4. THE PROBLEM OF PRACTICAL MACRO-REGIONAL / REGIONAL DIVISION OF THE WORLD SPACE

The spatial (spatial, or planar) division of the world in international relations proceeds from the internal civilizational-geographical and cultural-political logic of countries ' development, i.e., from the definition of an international-political macroregion as a regional set of phenomena linked to a territorial-economic and national-cultural complex2, united by a common structure and logic in such a way that this structure is determined by the the logic and historical and geographical coordinates of its existence are mutually dependent. Such a definition of a region as the basic concept of global/world regional studies (global/world regional studies) and at the same time auxiliary in international relations allows us to arrange the material in a certain spatial (spatial/planar) coordinate system.

Based mainly on geographical parameters, it is possible to distinguish geographical macroregions, mesoregions (middle regions), as well as individual regions and sub-regions based on their physical and geographical characteristics. This is how we distinguish the world's continents (America, Africa, Eurasia, Australia, Antarctica, subdividing them, in turn, into subcontinents).

A region in a broad sense is understood as a certain territory, which is a complex territorial-economic and national-cultural complex, which can be limited by the signs of the presence, intensity, diversity and interconnectedness of phenomena, which are expressed in the form of a specific uniformity of geographical, natural, economic, socio-historical, national-cultural conditions, which serve as the basis for to select this territory.

Based on historical and cultural parameters, we can distinguish historical and cultural regions: Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Indo-Iranian, Turkic, Arabic, Russian, and European. North American, Latin American, and African regions are grouped into corresponding regional communities based on such parameters as geopolitical tradition (belonging to a single state).-

* Ending. For the beginning, see: East (Oriens). 2012. No. 5, pp. 5-16.

1 With the participation of SI. Lunsva, E. V. Koldunova and E. A. Pronin.

2 Based on the specific uniformity of geographical, natural, economic, socio-historical, political, national and cultural conditions that serve as the basis for its allocation.

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endowment education), the current trend towards integration (interstate interaction), ethno-linguistic, ethno-cultural or ethno-psychological unity. Cultural and religious macroregions usually include: Confucian-Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Orthodox, Western Christian, etc.

Geopolitical parameters allow us to divide foreign Asia into Central, Southern, South-Eastern and Eastern, Middle East and Middle East. At the same time, there is often a problem of "border" states that do not fully belong to any region or belong to several geopolitical regions at once.

Within the framework of a systematic approach to international relations, it was possible to consider parts of the system as subsystems, including regional ones, which have their own laws of international interaction. Views on the functioning of regional subsystems are presented by the following approaches:

1) the parameters of international political dynamics are the same for the whole world, regional subsystems form a lower-level international interaction, but identical in its characteristics to the global system;

2) regions are unique, and the study of the functioning parameters of one regional subsystem may be of limited importance for understanding the functioning of other regional subsystems;

3) regions are considered as a separate level of analysis; understanding the structure and functioning features of one regional subsystem can help in understanding other regions, even if the processes occurring within them take different forms [Koldunova, 2010, p. 71].

In accordance with these considerations, it seems that today we can speak with varying degrees of certainty about the Latin American, North American (sometimes they are conventionally grouped into Pan-American or inter-American), European, African, Asian regional subsystems of international political relations and the corresponding international political macroregions, as well as about some more or less specific ones. clearly defined sub-regional subsystems (international political regions) - West European and East European as parts of the European subsystem (and the specifics of these sub-regional subsystems are being erased before our eyes), North American and South American (or Latin American) as parts of the Pan - American (inter-American) subsystem, the Near and Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia as parts of the Asian (or, in some cases, Asia-Pacific) subsystem of international relations.

The regional subsystem of international relations (MO) is a set of specific political, economic, cultural, civilizational, historical, social, and socio-cultural interactions in the spatial cluster of the MO system. That is, the regional subsystem of the Ministry of Defense is a set of specific interactions of a subsystem type, which are based on a common regional-geographical, socio-historical, and political-economic affiliation.

