The article is devoted to identifying the features of the functioning of elections as a democratic institution in a pandemic. Based on the constructivist approach and the method of comparative analysis, the author attempts to conceptualize elections as an institution of trust and to characterize the electoral practices used by European countries in the electoral process. Based on the research of D. Coleman, N. Luhmann, R. Putnam, P. Roseanvallon, P. Shtompka, I. Krastev, F. Fukuyama, D. Gambetto, the author, despite the ambiguity of the concept of “trust”, concludes that it is essential role in the relationship between government and society. Mistrust means the alienation of society from the social sphere, lack of faith in justice, a feeling of uncertainty and a threat emanating from government institutions. Trust creates a moral environment in society that promotes development and effective problem solving. In an atmosphere of trust, various voting options are possible, which are not disputed by citizens, and elections become the most important indicator of this trust. Pandemic restrictions have left a significant imprint on electoral practices; nevertheless, there is an obvious trend towards the active introduction of remote electronic voting, which has not yet reached perfection, but is a strategically priority in the ongoing election campaigns. At the same time, increased requirements are imposed on the safety of the electoral process, its normative regulation, openness and publicity.

Systematic review of articles on the problem of measuring political trust published in such authoritative scientific journals as “European Political Science Review”, “British Journal of Politics and International Relations”, “Parliamentary Affairs”, “Journal of Public Policy”, “Political Science Quarterly”, “Perspectives on Politics” and “International Journal of Public Opinion Research”, demonstrates considerable attention of scientists to the problem of political trust in a modern democracy and pursues as its goal the development of a methodological basis for political trust research. The methodology of the review on the problem of measuring political trust involves a comparative analysis of the results of studies in the field of assessing political trust. Among the main tasks of the article are: generalization of scientific approaches to political trust, development of methods for political trust measurements and its result interpretation, characterization of the crisis of trust in a modern democracy. The objectives of the study include identifying conceptual scientific works of Western scientists for the period 2011–2021, which allow tracing the modernization of ideas about the object of political trust, characterize the methods of measuring the level of political trust used in modern socio-political science, and reveal differences in the formation of moral and strategic trust. The differences in moral political trust, where trusting relationships are formed on the basis of the experience and personal interaction of subjects, and strategic trust, where political culture is formed and certain expectations that political leaders will make correct, rational decisions are based on fundamental ideas about the political an order where constant change forms personal and institutional ties. Measuring political trust, which is the basis of interaction between citizens and the state, is an issue of fundamental importance for characterizing the quality of democracy, and the rule of law is impossible without a high level of political trust.

The article examines the external media image of the Chechen Republic, which is formed, among other things, through publications in foreign media. It is noted that the issues of its formation and adaptation to the conditions of external positioning are important points of strategic communication in the media policy of the region. The results of the research will help to develop criteria for the effectiveness of submitting materials for foreign authors, as well as to identify the main trends in the strategy and tactics of media policy in relation to foreign media.

The purpose of the study is to identify criteria and trends in the coverage of the life of the Chechen Republic by foreign media. The objectives of the research were to study the techniques and tonality of coverage of the life of the Chechen Republic in foreign media, as well as to identify the most popular and effective tools for working with foreign authors.

The methodology and methodology of the research is determined by the set goals and objectives, the author used thematic monitoring, comparative analysis, content analysis as a standard method of research in the field of social sciences, the subject of analysis of which is the content of text arrays and products of communicative information.

The hypothesis of the study was generally confirmed: the fragmentary coverage of events and the life of the Chechen Republic was revealed, the media image of the republic in foreign media is formed spontaneously. The opportunism of the media image is formed under the influence of political events in the world that are not directly related to the life of the region.

The article examines the problems of using the Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity. The following problems are highlighted: the lag of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System from the development of technologies; disagreement of countries with the decisions of the Harmonized System Committee; mistakes in texts; difficulties with the implementation of the classification decisions of the Federal Customs Service and Eurasian Economic Commission. Discrepancies in classification lead to distortion of mirror statistics of foreign trade and make it possible to identify “risk” and “cover” goods. The purpose of the work was to compare the imports by the Russian Federation nonwovens of chapter 56 from three countries — the main exporters at the level of commodity headings and subheadings. The hypothesis was tested: since chapter 56 is not the leading one in the volume of imports, there will be no significant discrepancies in the mirror statistics. Research method was comparison of data on Russian imports from a trading partner country and corresponding data on exports of a trading partner country to Russia. Data source is Trade Map of the International Trade Center. Headings 5602 (felt) and 5603 (nonwovens) were considered, which include goods that are similar in structure and properties, as well as heading 5607 — twine, cordage, ropes and cables. These goods are imported from both European and Asian countries. However, only when importing from the Asian direction — from China — discrepancies in the mirror statistics were found. It is shown that goods of “risk” (heading 5602) were imported into Russia from China in 9 times less than exported from China, and goods of “cover” (heading 5603) were imported from China by 5% more, than exported by China. The subheading of twine, cordage, ropes and cables made of synthetic fibers (570650) also represents risk goods, imports of which are 3 times less than exports from China. There are several cover headings that include similar goods with a lower duty rate. Comparison of duties showed that the main reason for classification errors leading to distortion of mirror statistics is the deliberately wrong choice of the code in the presence of close alternatives, which allows to reduce the customs payment. The hypothesis that group 56 will not show significant discrepancies in mirror statistics has not been confirmed.

