Formation Conditions of Russian Youth’s Political Consciousness

: The object of research reflected in this article is conditions under which political socialization of contemporary Russian youth is happening. The author analyses internal factors of impact that influence the formation of youngsters’ political identity and tries to find the answers to the following questions: which factors influence political benchmarks obtained by youth, and whether these benchmarks are obtained at all; what are they, how are they manifested, do they comply with political culture of previous generations of Russians and official discourse of today’s authorities; whether authorities are interested in this process of benchmarks-obtaining, and which meanings of political identification are they interested in? Which circumstances contribute to the process of desacralization of authorities? Are there any trends and problems that are common for all modern countries, which characterize the relationships between the youth and operating authoritative institutions? Methods : content-analysis & discourse-analysis of political communications (mass media, governmental TV-channels, websites of pro-governmental socio-political youth organizations, social networks), secondary analysis of statistical data. Results : The author concludes that formation conditions of Russian youth’s political consciousness should be divided at two groups. The first one includes the conditions resulted from objective global trends that are characterized by the state of modern societies (marginality of social structures, limited participation of youth in formalized institutional political processes, the Internet & social networks etc.). The second group of conditions is defined by operating political regime of the country, which tries to enforce its own picture of socio-political reality within the youth generation for the purposes of its own legitimization. According to the author’s opinion, the most significant trends that characterize the process researched are: complicated stratificational structure of today’s society that makes the process of individual and group self-identification more difficult; the prevalence of mixed forms of political culture; a distrust towards the content of official mass media; a desacralization of authorities; “mosaic” form of political consciousness; the lack of interest in global political projects among youngsters; militaristic ideology spread; the lack of interest in problems of youth coming from authorities caused by insignificant electoral weight of youngsters.


Introduction
The formation process of modern Russian youth's political consciousness is primarily based on actually existing set of their political identification factors. It would be helpful to divide these factors into two groups, each of which produces its own types of risks. According to the author's opinion, the most optimal approach for understanding the essence of social risks would be the one that defines a risk as a "value-neutral concept" -"both as potential risk of damage and analogical possibility of happy chance" [3]. According to the author's opinion, the first group should include the following factors that are formed as a result of objective global trends that characterize the state of modern societies.

The Difficulties in Individual & Group Self-identification in Contemporary Socio-political Space
A marginality turns into the key characteristic of social structure. It gets harder and harder to define a localization of both social and personal existence for both individual and group. The so-called mixed identification arises; it consists of many components, such as: "interest groups"; belonging to certain profession, social movement, ideological or religious streams; having similar status or citizenship. The mixed forms of political culture and individuals' constantly changing political orientations, which depend on current attitudes towards local, regional, or central authorities, prevail. It's clear that an assessment of the very political objects, such as the government or ruling political party, is highly variable and heterogenous. Their perception may be defined by either looking at them as an institution as a whole, and thus, looking at the results of their actions, or looking at them as particular persons representing political activities. All of this contributes to the risk of turning a mixed identity into its ambiguity.

The Process of Personal & Group Identification Within Modern Society of Computer Technologies, Mass Media & Virtual Space Becomes More Ephemeral
According to the definition of Russian sociologist Y. Kachanov, "a subject's political identity is defined when other subjects of political relationships codify him as… certain agent by attributing him with the same meanings of identity that he accepts for himself or declares by himself" [2]. The process of identification always includes the stage of correlating with existing samples, stereotypes etc., the vast majority of which constitute a kaleidoscope from image constructions translated by the mass media in political sphere -governments, leaders, ideas, mottos, currently relevant enemies. The youth audience is perfectly aware of the extent to which created image of an object reflects its "actual" nature: youngsters themselves prefer their image in social networks over reality [6]. According to the prognosis, the number of virtual personalities is going to exceed the number of the Earth population quite soon. Thus, the identity's uncertainty arises as inevitable side effect of infinite variety of alternative realities. Here comes the risk of progressing dissemination of such political culture types as "autonomous culture" and "watchers' culture" [4], whose characteristics are estrangement and distrust towards authorities. Representatives of the first type are generally not interested in politics. The characteristics of the second type representatives, whose distinctive quality is high political awareness, are: fragmentariness expressed by different political orientations of age cohorts, the lack of consensus in relation to the paths of a society's development, and under-expressed national-governmental identity.

