Sheiko I. The Paradigm of the Political in Reflexive Modernity on the Example of the Contemporary German Political Theories.

The thesis conducts a research of peculiarities of contemporary politics from the point of view of reflexive Modernity. Basing on theories of Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos, the model of paradigm analysis, adjusted to political science, was acquired. The application of paradigm analysis to the political knowledge was demonstrated and the understanding of political reality in early and industrial Modernity was characterized. The author reveals major approaches to explanation of contemporary politics, represented in the political theories, developed by Niklas Luhmann, Jurgen Habermas, and Ulrich Beck; the commonalities and differences in their conceptualizations of the political were distinguished. The essence of the notion "the political" was characterized; it is a result of a conceptualization of a shift from industrial to reflexive Modernity. It is argued that in the process of the reflexive modernization there emerges the space of the political, which boundaries are constantly changing within the struggle of politicization and depoliticization. The conceptualizations of such transformations in the theories of Luhmann, Habermas, and Beck are analyzed within the concepts of discourse, subpolitics, and contingency.