THE CORRELATION OF THE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DEFINITIONS “REGION” AND “REGIONALIZATION” IN THE MODERN SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

In the course of the research, the relationship between the definitions of “region” and “regionalization” in modern scientific discourse was established. The conducted research proved that the specified definitions are in a systemic condition, and the relationship between them balances, reflecting the realities, between the change in the tendencies to the formation of regions under the influence of globalization and the reverse impact of glocalization on regionalism as a phenomenon and regionalization as a process, which in turn triggers mechanism of paradiplomacy. The categories “region” and “regionalization” are closely interrelated and condition each other, are complex and ambiguous. The direct relationship between these concepts is due to the fact that regionalization is based on the division of the world into regions and the process of their international cooperation, at a time when regions realize their own ambitions to enter the international arena through the use of paradiplomacy tools. Despite the fact that paradiplomacy creates certain difficulties for central governments, it generally does not lead to an increase in conflicts between the region and the state. Of course, states can look for ways to integrate paradiplomacy into their state diplomatic apparatus and strengthen their role in addressing foreign policy goals. However, if the region is focused on finding ways to separate from its state, this integration may turn out to be practically impossible. The category “region” in modern political science is defined. The paper examines approaches to the interpretation of the definition of “regionalization” in modern scientific discourse.


Formulation of the problem.
Peculiarities of cooperation and the dynamics of the development of relations between subjects of international relations occur not only under the influence of globalization processes, but also regionalization, internationalization, glocalization and fragmentation, which became a kind of response to the delegation of significant powers to supranational entities.Recently, the active participation of regions in international relations has turned into a stable trend of world politics.
Active participation of regions in international relations is part of a more general process of regionalization.Active participants in the processes of regionalization are both subnational regions that were formed as a result of nationalethnic division, and regions that were created for the purpose of cross-border cooperation.On the one hand, such regional activity challenges the state's monopoly on external functions, and also leads to new approaches to the interpretation of the boundaries of the sovereignty and integrity of the national state.According to modern political scientists, the processes taking place today are weakening the powers of central authorities, which means a decrease in the level of security and the growth of other protective structures, including corporate, ethnic and regional ones.
It is obvious that regionalization is an objective process that responds to the challenges of globalization and is an integral part of democratic reforms.Thanks to regionalization, civil society is formed due to the formation of "horizontal" social structures capable of ensuring the independence of individuals and social groups from the state, providing a feedback mechanism between society and the state apparatus.In this context, regionalization is considered as one of the means of forming such "horizontal" structures, which inevitably lead to the emergence of a system of "checks and balances" in the relations between the center and the regions.In politics, the process of transferring central decisions to the regional level is no longer decisive, but, on the contrary, the negotiation process between the links of the network of political institutions is beginning to dominate.
In these conditions, a new reality has emerged, when regional entities demand more rights to self-govern and enter the international arena.In the modern scientific discourse, there is a pluralism of opinions, which causes heated academic discussions about the interpretation of various socio-political phenomena, which are considered through the prism of different approaches.Therefore, it is appropriate to consider the relationship between the key definitions of "region" and "regionalization" in the context of research into the activities of subnational actors in the international arena.
The purpose of the article is to determine the correlation of interpretations of the key definitions "region" and "regionalization" in modern scientific discourse.
Presenting main material.
In political studies, when defining the concept of "region", they mainly proceed from the understanding of it as an intrastate political unit.In internal political relations in states built on the basis of federalism or regionalism, three levels of state administration are distinguished: national, regional and local.Due to this understanding, "region" is defined as an institutional unit, a specific territory, which is characterized by the presence of its own bodies of political power, regulatory and legal regulation of relations with other levels of political power.
The category "region" in the theory of international relations can also be defined as a category identical to the definition "actor of international activity".At the same time, among specialists in international relations and geopolitics, a group of countries that are connected to each other more than to other countries is usually called a region first of all.The states united in such a region have certain integrative features, such as the similarity of the organization of economic activity, territorial proximity, etc.To eliminate conflicts in the interpretation of the «Філософія та політологія в контексті сучасної культури», 2024, Т. 16, № 1 concept of "region" as a component of the state structure and as an actor of international relations, such researchers as P.Smith, D.Merrill, T.Kohn add clarifying definitions, such as "intrastate region" or "subnational actors."In this case, the definition of "region" is interpreted in the same way as it happens during the application of the political science approach: as the presence of an institutionalized community within another institutionalized society (state) [Holovko 2018].