It is clear that in accordance with different parameters, individual countries may be included not in one, but in two or even three overlapping regional clusters. In addition, there are often other cultural and geographical agglomerations of states that can be built on the principle of economic cooperation and a joint security system and/or" held together " by historical conflicts, controversial problems, or traditional hostility. It is legitimate to divide the world into geo-economic and geopolitical regions, and some historical regions have recently acquired quite clearly defined geo-economic features. These transfers are-

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developing principles of civilizational and spatial division, which allow us to distinguish "basic" or "structure-forming" regions, and served as the basis for determining the most important international political macroregions. Within the borders of these macro-regions, it makes sense to draw parallels and build various kinds of comparisons and comparisons. Such comparisons can also serve as a basis for broader cross-regional comparative models of a universal nature. At the same time, they are the basis of traditional practical historical-diplomatic and structural political-economic analysis and are used by the Foreign Ministries of different countries in their organizational activities.

In addition to civilizational-spatial (spatial/planar) grouping, there is, as noted above, the possibility of meaningful (analytical) grouping of countries (classification versus typology). It is, in principle, conventional and subjective, as well as the spatially-planar one we used. However, the analytical model, as a rule, does not allow us to focus on the commonality of the historical / civilizational / political development of the countries of the region, i.e. it does not allow us to fully comprehend the historical/civilizational community and at the same time the specifics of the political processes of specific countries within the region. The spatial principle of providing meaningful material allows us to trace the regional dynamics of international political development, the fate of local and imported political institutions, the emergence of possible "political rifts" and political conflicts in regions with common civilizational / historical roots and similar principles of formation and evolution of political culture, similar forms of reaction to the phenomena of international life. This methodological approach is more practice-oriented and in some ways more utilitarian. At the same time, analytical models have their own strengths. They allow you to identify common typological / structural features, to see patterns that are often hidden by spatial or" country " characteristics. Therefore, it is productive to develop complex spatial-analytical principles of differentiation that allow combining elements of spatial analysis (classification) with analytical principles of typology construction.

5. EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF REGIONALIZATION AND THE CONCEPT OF A REGIONAL COMPLEX

As far back as the late 1980s, researchers noted a tendency for such security problems and related political and economic processes to appear within regional spaces, which led to the formation of "regional security complexes", i.e., groups of states whose primary security interests are closely linked to each other so significantly that their national security does not correspond to each other. it can be considered separately from each other. Researchers B. Buzan and O. Vever proposed their own version of applying the concept of a regional security complex as a practical problem of macroregionalization within the entire international system, while understanding that in the new conditions it is no longer possible to limit oneself to considering exclusively military-strategic issues, and suggesting that such an analysis can serve as the basis for further conceptualizations of the regional level of international relations. At the same time, they did not formulate an expanded concept of the regional complex. The regional complex was formulated as a group of units whose main discursive processes, in which the political community forms an idea of a particular factor as a significant threat or, conversely, reduces the significance of the threat (securitization and de-securitization), or both of these processes are so interconnected that the problems of the political system are not solved.

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the security issues of these units cannot be adequately analyzed or solved in isolation from each other. In this sense, the regional complex is actually a complexly structured security and development problem embedded in the political and economic structure of the macroregion. The result of the study of the regional dimension of security problems is a general concept of regional security complexes, aimed at combining the advantages of neorealist, global and postmodern trends in international relations and at the same time offering a fairly operational theory of the regional level.

After the end of the cold war, regional-level processes are more clearly manifested, which gives sufficient grounds for their independent theoretical analysis at a new stage of generalization. The reasons for increasing regional dynamics of conflict or cooperation were::

1) reducing the interference of global powers3 in processes occurring in other parts of the world;

2) the transition of many great powers to the" lightweight " category, which meant a significant limitation of their intentions to be involved in external military conflicts.

