METHODOLOGY AND PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDYING CONFESSIONAL POLICY TOWARDS PROTESTANTS IN THE NORTH-WEST CAUCASUS
The work touches on the methodology and practical significance of the study of confessional policies regarding Protestant groups stationed in the North-West Caucasus. The authors indicate that the relevance of the study of the problem is explained by the development of new Protestant movements in the subjects of the Southern Federal District, the number of which is growing. Establishing contacts with these religious associations is often complicated by their insufficient study. The article analyzes several models of confessional politics: identification, characteristic of pre-revolutionary Russia; segregation that existed in the USSR until 1985; separation - took place during the perestroika period, cooperative - typical for the present. It is noted that the process of creating positive sociopolitical meanings by political authorities, their introduction into the consciousness of religious associations, the existence of the phenomenon of state-confessional identity of individual groups can be considered using the constructivism method. The emphasis is placed on the prospects of using several methodological approaches: modeling, structural and functional analysis, as well as on the feasibility of creating a special information system that combines and classifies information about regional features of the implementation of the all-Russian confessional course.