Researchers of regional processes in general, and paradiplomacy in particular, in their works try to specify the concept of "region".For example, in order to specify this category, researchers distinguish two main strategies in this context, where the first strategy, in his opinion, is reduced to an attempt to create a synthetic definition, and the second consists in a narrower interpretation of the term "region", which involves the introduction of additional definitions that reveal its content in more detail.In this context, the researcher borrows these definitions from both domestic and foreign political science and cites such concepts as "area" (area), which defines non-institutionalized regions, "subnational unit" (federated constituent) and "non-central government" (non-central government).
"Subnational unit" as a definition was proposed by the American researcher J.Kincaid [Kincaid 2001].This concept is too narrow in nature, which reduces the political understanding of the concept of "region" to the term "subject of the federation".Conceptually, the category "noncentral government" (non-central government), which was proposed by M.Keating [Keating 2008], is completely different.This definition, in addition to indicating the institutional nature of the region, also makes it possible to apply this definition to the category of administrativeterritorial unit of both a unitary state and a federation.However, if the key flaw of the definition of "sub-federal unit" is its narrowness, then the term "non-central government" is not specific enough."Non-central government" can be understood as the government itself at the regional level, as well as at the level of local selfgovernment.This applies to the concept of "local government" (local government), proposed by M. Guderian, who uses this definition both to define processes at the level of the region and at the level of municipalities [Holovko 2018].
A.Lecourt proposed the most successful from the point of view of involving a complex of principle factors, options for specifying the concept of "region", using the concepts of "subnational actor" (subnational actor) and "subnational unit" (subnational unit), which he proposed to be used as synonyms of "region" [Lecours 2016].This definition of "region" indicates precisely that from a hierarchical point of view, the region has the next level after the state.A similar definition is given in the Declaration on Regionalism in Europe, adopted at the Assembly of European Regions (AER) on December 4, 1996 in Basel.In this document, the category "region" is defined as "territorial formation of state legislation, which has a level next to the level of the state, and has political self-government" [Holovko 2017].The essential characteristics of the region are also fixed by this document.In general, the document defines that such a phenomenon as a region should be recognized by the constitution or other laws; its powers, identity, form of governance and autonomy must be guaranteed; also, the region must have its own constitution, statute of autonomy or other law that would be part of the legal structure of the states; the region must express its own political identity, which can be colored in a wide variety of political forms.
So, after a detailed analysis of various approaches to defining the essence of the category "region", it can be noted that it should be considered as a direct sub-national actor and, at the same time, should be defined as a territorial-political entity functioning at the regional level.At the same time, it should be noted that recognizing the region as a subnational actor in domestic and foreign relations does not mean denying its cultural-historical identity and economic independence.
It is worth noting that the study of international relations remains a research field that is characterized by criticism of existing and permanent search for new scientific approaches.This is due to the fact that the object of international relations research is not static, it is in the process of constant changes.The set of theoretical approaches in the study of international relations «Філософія та політологія в контексті сучасної культури», 2024, Т. 16, № 1 is a rather mosaic conglomerate.
Traditionally, international relations were studied from the point of view of realism and idealism.At the same time, since the 1980s of the last century, doubts have appeared in international political theory about the effectiveness of the method, which is based on faith in rational knowledge, and about the possibility of identifying the most prominent trends in international development.Since that time, new approaches, such as: neorealism, neoliberalism, functionalism, constructivism and others, began to be actively involved.
The last decade of the XX and the beginning of the XXI century.became a period of rapid development of constructivism -a new trend in international political science.Prominent representatives of this direction are N. Onuf, K. Reus-Smith, and A. Wendt [Wendt 1999].The attention that constructivists pay to what they call co-constitution, that is, to the mutual formation of institutions and agents, the priority they give to the constitutive functions of rules and norms over the regulatory ones -all this has quite serious grounds for the interpretation of international relations.That is, constructivists assume the possibility of changes in the fundamental principles of the functioning of international relations and world politics.
