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The article is of methodological nature and aims to evaluate the content validity of Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski's totalitarian syndrome, that is, the extent to which this theoretical framework accurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. It introduces the critical analysis of the individual concepts extracted from the totalitarian syndrome as the indicators of totalitarianism and the model as a whole as a research tool for measuring political regimes. The paper begins with the discussion on an alternative concept of totalitarianism formulated by Nicholas Timasheff to illustrate the context in which the authors of the theoretical categories of totalitarianism created them. Then, the article goes on to analyze the nature and major characteristics of Friedrich and Brzezinski's totalitarian syndrome as well as these reviews of Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, which addressed the validity of the model. Social scientists have widely criticized Friedrich and Brzezinski's totalitarian syndrome. The most serious objection concerns the non-specific essential features collected and combined to define totalitarianism. The taxonomic nature of the model has allowed researchers, who blindly adopted the framework, to classify discretionarily political regimes of numerous states as totalitarian. Friedrich and Brzezinski failed to advance any clear criteria for coding. They did not establish a line between meeting and not meeting the listed essential features. Furthermore, it is unknown what character the features enumerated under this syndrome have. This generates a question if the six "indicators" are essential, distinctive, significant, co-decisive, contours, features, factors, frames, pillars, or mechanisms. Although Friedrich and Brzezinski's totalitarian syndrome fulfilled a prominent educational role mostly for US citizens by showing that there could be social worlds completely different from those in which one lives, the proposed understanding of totalitarianism is insignificant in defining such regimes. This theoretical framework inaccurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. The paper finishes with the argument against applying the syndrome to scrutinize political regimes because of its considerably limited content validity.

Celem artykułu było zbadanie, jaki jest poziom dialogiczności w tygodnikach opinii w Polsce. Hipoteza zakładała, że redakcje często poruszają te same tematy, ale w dyskusji trudno znaleźć merytoryczne odpowiedzi na argumenty drugiej strony sporu. Badanie wykazało, że dziennikarze poruszają te same kwestie zdecydowanie rzadziej, niż mogłoby się wydawać. Najczęściej powtarzającymi się kwestiami są zwykle najważniejsze tematy, odnoszące się do bieżących wydarzeń politycznych. Dziennikarze nawiązują wzajemnie do swoich artykułów, wykorzystując zarówno argumenty merytoryczne, jak i erystyczne.

Before 2014 Putin used semantic structures characteristic of authoritarianism and façade democracy to shape Russian political discourse. After the annexation of Crimea, we identify the decrease of authoritarian discursive elements, the occurrence of references to democratic values, and the prevalence of totalitarian discursive elements. This quantitative alteration co-occurred with a qualitative change of the intensity of totalitarian gnosis that increased from the low to the moderate extent. This paper aims to examine the extent of the intensity of totalitarian political gnosis in Putin's most influential speeches: the annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, and the president's annual news conference.

This article aims to identify the dynamics of the Russian political regime and explain its sources. The article addresses the research problems of what the dynamics of the Russian political regime entailed from the beginning of the Russo- Ukrainian war to the end of Putin's third presidential term as well as the sources of the dynamics. It verifies the hypothesis that the authoritarian regime started adopting totalitarian elements of the party-state apparatus, totalitarian political gnosis, and mass and controlled social mobilization in time. There were very strong neo-imperial tendencies and post-imperial nostalgia which contributed to the epigonic nature of the system changes. However, qualitative change of the system has not occurred. The research makes use of source analysis and the technique of conceptual content analysis to gather the data necessary to evaluate the changes in the Russian political regime in the mentioned aspects. The researchers triangulated mass media information and monographs and adopted the principle of theoretical sampling to verify the information necessary to recognize the values of the three indicators. Furthermore, the research applies three dual typologies of the essential features of political regimes to differentiate between the state of the system during individual ellipses of bifurcation.

