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The practice of using force and law structures in the implementation of repression and terror and the experience of preventing these types of armed violence in different political systems of today are analyzed. The categories "power structures", "armed violence", "repression and terror" were defined. It is revealed that in today's essential understanding repression and terror were first used as one of the force tools for stabilizing socio-political processes within the revolutions of the mid-seventeenth - early twentieth centuries and a series of post-revolutionary civil wars and coups d'etat. It is stated that upon completion of the processes of the modern world system formation, which according to I. Wallerstein operates on the basis of market mechanisms, provides for the presence of central, semi-peripheral and peripheral zones with fundamentally different economic potential. The possibility of using repression and terror became directly dependent on the political structure existing in a given country. It is noted that in the liberal-democratic political systems typical of the center of today's world economy, repression and terror as elements of power are completely absent, as it prevents the security forces from entering the political process and public control over their activities. Under the semi-peripheral totalitarian system, the analyzed types of armed violence are an integral part of the state functioning and are used in all social spheres. In authoritarian political systems, typical for the semi-periphery and the periphery, terror is not used, and repression is not the main instrument of domination which is used exactly for political purposes. The structure of the clan-oligarchic system, widespread in the semi-peripheral zone, creates potential opportunities for repression. However, their widespread usage is blocked by elements of facade democracy, which are exploited by economic and political groups in competition with the central government.

The article comprehensively examines the social sources of armed violence, as one of the important phenomena in the development of humanity. Based on the analysis of works by leading Ukrainian and foreign scientists, the author considers the essence of the phenomenon of armed violence in the context of the development of social violence. In particular, a significant number of scientific papers have been analyzed, in which certain aspects of the topic chosen for research are disclosed, the main approaches and concepts that have developed in the process of studying this issue are identified and characterized.The complex characteristic of the basic concepts that studied in the article is presented. The term "social violence" the author understands as the application by one class or another of a social group of various forms of coercion, up to armed influence, against other classes and social groups in order to obtain or maintain economic and political dominance, to gain these or those rights or privileges. Accordingly, armed violence is interpreted as a way to achieve the goals using weapons. The author agrees with the opinion of a significant number of scientists regarding the definition of armed violence as a radical form of the use of social violence.As a result of the research, the author has come to the conclusion that violence has been characteristic of the human environment since its occurrence. As most scholars have noted, since the emergence of social relations, violence, including armed violence, has been one of the most important ways to achieve the goals of controlling and asserting dominance in other members of social communities. Armed violence is the most radical form of achievement of the aforementioned goal. As a form of social interaction, as noted by psychologists, armed violence is the result of the transformation of animal instincts that, in the course of social evolution, have evolved into one of the specific forms of struggle for domination within complex human communities. This is the main scientific value of the articles analyzed in the article.At the same time, as the analysis of the researched works has shown, the further classification of the types of armed violence according to the spheres of its application in social life and its varieties, according to the tasks, which are realized in the process of its use, needs further consideration. The article assumes that the most important criterion for the classification of violence is the use of weapons in this process. It is noted that no one can doubt that armed violence is violence. It is suggested to consider the main goal of most unarmed forms of social violence − the prevention of armed forms of confrontation. These aspects will be addressed in future scientific publications

The article analyzes the main concepts and theories regarding the characterization, origins and consequences of civil wars as a type of armed violence. During the work the views on the problem of leading Ukrainian and foreign scientists were considered, in particular, E. Ankudinov, I. Artsybasov, T. Garr, O. Huseynov, S. Danilov, G. Demin, A. Kasesse, V. Korchmit-Matyushov, O. Ladinenko, S. Mosova, S. Nefedova and others. Much attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of civil war, its essence, causes and consequences, which was formed by the Ukrainian scientist S. Vovk.Having considered the problem, the author states that some aspects of the problem need more elaboration ‒ there is a need for a comprehensive generalization of the most common views on defining the phenomenon of civil war.The author concludes that consideration of the main achievements in the coverage of the Civil War, as a type of armed violence, showed that this aspect was studied quite vividly. Today there are several common interpretations of the phenomenon of civil war, its causes and origins, and political implications in the world of political science. Having analyzed them, the author gives his own interpretation of the concept of civil war as a type of armed violence.According to the author, civil war can be attributed to a specific type of internal armed violence, since it leads to significant changes in the socio-political system of the state. These phenomena are similar, but not identical. The Civil War is only an extraordinary stage in changing the state's political and political system. This kind of armed violence can be triggered by a revolution, or, conversely, victory in a civil war by supporters of radical change may lead to revolution. However, the purpose of armed conflict during the civil war is, first and foremost, the seizure / retention of power, the overthrow / canning of political structures, rather than radical systemic change. In fact, civil war leads to socio-political transformations indirectly. Unlike the revolution, which is a kind of armed violence that results in rapid, fundamental changes in all spheres of society.

The work focuses on establishing and analyzing the main characteristics of international terrorism, which allowed it to act as a powerful tool of influence on the global political process. It is noted, that by the beginning of the XXI century terrorism grew into a form of external armed violence, which made it possible to use an asymmetric strike (September 11th, 2001) against the central state of the modern international system. It is emphasized that despite the gradual fading of power, the USA during this period remained the most powerful actor in both the economic and military spheres. It is emphasized that the analyzed phenomenon provided almost the only possibility of indirect influence both on the US political system and on political processes in the world in general.In the process of analyzing the stated topic, it was established that the key features of international terrorism should include: the non-subordination of the activities of terrorist groups to international security systems, in particular the UN, and the limited means of the latter in putting pressure on a non-state entity. It is noted that the second feature is anti-statism and cross-border nature, which in practice is realized due to the network nature of the use of this type of external armed violence. It is indicated that Islam as the ideology of the analyzed phenomenon belongs to the third characteristic. It is emphasized that the opinions of most researchers agree that Islam is the force that subordinates the decentralized and even atomized structural components of modern international terrorism to single goals. At the same time, it is emphasized that in the academic environment there are significant differences in the understanding of the foundations of international terrorism as a phenomenon, namely in determining the primacy of the socio-economic (social stratification in the modern world) or cultural-religious (struggle for the global spread of Islam) factor. It was noted that efforts are planned to be directed to the solution of the stated contradiction in the following investigations.

The aim of our study is to examine the experience of European countries in strategies for the development of the training of highly qualified specialists in political science. The task of the article is to identify the advantages of European university and non-university systems of political science education, in order to develop proposals to improve the level of political science teaching in Ukraine. The work uses theoretical research methods, among which the axiomatic, historical and structural-comparative methods stand out. It was found that the teaching of political science in European universities focuses on the acquisition of practical skills, but despite all the difficulties in the training of political scientists in Ukraine, the curricula of Ukrainian universities correspond in many respects with European standards. The conclusions indicate that the practical part of political science teaching does not play a minor role than the theoretical one. In Ukraine, education is not provided in institutes, while university curricula are mostly theoretical.