The present volume, which we began in 2019 and completed work on in the summer of 2021, is a collection of articles by leading contemporary Russian philosophers and scholars concerned with addressing questions of globalization and its impact from a philosophical point of view. Globalization is a fixture, even a defining characteristic, of our contemporary world. In the work of this volume’s thirty-three contributors, globalization comes forth as multifarious in its features and in the extent of its reach; and yet, in all the varied scholarly approaches presented here, we see how the processes that comprise globalization have a direct influence on the social, economic, political, and cultural development of all nations and peoples across the globe. Still, there remain many unanswered questions as to the origins of globalization or the nature and extent of its positive and negative consequences. For instance, the question of when globalization began is up for debate, while analyses surrounding why globalization began present an even more diverse picture of this field of inquiry, including views that range from describing globalization as an objective and law-governed historical process to a trajectory initiated by individual actors on a global scale.
The lack of consensus in the field, and the very flexibility and volatility of the term itself, poses serious challenges for global and transnational thinking—i.e., not only for conceiving of problems on a global scale, but for applying integral and transnational thinking to decision-making at the micro and macro level. Global thinking has perhaps never been more urgent than right now, the middle of March 2022; as we write this introduction, the stability and future of Europe—and of the entire world—is under serious threat. In our nuclear age, the global worldview, and its associated forms of thinking, must serve as the foundation for international relations and decision-making at all levels. This volume is one attempt to put forward an approach toward philosophical solutions to the most urgent crises of globalization.
Of course, scholars and philosophers rarely find themselves seated at the table when important political decisions are made. And yet, insofar as scholars and philosophers work to define and clarify the critical concepts on which these decisions should rest, it is our duty to uphold our commitment to objectivity and truth, and to the analyses of these problems in global perspective—even if we are not consulted in their resolutions. We no longer live in a world where problems can be limited to a single region, nationality, or country. The challenges of globalization are shared by all. Conflicts that may have, at one time in history, been localized or ignored on the global scale, now pose serious danger to international stability, a fact supported by the growing body of scholarship in transnational, hybrid, and global approaches.1 By including in our volume the voices of leading names in the field and from a variety of disciplines and professions, we hope to contribute to a culture of cross-cultural and international debate.
As this introduction, and ultimately this volume, intends to show, Russian scholarship on globalization is in some important ways part of the European tradition of global studies; and in other important ways, it has developed according to its own tradition, in the same way that Russia has historically viewed itself as neither East nor West. The importance of including the voices of Russian scholars—meaning both Russian and also from Russia and/or writing in the Russian language—into these conversations is not only a scholarly calculation, but a humanitarian one. First, because this volume will fill a gap for the Western reader in search of material on the directions of global studies in Russia today. Second, because the publication of this book, we hope, will contribute to a better understanding of the similarities and differences between Russian and Western social and political thought in the context of modern globalization. And third, by placing this scholarship in global dialogue, we hope to contribute to the kinds of conversations and decision making that can avoid future humanitarian catastrophes like the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine.