Throughout the World, the Members of Political Representation Authorities Are Considerably Older than the Population Whose Interests They Represent
The level of youth's participation in formalized institutional political processes is extremely low, and this situation gives younger generations grounds to doubt the representativeness of existing political system. Young people's political skills and abilities for active participation in democratic practice, including local, national, and global political processes are not encouraged. Moreover, negative characteristics prevail in the social discourse that describes modern youth. A "well-fed" generation of 'party animals' and 'internet addicted' is regularly blamed for: an ignorance, individualism, lack of spirituality, hedonism, lack of affection to monotonous labor and remote career perspectives. In European literature, millennials [7] are blamed for a collapse of "fathers' business" (by striving to work only in the field that they are interested in), and the destruction of real estate markets (by renting only instead of buying). In American social discourse -millennials are blamed for destructing the film industry (as they tend to watch films online only) etc. This state results from both an unwillingness of older generation to realize that the world is changing, including the level of anthropological strategies, and low "electoral value" of youth. This creates a risk of increasing "values gap" between generations, which does not contribute to consolidation and development of any society. At the same time, due to the Internet development and the factor of being born in conditions of relative safety, it is the modern youth generation that is marked by an awareness of the world's unity, recognition of everyone's right to be different and absolute unacceptance of wars as an instrument of resolving conflicts. However, under the circumstances of permanent information wars and armed conflicts, politicians in power don't need all these qualities.

The Internet & Social Networks Contribute to Desacralization of Authorities
As already mentioned, the Internet-technologies development and youngsters' involvement in the IT (45% of the Internet users throughout the world are people under 25; and 90% of users are under 35) primarily contribute to a desacralization of political communication exercised by authorities, and thus, a desacralization of the very authorities. An access to various information sources gives, for example, Russian youth an ability to find hundreds of proofs that children of "TV-patriots" have a perfect life far away from "Motherland" -in social networks, as well as proofs that "TV-patriots" and government officials did not turned into "nationally oriented elite" and continue to take everything they care about most -their capitals and their families -out of the country. It is considerably harder to manipulate youth audience; it is considerably harder to keep them within the disciplinary frameworks of authoritative, official, "expert" opinion. Moreover, the fact that manipulations with consciousness have turned into basic technology of social management is obvious to youngsters. The modern young person's volume of knowledge and capacity of memory might even be lower than his ancestors' ones, but his computer has unlimited resources of both. Consequently, the whole manipulative toolkit in everyday use of political communication's current channels (i.e. putting labels, non-disclosure spiral, creative delivery, replacing causes with consequences etc.) is recognized really fast by young people, because of their tendency to re-check all facts that may cause any doubts.

The Lack of Interest to Meta-ideologies and Global Political Projects Related to Them Expressed by Modern Young People
It goes without saying that a formation of political orientations depends on social-economic status of a family. If a family's welfare is stable, young people are more likely to be loyal to political authorities in power. However, modern youth is sufficiently aware of older generations' disappointment in global political projects directed on "general welfare" achievement, and thus, they are not willing to endure hardships for the sake of bright but not visible future. This is a reason for rising interest to particular reasonable ideologies that are not claiming its own total importance. The examples of such ideologies are related to particular aspects of existing society and a human in it; i.e. environmentalism, communitarianism, anti-consumerism etc. Comparing to other social groups, it is considerably harder to control ideological preferences of modern youth. From a very young age, the youth quickly gets the motives of activities exercised by political organizations proclaiming the priority of the society's interests over the interests of individuals, which, in fact, are all about fighting for power (and for getting an access to resources that are related to vital problems of youngsters' unstable position within social structure). So, in case when such things as getting a degree or job hunting become desperately hard or even impossible, other particular ideologies -radical ones (anarchism, nationalism, Islamism, fascism, anti-globalism) come to "help".

Insignificant Electoral Weight of Youth
The second group of conditions is defined by operating political regime, which forcefully offers its own picture of the world and its own algorithms of structuring socio-political reality to a society, and thus, to younger generations, in the interests of its own legitimization.