According to constructivism, while the planet is institutionally divided into states, they, as international actors, will retain a special role in world politics.However, despite this, it cannot be asserted that states successfully fulfill their tasks (ensuring the safety and well-being of citizens, individual rights and freedoms, etc.), but on the contrary, it becomes clear that the state as a form of political organization in general is increasingly clearly demonstrating own dysfunction.At the same time, constructivists believe that influential actors can be not only national states, but also regional entities, political, professional and other elites, networks of non-governmental organizations, expert communities, social movements, private individuals, etc., paying attention to the need taking into account, increasing the number of mechanisms for changing international relations.As a result, the latter led to the emergence and spread of such concepts as sub-national actor, region and regionalization.Within the framework of this study, the constructionists' interpretation of the concept of "region" as a whole and their assessment of the causes of the emergence of subnational actors and their activities on the international arena are of particular interest.
Analyzing regions as one of the players in the international arena, it is worth, first of all, to define the essence of the concept of "region".If the object of study of general regionalism is "the region as an independent spatial-geographical, administrative-territorial, institutional-political, diplomatic, economic, social, historical-cultural, ethnic and demographic value", then the object of study of international-political regionalism is regional state policy and diplomacy, as well as the political sphere of regional communities.
The subject of international political regionalism is related to the regularities of the formation and development of political power in the regions, the mutual influence of state policy on the regions and the policies of the regions on the state, as well as the regularities of the functioning of the political sphere of life of the regional community.One of the most striking manifestations of regionalization was the tendency of the growing role of subnational actors in international and diplomatic systems, to which Ivo Duhachek and P.Soldatos dedicate their works.
In theories of international relations, interterritorial cooperation and regional integration are understood differently.In classical theories, such as realism and liberalism, intrastate regions are not recognized as actors of international relations, and the processes of interstate integration are most often analyzed from the standpoint of functionalism and an intergovernmental approach.From the point of view of functionalists, paradiplomacy is a regional response to the imperatives of globalization and economic interdependence [Grydehoj 2013].According to K.Omae, one of the most radical hyperglobalist scientists, due to the inexorable decline of nation-states, they are being replaced by region-states.This means that dynamic subnational economies are more functional in this new cycle of the global economy.Also, according to K. Omae, the roots of the decline of nation-«Філософія та політологія в контексті сучасної культури», 2024, Т. 16, № 1 states lie in their growing inability to promote growth, social welfare and its distribution, as well as their inability to control exchange rates and protect capital markets [Holovko 2018].Economic and technological globalization encourages self-governing territorial entities to pursue certain policies, protecting and promoting their own interests, values and identity, as well as to contribute to the global goals of solidarity, peace, development or cultural pluralism.Globalization opens up for regions the possibility of building a foreign policy taking into account the specifics of the development of each territory and contributes to the optimal conduct of foreign policy, increasing the power of the state on the world stage.Under the influence of globalization, there is an increase in the independence of regions, which helps to increase their competitiveness as a whole.
At the current stage of the development of international relations, the concepts of "regionalism" and "regionalization" are actually identical.More generally, these concepts are intended to help study the nature of regional cooperation.Their differences are that the concept of regionalization emphasizes the definition of regional integration as a process, while the concept of regionalism studies the theoretical component of this phenomenon [Grachevska 2014].
When studying the problem of regionalization, it should be noted that in the works of Western scientists, regions are considered as homogeneous territories with separate physical and cultural characteristics that differ from adjacent territories with which they share a common border.At the same time, regions are defined as an integral part of the national territory, with which they are closely connected, and also have a clear understanding of their own traditions and value system, along with their own individuality [Lecours 2016].The European Charter of Territorial Self-Government, which is an appendix to the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the regional policy of the Community and on the role of regions, in Art. 1 has a specific definition of the concept of "region": "this is a territory that is geographically completely integral, or is a homogeneous complex of territories that create a closed circle, the population of which is characterized by common elements, and some of its features this entity would like to consolidate and expand, in order to stimulate cultural, social and economic progress" [Holovko 2018].
