The humanities and social science

The author explores mutual alimentary obligations of children and parents. There are different forms of financial support including alimony. Alimentary obligation is the most important concept of the Family Code. However, neither the Family Code of the Russian Federation, nor other normative acts contains any legal definition of alimentary obligation. The author defines the concept of alimentary obligation and analyses the difference between the concepts of ‘support’ and ‘alimony’. The article describes the alimentary obligations of children in relation to parents and those of parents in relation to children. The author identifies some problematic issues of alimentation.

The majority of EU member states, for which the excessive budget deficit procedure was introduced in 2009, managed to eliminate the deficit of their national budgets in September 2017. The EU started a reform of its subsidiary legislation in 2011 and introduced significant changes to the excessive budget deficit procedure. The article analyses the stages of the excessive budget deficit procedure, particularly those having new and much tougher requirements. The author describes the degree to which these changes contribute to the elimination of the budget deficit. The conducted research shows that the new procedure was supplemented with additional sanctions. However, their introduction depends on the political will of EU member-states. The sanctions can potentially inflict additional damage on the financial situation in the EU states having budget deficit.

The article describes the system of methods of investigating crimes as a well-established form in the history of criminalistics. The success of the investigation of crimes depends on a comprehensive, objective examination of the circumstances of crimes, and on the correct choice of the mechanisms for proving the person's guilt. All these elements are united in the concept of the methodology for investigating crimes and have a certain content, depending on the type of the crime committed. The author singles out a simplified form of methodology having an intermediary position between the general and shortened form of investigating crimes. In addition, an attempt was made to justify the need for the introduction and application of a simplified form of methods for investigating crimes.

The article examines the main problems of regulating public relations in the organization of automobile passenger transport as well as contractual obligations of parties ensuring the performance of passenger transportation services within the framework of the civil law. The organization of automobile passenger transportation is described in the subject matter of the service contract. The author concludes that there is a need for further specification of the subject of contracts on the organization of automobile passenger transport.

It is of the utmost importance to ensure equal access of people with various disabilities to transport. This article examines the rights of disabled people associated with the use of vehicles as well as the main problems pertaining to it. The author considers legal practices and the existing provisions for ensuring access to transport and suggests possible comprehensive solutions to the most serious problems in this area.

The Declaration of the Heads of State and Government of June 29, 2012 was the birth of the European Banking Union. It demonstrated considerable and, in some ways, unprecedented support by the member states of the European Union to each other. This move was highly questioned by the public. In addition to eloquent statements about the need to break the adverse interdependence of sovereign risks and risks of the banking sector, this Declaration included two specific legal obligations. Firstly, the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and the centralized supervision of the banking sector of the Member States of the eurozone with supervisory powers transferred to the European Central Bank in accordance with Article 127 (6) of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU. Secondly, the direct recapitalization of banks from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), established under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) based on the Treaty, signed a few months earlier — February 2, 2012. The fulfilment of these obligations directly depends on the effective work of the European Central Bank (ECB). That is why the formation of the EU Banking Union and its current activities are inextricably linked with the efficiency of the ECB. EU member states gave the ECB a certain credit of confidence by giving up part of their mandates and transferring powers to a supranational level in the hope that the ECB has sufficient resources and experience to increase the transparency, stability and security of the EU banking sector.

The article presents a comparison of innovation development in Russia and Europe regarding it as a system of training specialists in the facilitation and commercialization of innovations. Building on the analysis of various approaches, the author proposes to strengthen the influence of the education system on the innovative development of regions using various methods, the key one being the so-called start-up training. The author analyses the experience of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in training specialists in innovation. It is proposed to create a regional training system for the development and commercialisation of innovations.

The article attempts to analyse the socio-cultural significance of transport development in the USSR within the framework of ‘visual turn’ in social sciences and the humanities. The author uses family photo archives of the 1950s—1980s, presented in the "People's Album", a digital project of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, to explore the role of the public, company and personal transport in the life of the Soviet people.

Studying archival documents, the author analyses the contribution of tourist agencies to the formation of the historical memory of Kaliningraders in 1964—1975. The article describes certain pages of local history, which were included in thematic excursions for residents and guests of the region. In their excursions, tourist guides of that period paid a particular attention to the victorious military operations of the Red Army in East Prussia in 1945. During their tourist trips to Russian cities and the Baltic republics, Kaliningraders learned the history of the revolutionary movement there, the history of Second World War, and visited landmarks of different epochs.

The Lobachevsky Research Library of Kazan Federal University boasts a collection of Yuryo Vuorioki’s letters. Yuryo Vuorioki is one of the leaders of the Finnish national movement of the pre-war period, a member of the board of the Karelian academic society and editor-in-chief of the Suomen Heimo journal. The analysis of this material made it possible to outline the range of his research interests during his study at Helsingfors University, revealing interesting facts of the scientific biography of the researcher.

The article analyzes the tactics of the German government towards political parties in the early twentieth century. The central figure is Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. The purpose of this article is to analyze the creation and functioning of the Bulow blocand the reasons for its demise.

The article investigates the specifics of the interaction between political institutions and civil society. Analyzing relevant research literature, the author studies the effectiveness and legitimacy of political institutions in Russia. The author identifies the main trends in their activity of political institutions, which should be given special attention when establishing functional connections between civil society as such and political institutions.

The author critically re-considers the neo-institutional approach to the essence of political rent. The notion of political anti-rent is introduced and substantiated. The author considers forms and significance of political rent in the political space of modern party systems. The article provides a quantitative evaluation of rents and anti-rents in political markets of some states.

The article considers the environmental aspect of the current Arctic Strategy of Sweden. Despite the general predominant environmental vector, objective results of the Swedish Arctic Strategy remain quite frugal. As the leading environmental European power, Sweden was not able to present a comprehensive environmental part of its Arctic strategy and did not try to update the environmental agenda in the Arctic. Sweden’s Arctic Strategy is aimed at maintaining a policy of sustainable and balanced development in the Arctic region. However, in reality, it requires great efforts and concrete measures not only from Sweden, but also from other participants of international relations.

The article examines the main approaches to the study of nationalism. The author describes characteristic features of conceptual trends, reveals their strengths and weaknesses. The article shows that in political science there is no single self-sufficient theory that could become an instrument for studying various manifestations of nationalism.