MILITANT DEMOCRACIES' TRAJECTORY OF CONTINUANCEThe theoretical category of militant democracy in Karl Loevenstein's meaning is described well in world scholarly literature. Notwithstanding, there is no comprehensive typology of militant democracy which would allow for identifying and diversifying various political regimes which meet the distinctive features of the Weberian ideal type of militant democracy. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to formulate a typology of militant democracies which would be a useful analytical tool for studying diverse political regimes. Importantly, this paper contributes to the field by proposing the framework of the theory, i.e., militant democracies' trajectory of continuance which consists of the types of militant democracies and the relationships between them. It is significant to assume that the subjects of militant democracy use offensive and defensive strategies which are characterised by the following degrees of intensity: low, moderate, and high. Hence, nine types of these strategies' configurations are determined. They generate nine types of militant democracies. Moreover, there are nine factorial relationships between them, which are useful for assessing whether and how empirical exemplifications of political regimes change. This proposal of the typology of militant democracies is highly applicable to empirical studies and worth developing in a theoretical way on the basis of new criteria such as the potential of regime regeneration.

How did Russian political regime change after the "White Revolution"? The article makes a methodological, theoretical, and empirical contribution to the field of studies on the dynamics of non-democratic regimes, and especially the nature of the alterations within Putin's Russia. The research field is the Russian political system determined by its three aspects: structure of political institutions, political awareness of public issues, and political mobilization between the "White Revolution" and the beginning of Putin's fourth term. The paper solves the research problems by employing the qualitative analysis of sources and drawing on the critical analysis of the recent news. The analysis benefits from the use of Roman Bäcker's analytical device, a theoretical framework made of the three continua whose extreme points are the indicators of authoritarianism and totalitarianism respectively. The research tool is to identify the essential features of Putin's political regime. According to this model, bureaucracy or siloviki, emotional mentality, and social apathy are typical of authoritarianism. In turn, state-party apparatus, totalitarian gnosis, and controlled mass mobilization are the symptoms of totalitarianism. This article researches how the Russian political regime evolved from the "White Revolution" to the beginning of Putin's fourth term. It tests the hypothesis that the system most likely evolved from a soft to hard military authoritarianism. The regime might have moved towards a hybrid regime made of the elements of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It formulates the conclusion the Russian political regime is a hard military authoritarianism. After the fall of the "White Revolution", most notably after the annexation of Crimea, few totalitarian elements were visible, mostly in the sphere of social awareness in the form of totalitarian political gnosis. In addition, the indicators of totalitarianism started to disappear from September 2014, especially the elements of totalitarian gnosis in the political discourse. ; Jaka była istota zmian reżimu politycznego w Rosji po "Białej rewolucji"? Nowatorskie rozwiązanie powyższego problemu badawczego wzbogaca metodologiczne, teoretyczne i empiryczne płaszczyzny badań nad dynamiką przemian reżimów niedemokratycznych, a szczególnie Rosji Putina. Polem badawczym jest system polityczny Rosji analizowany na trzech płaszczyznach: struktury instytucji politycznych, świadomości politycznej oraz aktywności społecznej na continuum pomiędzy sterowaną mobilizacją a apatią. Cezurami są: "Biała Rewolucja" oraz wybory prezydenckie w 2018 roku. Problem badawczy został rozwiązany dzięki jakościowej analizie źródeł i krytycznej analizie informacji. Badanie było możliwe dzięki zastosowaniu siatki kategorii teoretycznych autorstwa Romana Bäckera. Stworzył on trzy continua, których punkty ekstremalne są jednocześnie istotnościowymi kryteriami odpowiednio autorytaryzmu i totalitaryzmu. To narzędzie badawcze pozwala na określenie nie tylko miejsca, ale i wektora oraz wielkości zmian reżimu politycznego Rosji. Zgodnie z tym modelem panowanie biurokracji i/lub "silovikow", mentalność emocjonalna i apatia społeczna są cechami typowymi dla autorytaryzmu. Z drugiej strony panowanie aparatu partyjno-państwowego, gnoza polityczna i sterowana masowa mobilizacja są symptomami totalitaryzmu. Wykazano, że reżim polityczny w Rosji przekształcił się z miękkiego autorytaryzmu w twardy i militarny. Jednocześnie zaczął on mieć charakter hybrydalny, a więc łączył elementy autorytaryzmu i totalitaryzmu. Po upadku "Białej Rewolucji", a szczególnie po aneksji Krymu, wyraźnie widoczne były elementy reżimu totalitarnego, zwłaszcza w sferze świadomości społecznej. Jednakże elementy totalitaryzmu, w szczególności w sferze dyskursu publicznego zaczęły zanikać po wrześniu 2014 roku. Od marca 2017, wraz z pierwszymi masowymi demonstracjami politycznymi, rosyjski reżim polityczny zaczął wykazywać cechy schyłkowe.

