Sociocultural dimension of institutional and functional characteristics of public power relations

• Mamychev A.Yu.

  Doctor of Political Science, Candidate of Law, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Theory and History of Russian and Foreign Law; е-mail: mamychev@yandex.ru
  Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service
  Vladivostok. Russia

• Ukhanov A.D.

  Master of 1 course of the Faculty of Law; e-mail: vin-chun.95@list.ru
  National Research University “Higher School of Economics”
  Moscow. Russia

The object of this study is power relations in the political process of modern society, and its subject is the institutional, functional and sociocultural characteristics of public power relations in the context of the state-legal organization of society. The authors substantiate the hypothesis that the state power as a kind of public authority has a “proper” institutional and functional dimension that does not coincide with the functions of the state and the structural and functional features of the state apparatus. Particular attention is paid to the socio-cultural adequacy of the functioning of state power. General, general scientific and special methods are used in the work. Among the universal methods it is necessary to distinguish the systemic approach, the dialectical-materialistic methodology, as well as the dispositive method and the anthropological approach, which are used to consider the phenomenon of public authority in a sociocultural context. The paper substantiates that research power relations with modern society unfolds in various registers of thought and contexts, however, within the political and legal organization of society, the key characteristics of public-power interaction are institutionality and functionality. The latter are considered both from a universal (general-purpose) and specific (sociocultural) points of view. At the same time, it is argued that institutional, functional and sociocultural adequacy are key qualitative characteristics of state power. Their comprehensive analysis allows us to “overcome” the limitations of the formal legal and structural-functional approaches to the interpretation of state power.

Keywords: power, state, institution, politics, political process, political system, social culture, society, modern society, functions.