As already noted, the processes at the global and regional levels have become separated by researchers identifying various categories of leading actors dominating at a particular level (superpowers, dominant states, great powers, leading states, regional powers, first and second states, and other echelons), and the mechanisms of their interaction. analysis of regional dynamics of security problems within regional complexes.

Great powers (in other terminology - leading states), unlike superpowers and / or dominant states, do not necessarily have exceptional capabilities in all areas of international activity. However, they are distinguished by the fact that their economic, military and political capabilities are quite sufficient to try to claim the status of a superpower / dominant state in the short or medium term, or to try to format or reformat the world order [Voskresensky, 2006, p. 20; Greater East Asia..., 2010, p. 17]. Great Powers are actively involved in the process of formulating the security agenda and can operate in several regions of the world, while being regional leaders in at least one region. They are actively involved in formatting at the macro-regional level. The terminological difference is related to the understanding and gradation of this category among different researchers in different countries (the Chinese use the term "great" ("dago" - big) states, which is used by some Russian researchers by analogy with the English-language term"the great powers", used by the Americans and the British. The latter, in turn, distinguish "the great powers" - "old great powers" (USA, France, Germany, Japan, Great Britain) and "aspiring powers" - "new great powers" ("rising", seeking to change the status quo in the international system: China, Russia, India,etc.). Iran, Brazil). The rise of great powers (sometimes also referred to as "great regional powers", "new great powers" or "super-large countries"/"new super-large industrial powers") occurs either due to the fact that some countries, due to certain political and economic reasons, increase their status in the international hierarchy, or due to the decline of former superpowers.

Thus, the interrelation and hierarchy of the concepts of "regional security complex", "regional complex", "regional subsystem", "re" becomes clear.-

3 Superpowers and dominant states.

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regional order", "region". The concept of a regional complex in its economic aspect is indicated by different stages/forms of" maturity " of regional integration (free trade zones, customs union, payment union, common market, economic and monetary union, military-political and economic union), and in the security aspect it is associated with the concept of a regional security complex. The concept of a regional subsystem is broader than the concept of a regional complex; at the same time, it is a "planar" concept, and a regional complex is a "three - dimensional" one (it is narrower, but complex and multidimensional). The concept of a regional subsystem focuses primarily on the macroregion as a subject of international relations in general, and a regional complex can be an asymmetric part, the center (core) of a regional subsystem, or it can completely coincide with it. At the same time, for all concepts, the basic one for highlighting is the concept of "region".

A regional complex is a group of states that has a sufficiently high degree of functional and geographical complex interdependence that distinguishes it from other regions and determines the type of regional complex. A regional complex is a multidimensional segment of the international space at the regional level, distinguished on the basis of the existence of a relatively stable system of regional interrelations and interdependencies of a structural and spatial nature of different types (political, economic, cultural and historical) and varying degrees of intensity, allowing it to be distinguished from the environment or to act as a subsystem association of varying degrees of integrity in relation to the international environment.

The concept of a regional complex is analytically narrower than the concept of a regional subsystem and can be considered as an element of a regional subsystem. Regional order - a method of organizing the internal structure of a regional subsystem or regional complex.

Great powers (leading states), and especially global ones, have significant opportunities to influence the situation in regional complexes and even determine the dynamics of their security in extreme terms (for example, during the cold War). There are also "buffer" spaces that "isolate" the dynamics of processes occurring in adjacent regional complexes.

conclusion

Summarizing the above, we can conclude that the concepts and parameters of the regional level, the international political region, regional subsystems, and regional complexes that currently exist in the world community are debatable, but it is precisely these discussions that determine the future of the ideological and theoretical foundations of the world order of the second half of the XXI century. This formulation of the question is explained by the following practical considerations: 4
* The Westphalian System5 is undergoing transformation: the changed system generates new types of challenges and threats that affect the state in a different way - not destroying it, but eroding some of its traditional parameters and / or transforming it into a new quality. Considering these processes only from the point of view of whether or not the actors of the international system attach importance to global processes as essential is not sufficient.

