Studies of religious policy in contemporary Russia: problems and methodologies

The article examines the key issues related to the problem of terminology, conceptualization of the subject and object of religious policy research in the works of Russian authors in the post-Soviet period. The main methodological approaches used in the study of religious policy and its derivatives in the Russian scientific community are analyzed. The terminological variability of the concept of “religious policy” is considered and the terminological preferences of Russian researchers are revealed. The variants of the relationship between the concepts of “religious policy” and “state-confessional relations” are shown, and the need to consider religious policy at the levels of “political decision-making” and “political management” is justified. The approaches to the identification of subjects and objects of religious policy are analyzed and their dialectical interdependence is shown. The problem of subjectness of religious institutions in the formation and implementation of religious policy is considered. The author’s version of the correlation and subordination of terms related to the definition of “religious policy” is given: “state religious policy”, “state policy regarding religious associations”, “religious policy”, “confessional policy”, “policy in the field of freedom of conscience”. The approaches and methods of historical and political sciences in the analysis of religious policy are examined. The approaches used by Russian researchers to identify criteria for classifying religious policy are considered. Special attention is paid to the analysis of structural modeling approaches to solve the problems of identifying the principles of formation and implementation of religious policy. The conclusion is made about the prospects for expanding the methodology of religious policy research and the gradual institutionalization of this research area within the framework of the emerging discipline “political science of religion”.