The Lack of Efficient Interest to Youth's Problems from Russian Political Elite
The main reason for that is obvious: younger generations are outside of current authorities' focus of electoral interests. Within general structure of Russian population, the youth keeps permanently decreasing and its percentage is currently only 21,5; the number is even lower if we are not counting the ones who are not entitled to vote yet. The average Russian voter is a person over 40 years old; the most active voter is over 55. We are not counting currently existing pro-government youth associations founded "from above" by authorities, i.e. "Molodaya Gvardiya", "Yedinaya Rossiya", since they are not real political subjects; and they are only imitating political activities. Built on the principle of multi-level marketing, they, in fact, implement only one function that they are paid for -supplying required number of participants for any activity [1].
The only structures whose interest towards youngsters keeps increasing are banks. According to the data from the National Bureau of Credit History, 33% of loans are taken by citizens in the age of 25 -34. From 2017, the highest dynamics of rising withing the structure of Russian borrowers was demonstrated by youth under 25. [8] Besides, about 58% of loans taken by Russians in the age group 18-24 are funds borrowed for the purposes of buying necessities. It's impossible to refrain from being astonished by the NBCH CEO's publicly expressed opinion that this is a "good tendency". Starting to live on loans from a young age is really not what young Russians, and Russia in general, need right now.
The changes in looking to young people from the perspective of their participation in political processes -is a relatively new tendency on global political arena. On the one hand, it arisen under impressions of the events happening in Arabic states, out of fear of colored revolutions. On the other hand, this is a result of realizing the fact that the young people's percentage of population in the majority of developing countries is over 60%. Thus, according to the youth strategy developed by UNDP for the first time ever, paying attention to their rights and opportunities for the sake of stable future, will help them to become "more loyal carriers of changes in the processes of development" within their countries. It's quite obvious that the key word here is "changes", while the trend of Russian political elite is rather opposite -"stability". Besides, today's Russian youth has not reached any considerable number (the consequences of the demographic hole), and thus, their quantity does not impress authorities, which can hardly be called a "wise" politics, since a decrease of Russian youth population and thus, an increase of its "social workload" as a pillar of demographic and professional potential of the country in not too distant future cannot fail to raise many concerns for the government. Thus, it is finding solutions to the youth's problems (high-quality education, employment, proper wages, actual participation in decision-making, "rejuvenation" of political sphere, considering the youth's needs etc.) that actually defines the future of the country.

The Vector of Propagandistic Impact Is Oriented Towards Representatives of Older Population Only
Appealing to the stereotypes of the Soviet consciousness and permanent activation of official propaganda of the "Soviet mindset" create an algorithm, according to which, the cause of all existing problems and difficulties is the same: it's a presence of external and internal enemies (and "bad" officials). This almost completely excludes the youth audience from the impact zone, since this audience has got used to different form and content of information (dramatic shift of evaluations, poles of "good" and "bad", "friends" and "enemies" do not really count as an indication of diversity). The mass media does not contribute to a formation of political balance; instead, it cultivates the typology of political orientations exclusively for the post-totalitarian consciousness of older generation, which is permanently set on the motto "always defeat everyone from everywhere in TV". There are no "reality-shows" for this audience, like for example, TV-shows about the lives of those who are retired. A "reality" itself is not the format of the government's mass media.
At the same time, the youth is concerned about real problems (such as education, job hunting etc.). However, the content of every-day's toc-shows does not cover these topics. And this is when the Internet comes to help, due to which, everyone is able to find out that the amount spent by American government on issuing credits for education in the USA (which is declared as "the evil residence" by Russia mass media) is considerably higher than the amount of credits issued for a purchase of a car or real estate; that the education is totally free in a number of European countries, while Russia has stopped issuing soft loans for university education [9] (this is answering the question of education's "accessibility"), not to mention international ratings of educational institutions accessing their quality. And if the low-ranking of several Russian universities that happen to get into these ratings at all are (as always) related to an "unsuitability" of the world's criteria for Russian realities, then one has to (at least) try to explain this in talk-shows, and informational, journalistic (etc.) programs. Existing disbalance in the age orientation of governmental informational programs does not just complicate the realization of television's consolidating functions, it also contributes to the youth audience's progressing alienation. The young people's abruption keeps increasing, although their main news source is already social networks and Internet resources (around 65%), while only 18% still refer to television [10].
The two latter conditions are the most essential factors that contribute to an appearance of identification risks -potential threats to existence of certain social groups that are caused by creating & maintaining social memory, which provokes conflicts with other social groups, on religious, national, ethical, "norms-values", and other basis [5].