The wealth and diversity of material available on the topic of globalization—and, as we have just seen, the importance of the global perspective for our shared future—has made it a rich subject for multidisciplinary scholarly analysis among philosophers, sociologists, and political scientists alike. What is more, in the second half of the twentieth century, work on globalization merged with research on environmental concerns, meaning that at present, globalization studies often go hand-in-hand with questions of sustainability and ecology. In the West, centers dedicated to problems of globalization include the Vienna Institute for the Future (established in 1965), the international foundation Humanity in the Year 2000 (also established in 1965), and the World Future Society (established in 1966 in Washington, DC). Recently, we have seen a proliferation of similar organizations and institutes that identify themselves with the discipline of “future studies.” However, it was not until the founding of the Club of Rome in 1968 that we could talk about an organized effort in the study of globalization. In fact, the presentation topics at that inaugural session still drive inquiry into many of the most pressing issues of globalization today, and serve as a genesis point for the scholarly pursuit of the problems posed by globalization, as well as for public attention to these problems.2
It was around that same mid-century point that Soviet scholars began taking globalization seriously as a subject of scholarly, political, and ideological debate, mostly surrounding the government’s broader concern with the pressing global problems of that time. Likewise, work on globalization published in the West was making its way to the Soviet Union, where it was translated into Russian, sparking interest in these problems and in their representations abroad. There were conferences, debates, and publications devoted to globalization; in particular, Vladimir Vernadsky’s long-forgotten idea of the noosphere, conceptualized in the 1930s, was revived in the new context of the late Soviet period, earning Vernadsky a key role within Russian philosophical analyses of globalization from that point on.3 The culminating moment of Soviet attention to globalization occurred in 1976, with the establishment of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for System Studies under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Institute’s director was the Soviet-Georgian philosopher Dzhermen Gvishiani (1928–2003)—a member of the Club of Rome. Thus, from its very founding, the Institute for System Studies collaborated closely with the Club of Rome’s International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, meaning that Soviet scholars were very much a part of the history of the study of globalization in Europe.4
The next transformative moment in the Soviet study of globalization was the founding of the Scholarly Council on Philosophy and the Social Problems of Science and Technics at the Academy of Sciences in 1980. The Council was headed by the well-known philosopher Ivan Frolov (1929–1999) and became the leading scholarly center for globalization studies in the country, working to coordinate and unite research efforts across many different disciplines.5 As part of this initiative, one of the leading climatologists of the twentieth century, Mikhail Budyko (1920–2001), together with a group of climate scholars, developed a mathematical model for the global climate called the Budyko-Sellers model. Budyko was the author of many other pioneering works, including those warning of the dangerous impact that human civilization would have on the Earth’s climate. He predicted that human impact would lead to catastrophic results for the environment and to global climate change.6 At the same time, another group of scholars formed around the prominent mathematician Nikita Moiseyev (1917–2000) and his work to create mathematical models of global processes. Alongside American astrophysicist Charles Sagan, Moiseyev is considered to be the author of the idea of the “nuclear winter.” Together with his research group, Moiseyev created a mathematical model of the possible consequences of nuclear war for Earth’s biosphere. His model has since served as scientific proof of the catastrophic potential of nuclear war, and had a significant influence on world politics, helping in part to stimulate talks on nuclear disarmament among leading countries.7
This and other research into globalization and its processes laid the foundation for a new discipline in the USSR—the so-called “globalistics,” or global studies. Since the late-Soviet period, this discipline has developed and expanded, in large part due to scholarly initiatives like the first interdisciplinary Global Studies Encyclopedia, published in 2003 in English and Russian.8 This project included contributions from 445 authors representing twenty-eight countries, investigating globalization in all its depth and diversity. Continuing this work, in 2006, Russian scholars published an even larger project: the Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary, comprising 2,000 entries by 647 scholars, philosophers, politicians, and cultural figures from fifty-eight countries.9 The contents of this encyclopedia comprised the entire range of inquiry into globalization, including the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In addition, 2012 saw the publication of the Global Studies Dictionary (by Brill’s Contemporary Russian Philosophy series), which catalogued leading names, organizations, and developments in the field of globalization.
The development of global studies as a discipline in the post-Soviet era was facilitated in large part thanks to the establishment of the Russian Ecological Academy in 1992, which united Russian scholars, philosophers, and ecologists under a single institutional umbrella. The main goal of this organization was to encourage and support theoretical research that might eventually lead to solutions for the problems caused by interactions between society and nature, as well other global problems of the era.10 The year 1992 also saw the founding of a private university for environmental education—the International Independent Ecological-Political University, which sought to prepare its students to become highly qualified specialists in the areas of ecology, natural resource management, environmental law, eco-politics, and global studies. The university organized many international events and conferences in these fields, further contributing to the development of the discipline in the immediate post-Soviet period.
