The Emerging International Ideocracy and Russia’s Quest for Normal Politics

This article analyses modern Western society from the standpoint of the concept of ‘ideocracy’. The author suggests that the development of mass societies and mass ideologies—noted by a number of theorists and philosophers since the end of the 19th century—led to a qualitatively new level of social development in the second half of the 20th century. The globalisation of the economy and mass communications has led to the globalisation of the masses, beyond the confines of national borders. That, in turn, has served as the basis for the appearance of a new social structure: the international ideocracy. This article describes the primary features of that structure, the path of its likely development and its interaction with the non-ideological world—as defined by the notion of ‘normalcy’. It also examines Russia’s possible path of development as a state that finds itself on the borders of ideological societies.