Permanent & Large-scaled Actualization of the Elements of Past
It goes without saying that ruling elite itself does not carry out research in the field of "historical memory". This function fully belongs to social sciences experts. Today, the vast majority of authors researching the problems of identification still believe that it is exactly the images of past, which circulate within the society in one form or another, that take the key place within the structure of identity. On the one hand, the elements of past take a very important place in political construction and interpretation since they contribute to an individual's orientation within a society. The images of past are permanently used as a form which presents and broadcasts political experience, considering specific situation, time, and place. In addition, an appeal to the past is unlimited source of "traditions-making". According to results of various surveys, in order to define a "citizen's identity" of Russians, the government and, obviously, its history are still the most significant factors. But what kind of Russians, considering a correlation of youth and the rest of population? Moreover, the concentration of attention exclusively on traumatic historical-political experience & the images strengthening an attachment to political system, and thus, contributing primarily to legitimization of elites and existing authorities' relationships may give a vice versa effect. The youth needs a picture of future. The governmental mass media's favorite topic of stability that fixes, for instance, the lack of social lifts, is not likely to look attractive to young people or contribute to social-political integration. "If the war was a tragedy for everyone, peaceful life is related to difficulties for young people" [11], -this is how the text of the UNDP's Youth Strategy for 2014-2017 starts. It is impossible to encourage political participation of youth without paying any attention to their problems and aspirations and relying exclusively on "patriotic upbringing" that tends to gravitate towards militaristic paradigm.

The Spread of Military-Oriented Ideology
One cannot fail to highlight a worldwide trend to change anti-militaristic rhetoric of the 20 th century's end by permanently increasing "routinization of war", that is taking wars as acceptable element of protecting national interests [1]. However, an acceptance does not mean full disappearance of the topic of "common human values" & permanent appeal to "the image of enemy" from the content translated by Russian mass media; it does not require to consider "militaristic bravery" as the only form of patriotism, and military preparedness -as the main sign of a country's greatness. It does not create a necessity of constructing stable compensatory link between low level of life and safety, and between the lack of changes proving that economic & political development of society takes place and stability. It goes without saying that the process of political identification is always followed by comparing oneself with representatives of groups that share other political opinions and values. Thus, the image of "other" / "different" / "foreign" is necessary to form this type of identity, whether group or individual one. But is it really necessary to interpret every meeting with "different one" as a confrontation with enemy? As a result, communicative strategies, and tactics of Russian television, which is designed for playing the lead role in the process of strengthening the governmentality and national interests protection, which, in fact, lack the true "national interests protection" part, actually carry out the spread of militaristic ideology. A recently appeared militaristic-patriotic movement "Yunarmiya" has proclaimed increasing the interest to Russian history and geography as one of its tasks. However, their main goal is to raise a new generation of patriots that love their homeland and are ready to defend it the armed forces at any moment [12]. At the same time, social research indicates young generations' low awareness of any problems in Russian history, whether it's Russian revolution, Stalin's repressions, state re-building, World War II, or Afghan / Chechen wars. Around a half of respondents within the youngest age group struggled with answering historical questions (those are the highest indicators comparing to other age groups) [13].
The question of why Russian history and geography have to be studied in militarized children organizations, and how one should experience and express his love towards homeland in peaceful times, is still open. Possibly, in a situation where authoritative, conservative, liberal, and democratic trends simultaneously take place in society's political consciousness, there is a point in using at least a part of media technologies to form a "taxpayer consciousness" in youngsters, since this is what represents actual "citizen consciousness" and enables to establish necessary link between one's political behavior, income, and quality of management within one's state, a realization of belonging to which is looking like optimal meaning of political identification in present context.