The year 2005 marked another important step in the development of global studies in Russia: the creation of the Department of Global Processes at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.11 The department has since become the leading center for global studies in Russia, coordinating projects among multiple disciplines. Every two years the department sponsors an International Global Studies Congress that hosts leading scholars from Russia and abroad, with the participation of organizations like UNESCO, the Club of Rome, the World Academy of Art and Science, the International Academy of Global Research, and the Russian Society for Global Research.12
The articles in this collection are representative of the new directions of Russian global studies in the twenty-first century. In introducing readers to the authors and topics presented here, we would like to note two things. First, the publication of this volume continues the longstanding collaboration between Russian philosophers and Brill. Since 2014, the book series in Contemporary Russian Philosophy has published several titles specifically on the philosophy of global studies, and many more on the study of philosophy in Russia more broadly. Second, it is quite rare even today for Russian authors to find an audience in the West and to publish their work in English. There are many reasons for this, but we would like to highlight just one: for much of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union and the West were unable to engage in real dialogue. Be it the “iron curtain” or the Cold War, both are names for the ideological chasm that separated these two civilizations. For a brief time after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, collaboration between Russia and the West appeared to be possible at last. As indeed it was—for a time. Nevertheless, the relationship between Russia and the West has always been fraught; for a variety of historical, political, and economic reasons, that long-awaited dialogue between Russian and Western scholars never quite reached its full potential.
As a result, the Western reader is unlikely to be familiar with Russian thought or with the Russian humanities. The same can be said for philosophy and global studies as practiced in Russia. And yet, in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian humanities have undergone significant changes. Marxist philosophy has long lost its overarching influence on social thought and philosophy, and is now studied as one approach among many in the history of philosophy. As for the relationship of Marxism to global studies, Marxism is a part of the discipline’s past, but today it plays an almost undetectable role in the research and views of contemporary Russian scholars of globalization. The fact that this volume is co-edited by scholars from Russia and the United States is perhaps one small step on the path towards direct engagement between Russian and Western thought.
We have carefully selected the articles in this volume, authored by leaders in their respective fields, to present the Western reader with a rich and accurate picture of the variety and character of global-studies research conducted in Russia today. Some of the approaches contained within will be familiar to the reader; others may perhaps be wholly new and unexpected. Readers may be surprised by the extent to which philosophical thinking and philosophical ideas permeate nearly every level of Russian global studies, making philosophy of globalization a distinct field in its own right. As we noted above, work on the contents of this volume was completed by the summer of 2021, a full half year before the start of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. And yet, the articles contained within remain relevant. In the work of those scholars writing about globalization in the contemporary world, some of the predictions or worries they expressed have even begun to come true.
In order to guide the reader through this multidisciplinary and multi-thematic volume, we have arranged the articles in five sections.
Part I, “Globalization in the Focus of Interdisciplinary Research,” is devoted to the interdisciplinary character of global research in Russia. The articles in this section address the philosophical and theoretical dimensions of globalization, and the trajectory of its development, from the viewpoints of history, economics, and political science.
Part II, “Philosophical and Sociocultural Aspects of Globalization,” includes five contributions that focus on moments of crisis in the contemporary world, including the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic. The works in this section pay particular attention to global political and protest movements, including those advocating the process of counter-globalization.
Part III, “Nature, Society, and Humans in a Global World,” looks at the troubled relationship between human beings and the natural world—a topic that has always been, and remains, of particular importance for Russian thinkers. Here we find articles in a variety of sub-disciplines and addressing a wide array of issues, ranging from the harmonization of the biosphere and technosphere to advances in sustainable development and ecological preservation. The final chapter in this section addresses the idea of cosmopolitanism as a substitute for the traditional international system of nation-states.
Part IV, “Russia in the Global World: Philosophy, History, Geopolitics,” includes chapters by philosophers, historians, and geopolitical scientists who address Russia’s role in the global world. Here we find contributions that take on the most urgent questions of Russian society today: for instance, investigations into Russian civilization’s developmental trajectory, the impact of the Russian Revolution on world systems, and the philosophical school of Russian cosmism, which remains one of Russia’s distinctive contributions to world philosophy.
Finally, the articles in Part V, “Humanistic Aspects of Global Civilization,” address the role of the humanities and humanistic concerns within the broader context of globalization. The authors included in this section investigate a variety of topics, including civilizational values, global security, the theory and practice of sports management at a global level, and religious and ethical concerns in the context of globalization.
We would like to express our profound gratitude to the translators who worked on this volume, to Anna Razumnaya for her editorial expertise, and to the editorial team at Brill, for their support of this complex multidisciplinary project.
We hope that the publication of this volume in English will not only introduce new names and ideas to a Western audience, but will also help facilitate international dialogue on questions of globalization—questions that are critical to us all, inhabitants of a shared, global world.
Alexander N. ChumakovAlyssa DeBlasioIlya V. IlyinMarch 2022