* The problems of sovereignty transformation are becoming more prominent, which are compounded regionally by the fact that after the collapse of the colonial system, the Western idea of a sovereign state was introduced to the non-Western world in the first place.

4 For more information, see [Koldunova, 2010, pp. 83-88].

5 From a political point of view, the system of the Peace of Westphalia (sovereign states) still exists today, but from a historical point of view, it has collapsed.

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on a global scale and not always adequately corresponded to local specifics. In this situation, it turned out that non-Western countries formally have international legal sovereignty, but many of them can control their territory only partially or do not have full control over the territory at all.

* The supranational and transnational components of world processes that cover not only one State, but also regional groups of States and individual parts of States are not taken into account. Nor does it take into account the apparent contradiction between the logic of the world's continuing division into sovereign States and the transnational nature of globalization. For example, when analyzing the processes taking place in Africa and Latin America, it is necessary to take into account the activities of non-State actors, as well as a complex of challenges and threats that are not the source of the state in the literal sense of the word (terrorist groups, drug cartels). The view of the state proposed in traditional concepts of regional security complexes (the concept of "new centers of power") does not give a complete understanding of the context of transnationality.

• One of the analytical problems of the concept of regional complexes is related to fixing their borders. At the same time, the problem of the "new quality" of borders (the concept of "border permeability", borders as zones of cooperation, borders as zones of economic interpenetration and interaction, borders of "transformers" that do not interfere with the development of cross-border processes)is discussed. it is difficult to conceptualize and integrate into traditional theories of international relations.

* The world is clearly experiencing processes of "shadow integration" of regions - "contraction" due to non-traditional / informal / unformalized threats and other types of threats, as well as regional transformations and broader and deeper trends (macroregionalization). Modern researchers foresee the possibility of transforming the regional complex. The mechanism of such transformation is still not entirely clear (hence, it is difficult to develop practical recommendations) and, in addition, internal processes are not taken into account, which often cause the emergence and spread of new "external" processes and trends for other participants (non-traditional security threats). Problems that are broader in their territorial scope than a national State or a group of States are ignored.

It is necessary to note the emergence of a number of operational concepts that capture individual macro-regional changes, including those related to economic and security processes. Examples include the concept of meso-and megareas, as well as the concept of Central and Eastern Asia. Finally, it is necessary to highlight a broader set of domestic studies and concepts devoted to the trends of macroregionalization and the spatial dimension of world politics (A.D. Voskresensky, M. V. Ilyin, N. A. Kosolapoe, M. V. Strezhneva) based on the material of Europe (V. G. Baranovsky, I. M. Busygina, O. V. Butorina, M. V. Strezhnev, Yu. V. Shishkov, etc.) and East Asia (V. Ya. Belokrenitsky, A.D. Voskresensky, V. V. Mikheev, G. I. Chufrin, etc.), which occur under the influence of a number of factors (regional and global leadership, "old" and "new" security problems, transformation of political systems). The concept of macroregionalization as a new trend in world politics seems to " absorb "the more operational concepts of mega-and mesoregions and the idea of" pulling together " regions and allows a comprehensive assessment of these new trends. Further theoretical and practical conceptualization of regionalization processes makes it possible to develop applied theories of a competitive model of regional and national development based on maximizing the cooperativist principle in the strategy of national modernization and development with adequate protection of national interests.

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FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD

In No. 5 2012 in the first part of the article by A. D. Voskresensky

on page 9, strk. 18 from the top-instead of "A. A." should read "Thomas" strk. 1922-together [Friedmann, 1922] read [Friedman, 2007];

on page 16, in the list of references before: Hall D. et al. ... insert:

Friedman T. Flat world. Brief History of the XXI century, Moscow: Ast, 2007.

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