Mosaic from Ideologies
"A patriotism is a love to homeland", -this is the way this phenomenon is explained by political advertisements, television, and school. However, "homelands" do not start wars and repressions. A "homeland" is abstract concept, it is a specific political regime that fills it with a content. Wars and repressions are an entertainment of political regimes. However, due to political technologies, a war is turning into "rare and nice" opportunity to be a part of "a greatness" of historical processes for the population. So, under which conditions is Russian youth's political consciousness forming today? Liberal and democratic, or conservative and authoritarian? Why has it turned this way? Why are we talking about passive participation of young people in political processes and its "broken" political consciousness today? "The participation crisis" in today's Russia is not a result of low level of political culture. This is the consequence of understanding how Russian political life works and how difficult it is to have an impact on it for ordinary person. Increasing property inequality is also contributing to it. That is why the politics is started to be seen as a business of political class only. By the way, a professionalization of a politics is an international tendency. Of course, Russian political culture has specific features related to political mentality that has been formed. The most significant of those are: personalized perception of authorities; feudatory attitude towards authorities; legal nihilism; distrust to authorities' representative institutions; inclination to executive functions with limited individual responsibilities; a priority of group justice over individual freedom values (especially typical for provincial population).

Public Consciousness of 1990s
What was mass consciousness like in 1990s -the years of birth of today's youth? This was a mosaic from the elements of communist, neoliberal, and national-patriotic ideologies. These ones were fighting with each other, but no one has ever won. Today's society has come to a consensus regarding such ideas and values as: a liberty, an equality of everyone in front of the law, inherent worth of human life, an integrity of property. There is a consensus on those matters but there is no unity in its interpretation. The most important, there is no unity in the attitude towards practical activities of different political authorities in power. In 2000s, the majority of those who were oriented on western standards of life has been formed. That is why the idea of Russian uniqueness as a priority of the government's interests over individual ones is not capable of consolidating the society. Today, Russians want to live in a country where the government is strong because of a well-being of its citizens, not vice versa.
The young people's concern is not about the type of a government; it is about the character of the government's relationships with an individual in it & with a society. Young people do care about the values of freedom and liberty. However, as we have highlighted above, the youth's percentage in the country's population is not big. For other population groups, social protection is more important. Now add here: an uncertainty in tomorrow, which is a distinctive feature for any market economics. Now add the terrorism threats and an image of strong president, and here we go -a new authoritarianism request. The authoritarianism syndrome retains because of oligarchic economics, an ineffectiveness of the government-administrative apparatus, high level of corruption and weak local authorities. The same causes increase a number of "firm hand" supporters among Russians from different age groups. They feel that authoritative leadership is able to protect them from a despotism coming from officials and oligarchs at the economics' expense. The people want their government to take a responsibility for their welfare, not themselves. This is a very dangerous symptom, and it keeps spreading.

Russian Mentality's Inclination to Conservatism
Now, let us say a few words about Russian conservatism. New Russia has two pasts: the pre-revolution one and the Soviet one. That is why researchers have different interpretations of conservatism, which are contradictory to western conservatism. There is only one thing that draws all these forms of conservatism together -accepting a need of social inequality. Modern Russian conservatism was born as cultural conservatism, with a beginning of liberal reforms. It became a ground for both political and economic conservatism. The representatives of theses ones have such common features as: anti-western moods, ideals of orthodox church, and the cult of strong centralized government. The equality is understood not as equal possibilities but as equal results. The stake is made on governmental paternalism. The government is the main disposer of both material and spiritual goods. This is very close to Russian mentality. That is why conservative trends are very strong in today's political consciousness of Russians. A significant part of young people also believes that their position depends not on their own efforts but on the government's support. The release from totalitarianism and authoritarianism caused a ruination of feeling of safety and confidence in tomorrow for many people. The Fromm's syndrome of "an escape from freedom" is getting stronger. An instability of the life's script, which is a characteristic feature for any market economics; an atmosphere of danger created by mass media, international tension, -factually -cold war: all these things also contribute to a maintenance of conservative trends.

Liberal Trends in Russians' Mass Political Consciousness
The main obstacle in Russians' development in liberal direction is the remains of defined habit of mind that has been forming for centuries. At the beginning, it was forming under conditions of serfdom and the politics of royal autocracy; then, in the period of the Soviet power, which was aspiring to turn any person to a small screw of the government's machine. A mentality arisen cannot change fast and perceive an essence of freedom, its necessity, and possibility of realization. Such qualities as the lack of civic consciousness, conformism in relation to authorities, non-exactingness and humility, disrespect towards the law and others' property -all of this disappears very slowly. Moreover, Russian liberal intelligence leaders of 1990s were contributing to a discredit of liberal idea themselves. They appeared to be unready for a solution of very complicated practical problems of democratic reorganization of the society. Furthermore, after a failure to satisfy expectations of the vast majority, they have initiated non-legitimized, criminal redistribution of the Government's property. As a result, a liberalism in modern Russia is quite popular -in economic, political, and moral aspects, -mainly among successful social groups; among those who see liberal views as ideological ground for their achievements. Nevertheless, social research on mass political consciousness of Russians shows that lots of liberal values are perceived positively, especially among young people. These are: political tolerance, the value of human life, an integrity of property, a definition of the government's strength as a well-being of its citizens, and compliance with human rights and liberties. However, these values can be interpreted differently by different social groups. Everything depends on the point of view. After all, one should not forget the fact that our concepts of "leftness" and "rightness" -are taken from the French General States, where one group of deputies was simply sitting on the left side from a chairman, and anotherfrom the right side.

