UKRAINE IN THE CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICAL SPACE: TRENDS, RISKS AND THE CRISIS OF CHOICE / Development trends of scholarly knowledge in philosophy, sociology and political science: collective monograph / O.A. Dolzhenkov, L.M. Dunayeva, N. P. Hedikova, L. M. Khyzhniak, etc. – Lviv-Toruń: Liha-Pres, 2019.– P. 223-245. (SENSE).
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2019
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Анотація
Contemporary geopolitics is characterized by the gradual domination of the political factor over the geographical factor, the increasing number of geopolitical actors, the fragmentation of international connections and relations, and the crisis prevention priorities that shift from the economic sphere to the security sphere. These aspects have affected Ukraine as well, which, albeit with varying intensity, had made its way into the global community since the moment it gained independence in 1991. The same period saw the beginning of Ukraine’s inclusion as a sovereign state in the scientific analysis of the political world. Given its specific geographical location, Ukraine has always been and will remain a priority area of research in political geography and geopolitics. Classical theories based their interpretations of Ukraine on the interests of the influential global states; however, the development of the political sphere in our country has led to a shift in the direction of research – from “one of the countries of the post-socialist bloc” to “a country in the center of Europe.”
In contemporary political science, Ukraine as a research subject provides enough reasons not only for contextual exploration as a part of studying the region or the zones of influence of geopolitical actors, but also for the analysis of internal political processes within our country, which result from or determine the course of international politics. Thus, the problem of Ukraine’s geopolitical position is a focus of attention both for national researchers and for the leading scholars of the contemporary geopolitical concepts. Ukraine has been studied by Anthony Giddens and Roland Robertson in the context of globalism and glocalism; by Immanuel Wallerstein as a part of the world-systems analysis; by Jacques Attali and Francis Fukuyama within the neomondialism framework; by Paul Wolfowitz and Samuel P. Huntington from the perspective of neo-Atlanticism; by Zbigniew Brzezinski from the perspective of the contemporary Anglo-American geopolitical school; by Aleksandr Dugin in the context of Eurasianism, etc. Despite the significant attention of scientific schools to the geopolitical transformations that involve Ukraine, as of today, a concentrated geopolitical model that would take into account both the internal potential of our country and the current conditions of the external political environment is still missing. In addition, the contemporary global politics with its determined priorities on the European continent provides us with an opportunity to make a certain generalization about the geopolitical nature of Ukraine.
Classic geopolitical trends – Atlanticism and mondialism – continued with the corresponding neo-concepts which were substantiated as doctrines by contemporary authors, mostly from Western research schools. Other integral theoretical components of modern geopolitics are the concepts of contemporary Eurasianism, globalism, glocalism, and the world systems approach.
Beside the conceptualization of the Ukrainian factor in geopolitics, the questions of Ukraine’s own geopolitical choice, its risks and its crisis potential also remain important. We need to comprehend not only on the concept of “geopolitical choice,” but also the actualization of its contents beyond foreign policy or orientation, since we believe that these concepts are not essentially identical. It is important here to analyze Ukraine’s path from attempts to regulate its foreign policy strategy and to personify the vision of its prospects of foreign partnership, from multiple attempts to determine the vector of its foreign policy, and towards formulating the state’s actual geopolitical choice while taking into account the public opinion and the national interests.
The recent developments, with the turning point in 2013-14 and the unfolding of military events in the East of the country, have proved that the local-regional coordinates of Ukraine coincided in time and concurred with the interests of other global players, which subjected the country’s roles to the more influential actors of the global politics. That is why the important research tasks are to determine both the place of Ukraine in contemporary geopolitics and the risks that accompany the state’s external integration at a transitional stage in its development.
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Ключові слова
Ukraine, geopolitical, trends, risks, crisis of choice