The concept of regionalism is directly related to the category of regionalization."Regionalism" is a complex debatable phenomenon, which is quite often used as a synonym for the definition "regionalization", not taking into account the existence of significant differences between these concepts."Regionalism" refers to the practical aspect of the redistribution of certain powers of the central government, which occurs in order to give territorial institutions a status that is intermediate between the local and central levels; "regionalization", in turn, refers to the process by which central administrative and political institutions respond to challenges arising at the regional level.There is an assumption that the origins of regionalism originate from the periphery, and, accordingly, regionalization is a response from the center.
The well-known scientist Y.G.Mashbits gives the following definition of this phenomenon: "Regionalism defines the fact of the existence of regions in the country with significant social, natural, ethno-cultural and economic differences.However, the most important aspect of regionalism is the awareness of the population of one or another district that this particular district is their homeland.At the same time, residents of one or another district are inextricably linked to it by close economic and, above all, spiritual and cultural ties.
The large explanatory dictionary of the modern Ukrainian language, the publication of which was started by the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2010, defines "regionalism" as "an approach to considering and solving any problems from the standpoint of the interests of the region" and "regionalization" as "the implementation of the policy of regionalism" [Grachevska 2014].
Ukrainian scientist H.P.Shchedrova considers regionalism as "a policy that takes into account the economic, ethno-political, national and other features inherent in a certain region of any country, aimed at unifying groups of a certain region that depend on each other in aspects of the «Філософія та політологія в контексті сучасної культури», 2024, Т. 16, № 1 economy, politics and military affairs" [Shlapeko 2015].
It should be noted separately that regionalism is mainly a phenomenon that involves the presence of appropriate administrative-territorial structures with their special political, economic, ethnic, social and other differences that can advocate and protect regional interests in the power institutions of the state.A key aspect of regionalism is the presence of appropriate features that regulate the relationship between the regions and the center.
In its turn, regionalization is the process of formation and development of regions as relevant subjects, which have a lower level than the national one, which have their own system of executive power, which is characterized by autonomy and independence from central state authorities and their own bodies and institutions of self-government.In countries where the regions are endowed with certain powers, regionalization becomes a reflection of the process that responds to the manifestations of such a complex phenomenon as regionalism.
As a process of formation and development of an administrative-territorial unit, regionalization unites in its integrity political, economic, national, cultural and other phenomena characterized by their own specific features, as well as a system of relationships that occur between people, political entities, power structures and social groups [Lecours 2016].
Separately, it is necessary to note the fact that the implementation of regionalization processes takes place in the following forms: through the allocation of administrative regions within the country (regionalization from above); the organization of a self-governing community or the emergence of a new region within the existing administrative structure, different from the surrounding ones (regionalization from below); formation of cross-border regions and blocs of countries or associations of regions (contract-horizontal regionalization).Therefore, the problem of regionalization is the problem of identifying common trends in the processes of the genesis of regions in the conditions of globalization [Lecours 2018].
In the conditions of "fragmentation of foreign policy activity", the activities of "hybrid" forms of non-state actors, which include global cities and intra-state regions, or state-regions, are of considerable interest.Domestic regions can occupy a border location and form crossborder regions with the border territories of a neighboring state.Today, such cross-border structures show the greatest activity in solving regional and global issues, thus striving to adapt to a completely different political reality and find a new political status.As the political scientist Yu.Tsarikaev rightly notes in this regard, "the strengthening of the role of regions in the modern world gives reason to talk about the possibility of the appearance of new political-territorial formations in their person and their formation as sub-objects of regional economic policy and international relations" [Tsivaty 2012].

Conclusions.
Therefore, most of the regions that exist on the modern international arena are functional regions, the constituent parts of which were not necessarily similar to each other at first, and their creation involved the achievement of interaction and complementation of territorial components through integration.Undoubtedly, the formation of value unity in the region, strong communication ties, reduction of economic disparities contribute to the creation and strengthening of international order and security.Today, there is a tendency to delegate a significant part of the power to subnational regions and regions that have arisen as a result of cross-border cooperation.The regions themselves are "expanding outside the state, setting themselves ambitious economic, cultural and political tasks", becoming "less governed within the framework of national economies", having all the incentives to compete with the state on European and world markets [Holovko 2020].