Politiikkatieteiden diskursseista Venäjällä
Nyckelord:
politiikkatieteet, geopolitiikka, VenäjäAbstract
Political studies in Russia are here analysed through the prism of geopolitics teaching. Geopolitics represents a discipline which may be offered in many different degree programmes, including Political Science and International Relations. Accordingly, it offers a field of comparison between these two disciplines. Despite the fact that Political Science and International Relations continue to be taught as separate degree programmes and sometimes at different faculties in Russian universities, they share many conversations. These conversations include debates about the nature of knowledge and science as well as debates about the purpose and meaning of university education. Discourses which can be identified within these conversations include those stressing a universal nature of knowledge and those arguing for a context-dependent nature of knowledge, as well as those stressing the need for a more theory-focused teaching and those calling for a more practice-oriented teaching. In the discourses on universal vs. contextual nature of knowledge, the
position of Russia and Russian scholars is brought up in relation to the notion Western knowledge and science. The primary data of the study comprise observation of lectures, interviews with teachers, questionnaires filled in by students, textbooks and official educational documents.
