The situation in eastern Ukraine and Russian-Ukrainian interstate relations saw a certain de-escalation in June 2014. In particular, Russia recognized new Ukrainian President P. Poroshenko. However, the situation remains to be tense. The east Ukrainian armed groups cannot see how they may exist...

Tensions in the eastern Ukraine were eased a bit in May 2014, although the causes of the conflict still remain to be resolved. There is a fragile balance today between the Ukrainian military forces and the armed groups of supporters of federalism in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. In the...

The situation in Ukraine ratcheted up sharply in April 2014 in the Dontesk and Lugansk Regions, where armed insurgents seized the regional administration buildings. Negotiations in Geneva between officials from Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union came to an agreement on...

In July 2014, against the backdrop of an escalating conflict in Ukraine and the crash of a civilian passenger airliner in the active combat zone there, the OECD's sanctions against Russia were severely toughened. A ban was imposed on the issuance of long-term loans (for periods over 90 days) to...

In this paper we tested the hypothesis of the "political" basis for the "economic" rights. We constructed our own variables of political regimes' classification for years 1820-2000. We found significant positive interdependencies between the Democracy's indicators and Economic Growth. Protection...

Government interventions into the traditional functioning of the family became an important factor in the recent family crisis in developed countries (fewer marriages, more divorces, and lower birth rate). This hypothesis has been tested statistically for the period from 1800 to 2010 with data...

In the main paper we propose two new indicators of de facto constitutional constraints. The indicators are based on the presence or the absence of easily observable political events. This makes the proposed measures relatively objective and easy to verify relative to the most widely used...

Modern approaches to immigration policies in most developed countries make the problems of adaptation for new arrivals more severe. Protracted failure to adapt among immigrants (and even of their descendants) turns into recurrent problems vis-à-vis the law, and even extends into large scale...

Ratings of institutional quality are widely known and used in academic literature. Among such ratings are some whose compilation procedure took decades to perfect. Dozens of assessments have been accumulated, pertaining to a large and growing list of countries. These ratings use expert...

Can the absence of freedom of speech, a monopolized media market, and a politicized education create obstacles which will stand in the way of economic growth? The answer is an unambiguous Yes, and substantially. Partial, biased, or heteronomous mass media and an education turned into a...