In the article, the authors consider the phenomenon of creativity, creativity as a demanded competence in contemporary society. Artists, poets, composers, musicians, carriers of the so-called fine art creativity, have always been in demand. In the “fast” digital world, creativity takes on new characteristics, turns into a mass-market productive force. The public demand for creativity and the supply for this characteristic are undergoing noticeable changes now.

Creativity has now become a demanded competence that can bring high income to its owners. The authors analyze the influence of common social institutions of socialization on the development of creativity. The article provides a definition of individual and social creativity, structuring the sociological approaches available in world science to the study of creativity and its nature. The authors introduce a new term — paracreativity and reveal its features.

The authors come to the conclusion that society, by creating and maintaining social norms, aimed at developing inner freedom and creativity, contributes to the formation of happier social groups and thus individuals, where each individual has created conditions for the disclosure and realization of his creative potential for the benefit of himself and a large or small society, depending on the scale of the activity. Meanwhile, in the digital world, the creator himself regulates the scale of his activities, using/neglecting social networks.

Research on values is important both for the development of sociology and for. practices of social management, they provide the necessary basis for effective public policy.

The purpose of this article was to analyze the current agenda for the study of values by building theoretical and methodological thematic clusters. An optional task was to describe the thematic thesaurus used by the authors of the articles on values. The hypothesis was tested that the theory of social status in relation to economic topics received the greatest recognition in the current agenda. The study was carried out in a quantitative design, the method of content analysis was used, followed by the calculation of the c-correlation coefficient between the three semantic components of the study: topic, theory, methodology. The empirical material was the abstracts of 132 articles published in 21 sociological journals, included in the 1 quartile of Scopus in 2016–2020. Articles were selected according to the author’s search method. The limitations of the study are the 5-year time period, the language of the article (English), the use of only abstract texts for analysis, and not the articles themselves, the author’s method of building clusters (it is possible to build clusters on other grounds).

Results. The main hypothesis was confirmed. The strongest connection was recorded between the theory of social status and economic topics (c-correlation coefficient — 0.62). The smallest connection was found between family values and theories about values as ideal representations (0.21). At the same time, the coefficient of connection between theories and research topics is, on average, lower than that of methodologies and topics. Qualitative methodology is mentioned by authors of articles on values a little more often than quantitative one. (114 qualitative versus 103 quantitative). In the thematic thesaurus, the greatest diversity is recorded in the research area “Labor and Economics”, the least — in the areas “Family” and “Education”. Despite the fact that the group of articles dealing with values in the sphere of politics is the second largest in the sample with 87 articles (66%), only 15 frequently used terms were included in its thematic thesaurus. In the area of “Labor and Economics”, 65 significant terms were identified; in total, materials of 111 articles (84%) were attributed to this area.

The directions of further research are related to the study of the isomorphism of the agenda for the study of values in international and Russian sociology, as well as the analysis of substantive discrepancies in the study of values in the same sphere of life between Russian and foreign sociologists.

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the “vertical” form (P. Shtompka) of trust in the authorities on the part of the population of the Republic of Angola, conducted at the end of 2020. The research methodology (classical and modern studies of the phenomenon of trust), methods of collecting primary information (included observation, a survey in the form of a standardized interview) are described. The factors influencing the attitude of citizens to the government and causing distrust of its social policy are analyzed. The attitude to the key institutions of civil society on the scale of “trust-distrust” is shown. Based on the results of the study, a forecast is made about the strengthening of distrust of power structures and the growth of tension in the country.

The article presents a generalized experience of technical re-equipment of the Red Army artillery on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War. Attention is focused on the role and significance of scientific artillery schools in the technical re-equipment of scientific artillery schools, new facts and documents little-known to the general reader are presented, an assessment of Soviet artillery by the allies and its enemies is given. The authors come to the conclusion that this experience has not lost its significance in modern conditions, especially when the bodies of state power and military administration solve problems of further increasing the firepower and improving the missile forces and artillery of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, their rearmament with highly effective means of firepower. defeat and automated control systems for reconnaissance. In preparing the material, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-retrospective and other methods of historical research were used.

The article focuses on the main principles of public property as Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation formulates them. The author reveals actual problems of public property as a complex institution, including mainly constitutional, administrative, financial, and in a less degree civil law. There is a direct relation between public property, public finance, budget, legal regime of the territory concerned and citizens’ public rights. Establishment of a legal regime of the territory helps to preserve current public land and property usage and provides public rights. The ability of public property unilateral transfer to another level of public ownership is justified. Meantime in the context of specialized public housing stock problem the author suggests sensitive decision for the legal status of quarters as a specialized commercial housing stock. Legal positions of the Constitutional Court promote effective solution to the conflict within the community and provide guidance for the legislative and law-enforcement activity.