Democratic Trends in Mass Political Consciousness
In modern Russia, the democracy is primarily identified with economic reforms of 1990s: a creation of private property institution and foundations of market economy. It is exactly social-economic aspect, which is the main one in the population's attitude to both democratic and liberal reforms within the state. The main criteria of its expediency or, vice versa, lack of prospects is defined by the level of people's life. This is exactly why the biggest part of the population does not consider Russia as democratic state. In Russia, the capitalism has not justified the expectations of substantial part of a society. Free competition has not come out. The foundation of a society's stability -middle class -is almost absent (with the exception of megalopolises). A bureaucracy and enforcement structures dominate over a business. There is no organized and responsible opposition. Despite the logic of democratic process, civil society's institutions are formed by the government authorities. For example: The Public Chamber, numerous social organizations, and movements. They only imitate civil activities, and this complicates the process of formation of free and responsible citizens. According to the statistics of the last sociological research, political parties and regional authorities are the least likely ones to have a trust of the population, despite the fact that a trust to political institutions is the most significant political value of democracy. It is not exercisable without mass support. As a result, democratic institutions are perceived positively on abstract level only. The choice is made based on an impossibility of any other option, such as, for example, communistic one. Moreover, this choice has become a part of social and everyday life for young generations. In the USSR, there was a time when a communism has been seen as a future of the whole humanity; and one has reacted very sensitively to any evidence of the contrary. Today, it becomes obvious that liberal democracy is also not the future of the whole humanity. The future is not defined, and there are lots of possibilities on how it is going to be built. Furthermore, the views of an individual are not really important for a democracy; what is important -it's one's participation in the life of society. As for the youngsters' activity, more than 80% of Russian young people are either not interested in politics, or don't have any particular opinion. This is the result of the research "Russian "generation Z": setups and values", which was carried out by German foundation named after Fredrich Ebert and "Levada center" [14].
The respondents of the survey on protests in January 2021 carried out between experts in the field of social sciences have come to common conclusion: the motivation of people going out at the streets on January 23, including people who have never been interested in politics before (according to their own statements), was not only their desire to support Alexey Navalny, but also their outrage in relation to the results of investigation focused on Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin; accumulated irritation from long-term restrictions taking place in the light of the pandemic; and general economic decline. Thus, everyone has gone out at the protest with his personal claims against authorities [15] and an urge to get changes, which, undoubtedly, indicates their willingness to participate in the life of society.

Conclusion
In conclusion, when there are authoritarian, conservative, liberal and democratic tendencies present at the same time in social political consciousness -it is, in fact, very interesting. These intermediate regimes -like the Russian one -are either on their way from authoritarianism to democracy or have already transformed to some new form of electoral authoritarianism. Is this form stable -or it is something permanently changing? How do the digital era's possibilities, and readiness to come back to traditions, and conservative ideals get combined with each other? How much does an imitation of democratic institutions turn to real existence of these institutions? There is nothing entirely imitational in social material. What has started being done by people, starts becoming a reality. How is it all going to happen? Previously, it was believed that this is just post-totalitarian regimes transfer into a democracy, and all its weirdness -is a weirdness of a transition period. Now it is clear that this is not quite true. Besides, today, we live in unique historical situation: it's the first time in entire history of humanity when younger generation knows more than older one, and not only in terms of digital literacy & online life. Today, the education is happening in reverse order, which breaks the whole system of cultural setups, since all Russian culture is built on the principle that older generations pass their experience to younger ones [16]. This is truly unusual situation for Russia. Today, this is the most actual and interesting subject of study in political science.