Current projects

PROJECTS FOR 2024:

1. Islamic education in the post-Soviet space: trends and development prospects (supported by the Russian Science Foundation).
Head: Leonid M. Issaev.
Key objectives: The main objective of this project is a comprehensive analysis of the functioning features of the Islamic education system in the post-Soviet space in the mid-2010s - early 2020s, mainly in the North Caucasus and the Volga-Ural region and Western Siberia, in comparison with Muslim countries " Afro-Asian macrozone and in the context of the global terrorist threat. Its implementation will allow us to understand the following problematic aspects:
- modern content and correlation of such systemic phenomena as “global” and “Islamic education”;
- comparative study of local, national and transregional networks of Islamic education and associated terrorist threat actors;
- analysis of modern narratives of the “small and greatest jihad” and identification of the main trends in their transformation in modern Islamic discourses in Russia and abroad in relation to education and culture during the period of post-colonial and post-Soviet globalization in general;
- analysis of the relationship between the level of education in individual countries and regions of the world with the level of their economic development;
- consideration of such an indicator as the development of education as one of the conditions for the economic development of individual countries and regions of the world;
- systematic analysis of the relationship between such phenomena as political and social instability, terrorism and extremism, the relationship between global and local trends in the modern educational space;
- study of the actualization of threats from the “world caliphate” in relation to the policy of the Russian Federation in the Middle East region in the context of the transformation of local spiritual elites, as well as the problem of the influence of such factors as the level of education.

2. Socio-political development of sub-Saharan African countries in the context of Russian foreign policy interests (supported by the Russian Science Foundation).
Head: Aleksey M. Vasiliev.
The project is aimed at identifying trends and features of the process of socio-political development in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the factors and causes that determine the most important features of this process. The findings will be used both to predict the likely risks of socio-political destabilization in countries aimed at accelerated modernization in the context of the existence of ethnosocial, economic, cultural, institutional and political problems, and to develop possible mechanisms for addressing these risks. The most effective ways to ensure the internal and external sovereignty of the states of this macro-region, which at the same time must combat manifestations of the terrorist threat and ensure their sovereignty, will be analyzed.

PROJECT FOR 2023:

Purpose of scientific research: to determine the key mechanisms and structural factors that influence the stability of socio-political systems and impede the processes of revolutionary destabilization in the “Afrasian” macrozone of instability.

Research objectives:

• to characterize the long-term revolutionary processes in the "Afrasian" macrozone of instability in the world-system context;
• to study the stabilizing potential of various socio-political systems of the “Afrasian” macrozone of instability;study the factors that determine the armed or unarmed form of revolutionary action;
• to characterize the new forms of adaptation of the states of the “Afrasian” macrozone of instability to the growth of Islamist extremism and the global terrorist threat;
• to study the stabilizing potential of decentralization processes and practices in the “Afrasian” macrozone of instability.

СENTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH. PROJECT FOR 2022 :

New Revolutionary Wave in the “Afro-Asiatic” Zone of Instability

The project aims to identify the key factors that determined the new wave of revolutions in the “Afro-Asiatic” macro zone of instability, taking into account the macro trends of global, regional and country development, as well as to understand why some countries that actively participated in the Arab Spring were not seriously affected by the new revolutionary wave.

In this regard, it is assumed that the following tasks will be solved: 

• identification similarities and differences between the events of the Arab Spring and the current revolutionary wave in the “Afro-Asiatic" macro zone of instability;
• clarification of the general factors of the genesis of revolutionary situations in the modern world;
• studying the causes of the new wave of revolutions and its world-system context;
• analysis of the organizational forms of the new wave of revolutions;
• studying the driving forces and goals of the new revolutionary wave in the Afrazian macro zone of instability, as well as its results.