How did Russian political regime change after the "White Revolution"? The article makes a methodological, theoretical, and empirical contribution to the field of studies on the dynamics of non-democratic regimes, and especially the nature of the alterations within Putin's Russia. The research field is the Russian political system determined by its three aspects: structure of political institutions, political awareness of public issues, and political mobilization between the "White Revolution" and the beginning of Putin's fourth term. The paper solves the research problems by employing the qualitative analysis of sources and drawing on the critical analysis of the recent news. The analysis benefits from the use of Roman Bäcker's analytical device, a theoretical framework made of the three continua whose extreme points are the indicators of authoritarianism and totalitarianism respectively. The research tool is to identify the essential features of Putin's political regime. According to this model, bureaucracy or siloviki, emotional mentality, and social apathy are typical of authoritarianism. In turn, state-party apparatus, totalitarian gnosis, and controlled mass mobilization are the symptoms of totalitarianism. This article researches how the Russian political regime evolved from the "White Revolution" to the beginning of Putin's fourth term. It tests the hypothesis that the system most likely evolved from a soft to hard military authoritarianism. The regime might have moved towards a hybrid regime made of the elements of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It formulates the conclusion the Russian political regime is a hard military authoritarianism. After the fall of the "White Revolution", most notably after the annexation of Crimea, few totalitarian elements were visible, mostly in the sphere of social awareness in the form of totalitarian political gnosis. In addition, the indicators of totalitarianism started to disappear from September 2014, especially the elements of totalitarian gnosis in the political discourse.

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zaproponowanie zestawu kategorii teoretycznych do analizowania struktur myślenia politycznego dystrybuowanych przez talibów po wojnie w Afganistanie. Obejmuje on trzy grupy typów idealnych umożliwiających identyfikację i klasyfikację odmiennych aspektów tych struktur wykorzystywanych do formułowania roszczeń legitymizacyjnych. Są to po pierwsze: myślenie religijne i polityczne; po drugie: trybalne i posttrybalne; i po trzecie: natywizm, kontrakulturacja, witalizm oraz autonegatywizm. Choć zakres ich zastosowania znacznie wykracza poza eksplorację wskazanego pola badawczego, są one szczególnie użyteczne, aby zrozumieć zmiany zachodzące na współczesnej scenie politycznej w Azji i móc ostrożnie prognozować kierunek przemian w afgańskim systemie politycznym. Struktury te są bowiem stosowane przez talibów do generowania legitymizacji społecznej ich rządów oraz kształtowanego systemu politycznego, czyli pozyskiwania poparcia dla aktualnego rządu ze strony rządzonej populacji, modelowania akceptacji jego polityki, instytucji i wartości. Stanowią swoiste roszczenia legitymizacyjne będące obok stosowania represji i spójności elit rządzących jednym z filarów stabilności reżimu politycznego. Można je traktować jako struktury legitymizacyjne leżące u podstaw konstruowanego porządku politycznego.