and Europe, arguing the author’s position.

This article is devoted to the identification and characterization of the contribution of the Serbian intellectual figure Mikhail Mikhailov to the philosophical thought of Eastern Europe. A key feature of his philosophical views was anthropocentrism, which opposes both competing ideologies of the Cold War period, suggesting a return to the concept of unity peculiar to the Russian philosophical school in the person of V. Solovyov. The article shows that, in the conditions of political confrontation between the communist and capitalist systems, the path of non-alignment to ideological alliances and preservation of their identity in the era of post-nationalism remained for philosophical thinkers. The relevance of the appeal to Mikhailov’s philosophy is also due to the modern antagonism of major foreign policy forces in Eastern Europe (NATO and Russia).

The pursuit of power can be considered as a remarkable object of scientific and practical research in various branches of humanitarian knowledge. The article contains a digest of philosophical, psychological, politological and sociological approaches towards comprehension of the pursuit of power. The conducted analysis of this phenomenon provides an understanding of the fundamental aspects of political activity, the mechanisms of formation of power structures and their impact on society. Through a review of terminological and substantive approaches to the interpretation of power over different historical periods, the authors propose to consider their own classification of interests in power in the field of political and legal management. Authors propose a multidimensional approach to the analysis of the desire for power that may open up opportunities for a deeper understanding of relation between power and human nature, power and socio-cultural processes, as well as for the development of management and development strategies based on consideration of various motivations and needs of the individual and society as a whole.

Today, in the academic environment and on the practical level, many methods are used to assess the motive of collective and internal (personal) power. At the same time, less and less attention is being paid to the issue of the phenomenon of power itself, epistemological and ontological side of it. In this work, variety of approaches to the analysis of the phenomenon of power are considered, evidence is provided that power, first of all, has a social basis and the motive of expanding power is an internal engine for all human activity. In order to form clear definitions related to such a complex phenomenon, it became necessary to integrate the ideas of power of many authors. However, due to the breadth of the notion of power, it is difficult to reduce it to one simple definition. The reader needs to understand the impossibility of fully covering everything related to the phenomenon of power in one scientific article. One of the indirect goals pursued in this work is to revive the discussion about the foundations of the concept of power and power relations.

Social relations are characterized by the movement of interests and needs of different groups and strata of society, which often come into contradictions. These contradictions are of a dialectical nature, and it is the responsibility of the government to articulate these interests. The purpose of this article is to identify the main contradictions that underlie the three stages of political power relations. To do this, the author relies on the dialectical method, which is used as one of methods of creative thinking in observation and contradictions resolvement. Using the laws of materialistic dialectics, the author observes the key factors through the political and philosophical point of view that should be considered in political and administrative activity.

The article contains the author’s reflections on the essence of political power. Its manifestations are considered in three phases: con- quest, realization and retention of power. The complex issue of combining domination (in fact, violence) with conscience and morality is analyzed. The author’s approach is characterized by a combination of a scientific paradigm based on positivism and a theological paradigm. According to the author, for a long time the moral traditions formed with the inherent moral divine imperative of people certainly influenced the behavior of government representatives. But conscience really came to power along with faith, when the attitude towards people became a relationship with God. The article defines such concepts as “power”, “conscience”, “mentality”, “ideology”. It is argued that the combination of these concepts in the practice of political management is possible if the government takes into account the mental fields of the population and has a conscience – a complex sense of anticipating the possible consequences (including God’s punishment) of its actions.

The article features the analysis of political and legal foundations of interaction between the government and opposition. According to the author, currently, the processes of perception and interpretation of democracy development, strengthening parliamentarism, and affirming pluralism of ideas, positions, views and opinions are taking place in the Russian Federation. The opposition is considered a necessary component of a political process. However, under the current conditions, there is a problem of building relationships between the government and the opposition, represented by individuals, political parties and non-profit organizations. For the further successful development of the constructive op- position, it is necessary to establish a channel of interaction between the government and opposition forces: to identify ways of interaction between the government and the opposition, to study the influence of the opposition on civil society, to take legislative measures to jointly constructively solve the problems the state and the society are both facing. The article offers practical recommendations for improving communication between the government and opposition forces.

The article examines the causes of the crisis of trust in international institutions: the inability to stop crises and wars in the modern world, dependence on the United States and the implementation of U.S. policy as a collective policy of all participating countries of international institutions, the unfair distribution of opportunities for countries to influence collective decisions, working with illegitimate representatives of different countries, selective negative labeling of individual countries and ignoring the violation factor the rights and freedoms of citizens in these countries. The author considers the crisis of trust in international institutions as an opportunity for Russia to strengthen and expand its influence on the formation of the modern world order by creating and increasing the power of existing institutions, primarily BRICS.