DISCOURSE OF THE YEAR

The World is Flat

The significant world discourse of the year 2008 became “The World is Flat” conception. Its author is a New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman who made one of the most serious researches of the globalization process. According to him the information technologies have changed our world dramatically and now it is much more unified than ever. If at the first stage the globalization was made by states, then by corporations, and now by ordinary people. Today only the level of education, personal skills, the ability to create innovations and to use the global communication system can lead to success.

SOCIAL DESIGNERS OF THE YEAR

Barak Obama,
Nicolas Sarkozy

With getting Kennedy’s clan support, Barak Obama wasn’t afraid of being associated with the Democratic Party “left” wing. As a result, democrats had to make a choice who would be the best candidate for Party nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election: either Hillary Clinton who seems to be stronger inside but has more predictable chances or Barak Obama who can “lead the nation” by reforming democratic consensus and refusing from the identity groups’ policy.    
Nicolas Sarkozy contributed greatly to the restart of European integration process and above all to the approval of the new “short” version of the European Constitution. Apart from this he has raised to the new level the conception of the “Euro-African barrier” and “Mediterranean cooperation”, deposing the center of European problematization, in general. De facto Europe is already determined with regard to a “ring of friends” which surrounds it (usually composed by former colonies) but not “from within” (with traditions, laws, etc.). Among Sarkozy’s big personal projects were the attempts of returning home competitive Frenchmen emigrants and, at the same time, his initiative of giving monetary compensation to those immigrants who were ready to leave France.

SOCIAL DIAGNOSIS

The End of Public Policy in Russia

The final disappearance of social interest to policy is an illustration of public policy absence in Russian Federation.
By the end of 2007 the structure of divergence between “politological” or analytical discourse and political process has emerged in Russia. The last one demonstrates rather predictable regularities that became apparent during the Parliamentary elections as well as in the question of power transfer.
The whole system became predictable while neither political science nor “political culture” which requires the invention of “conspiracies”, “spheres of influence”, “secret projects”, etc., were not ready to it.
Many political consultants had tried to present the point as if the problem of power succession would have required elite to make an absolutely new decision, going far beyond law and policy expectations. In this situation when political process becomes unpredictable the Russian crisis managers’ services would be more popular.         
However the current Russian system is nothing more than a number of quite trivial decisions for supposedly “unsolvable” problem (for instance, the President Putin transfer to Parliament after presidential elections). “Creative” political culture might disagree with it. The last one believes that “dull” policy process makes it senseless. But this difference in expectations rather proves the fact that it is necessary to change the structure of “analysis” manufacturing itself which should know how to work with predictable policy events and processes and at the same time should not raise its market value by getting access to the insider information.
The time of political creative and “pythonesses” in Russia has past but the time of public policy has not come yet.

DEMYTHOLOGIZATION OF THE YEAR

The Myth of “Kremlin Siloviki” Strength

The myth of great and dreadful “Kremlin siloviki” has gone to the past: they have lost in the undercover battle for successor. This loss is a signal for Western establishment and mass media that are firmly convinced that modern Russia is a country where power belongs to so called, “siloviki”, “coercive party” whose members are former employees of Soviet KGB and other defense and law enforcement agencies.    
Siloviki’s demythologization should have a positive impact on Russian image abroad: the “Saint Petersburg legal experts” representative as a successor, strongly attracted by liberal wing of Russian elite, also contributes to it. 
Inside the country such demythologization may lead to weakening of Russian State corporate structures (such as special services or Russian Orthodox Church). Primitive anti-Western orthodox clericalism which still preserves ideological force as an equivalent to non-found national idea may also lose prestige.

 INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

Unification of Korea

The unification of Korea is becoming more real than ever. First of all due to the strengthening of economic ties between South and North. The North Korean special economic zone known as Kaesong Industrial Region should be viewed as an example of it. In the future the North Korea could be and important economic channel that binds China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Europe.
At the same time the attempts of Japan to get dominant positions in the Asia-Pacific region seem to be unlucky. Japan was unable (due to political and cultural traditions) to reform its own strategies of domination that are not applicable to the neighbors of this country. China made it clear that it could advance claims of historical character against Tokyo (the massacre in Nankin).

