Contents

Журнал: История и современность. Выпуск №2(40)/2021 - подписаться на статьи журнала
Andrey L. Bardin, Vladislav V. Stomin. Artificial intelligence in urban governance: barriers and prospects for implementation (pp. 44–63).

The article discusses topical problematic aspects associated with the introduction of automated systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology in public administration processes, primarily at the city (municipal) level. It is shown that this process is influenced by three key groups of factors: market (issues of the development of the market for AI solutions and its interaction with the state); ethical and technological (issues of transparency and accountability of AI algorithms, credibility of automated systems, ensuring the interoperability of AI systems and data); regulatory (transformation of existing and adoption of new regulations governing the field of AI). All three groups of factors are closely related to each other, and successful implementation of AI solutions requires parallel challenges in each of these groups. The authors highlight the most significant barriers to the implementation of AI solutions in public administration and identify the tools to overcome each of the barriers.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethics, digitalization, automated systems, public administration, public services, city governance, executive authorities, IT companies.

Мaksim I. Sigachev, Vassiliy A. Kuterghin, Eduard V. Fadeyev. Universal Basic Income: new directions of modern social policy (pp. 64–74).

This article examines the issue of socio-economic reforms, in which universal basic income (UBI) can play a major role. The authors analyze the possibility of its introduction in the light of the Finnish experience, the advantages and disadvantages of this concept. In this connection, the perception of such a model in the domestic and foreign scientific environment is also considered. Experts suggest that robotization and the resulting liberation of the labour force may lead to an aggravation of social and income inequality. One of the measures designed to reduce this inequality is the UBI. It is concluded that the idea of universal basic income is positively assessed and recognized as a possible option for structural reforms in modern European states.

Keywords: economy, economic reforms, social policy, social market economy, social welfare state, universal basic income, progressive tax, automation of production.

Yuri V. Oleinikov. COVID-19 as a mirror of postmodern society (pp. 75–97).

From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, modern postmodern society is experiencing extremely difficult challenges affecting all aspects of its social life. At such times, not only the fundamental contradictions and driving forces of its evolution but also the essence of its socio-economic organization become particularly apparent. Using some fundamental aspects of the life of society as an example the article analyzes the responses of postmodern society to the challenges of a new coronavirus infection, which differ little from the algorithms of response to the well-known economic crises of overproduction. This suggests that this natural process of the world epidemic can be used as a pretext to shift citizens' dissatisfaction with the essential socio-economic features of postmodern society development to a purely natural one – the coronavirus pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19, society, postmodernism, capitalism, contradiction, dialectics, crisis, evolution, production, ideology.

The Link between Epochs

Natalia N. Koshkarova. Wild celebration of forgetfulness: politics of memory as a means of past defamation (pp. 98–115).

The paper analyzes the means employed in the revisionist materials which aim at demeaning the events of World War II. The materials under study are part of an information-psychological confrontation based on: axiological differences between social and political actors; the differences in presuppositions when interpreting contemporary and historical events; the construction of reality according to certain ideological principles. The statements by political organizations and leaders from the West and Poland serve as the material for the analysis the main purpose of which is to express a certain position while at the same time realizing a discrepancy in the views and values of the actors of political communication. The choice of material for the study determines the set of methods used to analyze the empirical base: the method of discourse analysis, accompanied by a contextual study of communicative situations, was used to examine the implementation of politics of memory as a means of discrediting the past. The pejorative means and tactics whose main pragmatic potential can be defined as counterfactual modelling of the past are analyzed. The destructive character of the revisionist theories is determined by functioning as part of intercultural political space the cognitive-discursive characteristics of which are closely connected with the leading ‘friend-foe’ opposition of the political discourse. The retrospective view of the history and alternative modelling of the past have become such popular tools for studying and analyzing historical events that it is sometimes very difficult to differentiate between retroprognosis as a genre of political communication and falsification as a means of discrediting the past. In this case it is reasonable to turn to politics of memory, one of the indicators of the activation of which is the opposition to revisionist theories, to the attempts to falsify the history and the deliberate distortion of historical events. The scale of hybrid operations in the contemporary political and media field is so great, and their consequences are so unpredictable that the protection of national interests should become the main task of specialists in various fields (e.g., political scientists, philosophers, linguists) and ordinary citizens.

Keywords: World War II, politics of memory, past defamation, falsification of history, revisionism, genre, ‘friend-foe’ opposition, political discourse.