SOCIAL CATACLYSM

Disorders in Myanmar

The events happened in Myanmar are not only the most significant social cataclysm of the year 2008. They also demonstrated the possibility of breaking the Chinese political system by public disorders. The clash of China and the West has not become a reality in the international life yet. Nevertheless the disorders in Myanmar could be the first step to undermine its influence. The question how effective was the attempt is still open.

SOCIAL INNOVATION

Maternal Capital

One of the most important social innovations of the year was the establishment of maternal capital – the right of women who give birth to a second child to get significant financial support from the State. The program was an attempt to cope with demographic crisis which Russia experiences nowadays. In 2007 about 580 thousand of Russian women received maternal capital, state expenses for program realization reached approximately 5, 5 billion dollars.   

IDEOLOGIC TREND

The End of the Third Way

The political process that is under way in developed democracies shows the destruction of the Third Way program, i.e. the consensus related to such politicians as Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, such think tanks as Democratic Leadership Council and such scholars as Anthony Giddens. Now the Third Way is not suitable for the modern social democratic and left-of-centre parties.
In the United States the destruction of the Third Way as a program of “anxiety” and “fear” (an anxiety of being too close to the neoconservative opponents and a fear to come back to old-fashioned methods of social state) turned into the Kennedy clan support of Barak Obama (Kennedy associates with Keynesian policy) or the revival of American populism (see the last film of M.Sicko) that refers us to Keynesian standards.

LITERARY PROCESS

Life without sensations

There were no sensational events in Russian literature in 2007 except for traditional awards, two main capital book fairs and a couple of new novels’ appearance. And it was expected, actually. Literary Olympus is fully occupied by the cohort of liberal imitators; magazines continue publishing real potboiler. 
The “watershed” between two principle literature trends, “liberal” and “patriotic”, became more evident. Both currents are identical in everything that does not refer to the questions of art. As a result the Union of Soviet Writers phantom appeared on the scene whose social conservatories give birth to new “engineers of the human soul”.
However fiction is not a production line for fast food manufacturing. In the next ten – fifteen years contemporary generation will start quitting the stage. It will be replaced by those who have grown up on today’s commercial chewing gum but not on national classics.   
Literary process in Russia has entered a turbulence zone. On the one hand, weak opposition is now trying to oppose the liberal imitators masquerade. On the other hand, there is a tendency of searching for a uniting origin. Nevertheless the new literary societies do not have any ideology (not political or social one but art ideology, expressed in genre, themes and style).
Today’s national reader does not have a lot of knowledge of current world literature trends. However language isolation seems to be quite natural reaction on English-speaking culture expansion. In the meantime foreign awards avoid Russian authors.  

INFORMATION TREND

The Decline of Traditional Mass Media

The main trend in the information sphere became the shift of the serious information to Internet. Due to this situation the traditional mass media are getting marginalized. Readers pay less attention to newspapers and magazines. There is a crisis of print media in the West (the advertisement goes to Internet). According to estimates the volume of advertisement in Internet was $26 in 2006 (6,1% of the market), and it will reach 47,4 in 2009 (9,4% of the market).

INTERNET TECHNOLOGY

Beginning of Human’s age

The main tendency in Russian Internet environment is the beginning of “human era” instead of institutions. Mass colonization of the Internet by people is proved by the phenomenal success of such projects as www.odnoklassniki.ru (14 million members) and www.vkontakte.ru (10 million). Internet has learned to produce off-line situations, and this trend will be continued in the nearest future. The new social stratum was formed in the country which gives more priority to Internet than to television, and its influence will grow over the next years, also in policy.
At the same time in terms of knowledge reproduction Internet didn’t make any progress. It will not happen until people start to transmit models that would be typical for modern society in the Internet. That is why it’s possible to determine current situation as “primitive communal system”.          
The time of intellectuals also has not come yet (failure of www.top4top.ru project proves that fact very well). There are not so many people who could communicate in the Internet effectively. Besides, intellectuals’ movement to the Internet leads to their degradation and marginalization.

VISUAL POLITICS 

The Global Change of Visual Communications

The change in visual communications is very dynamic. Rebranding, redesign and restyling are getting more popular in transnational and state corporations; in big, medium and small business. It touches upon territorial branding, mass media and culture. Nevertheless, today rebranding is not only a fashion, but also a signal that there is a need of all participants of the global communicative process to change its identity in the modern world.