GONCHAROVA L.N. Analysis of Geopolitical and Geo-Economic Interaction of Regional Systems
DOI 10.35775/PSI.2019.31.1.002
L.N. GONCHAROVA Doctor of Sciences (economics), Associate Professor, Professor at the Chair of Economics, Belgorod University of Cooperative Movement, Economics and Law, Belgorod, Russia
ANALYSIS OF GEOPOLITICAL AND GEO-ECONOMIC INTERACTION OF REGIONAL SYSTEMS
Relations of the countries, which are centers of regional power, and the countries and peoples of the periphery can occur in a format called “associated-dependent development” when the centers of power act as guarantors of independence and development sponsors of the periphery. It should be borne in mind that dependence is not always the result of the policy of the countries which are centers of power. Strictly speaking, there is an interdependence, largely based on the economic and geopolitical interests of both sides – the center and the periphery.
Key words: geopolitics, geoeconomics, “center”, “periphery”, regional space, synergy, regional policy.
When analyzing the process of formation of the Eurasian regional space, it is necessary to fix the process of formation of its contour of regional community as a result of the interaction of internal and external processes.
It is obvious that the neighboring regional formations interact by their peripheries, creating a special geosocial subspace or contact zone of cultures and countries [3]. In other words, the contact area is usually a composite space.
Heterogeneity of the contact zone space implies the presence in it of multiple interactions, requiring the use of a certain synergetic approach [3]. The basic concept of synergy is determination of the state resulting from the multivariate and ambiguous behavior of such multi-element structures or multifactorial media that do not degrade to the state standard for closed-loop systems of the thermodynamic type, but develop as a result of openness, the flow of energy from the outside, the nonlinearity of internal processes, the emergence of special regimes with exacerbation and at the same time the presence of more than one stable state, which can lead to the formation of new structures and systems, including those more complex than the original. The periphery objectively has an important role; it naturally ensures interaction between regions and civilizations, countries and population of the border areas and therefore the development of the global social system as a whole. Reconciling and maintaining the balance of interests and formation of super-group system of values in the contact zones contribute to the sustainability and productivity of interaction of all subjects of international relations. Disruption of such balance causes destabilization of one or more regional systems [4. P. 13-24].
In the periphery space, different cultures, ideologies, social and political systems cross and interact. One example is the sub-region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the place of interaction of the Orthodox, Catholic and Islamic religions that they represent [7]. Another example is the conflicts that broke out after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and then after the collapse of the USSR [16].
A striking example is the well-known protracted Palestinian conflict between the Arab states and Israel in 1967 and 1974 [21. P. 54-59], even conflicts within the Islamic world in the Middle East, when the problem of the crisis of Islamic identity was exposed and the Islamic contradictions aggravated [13].
It should be remembered that contact zones play an important role in geopolitics. They may play the role of sanitary cordons or geopolitical buffers between powers or unions of states. Consideration of the history of empires and colonial powers suggests that buffer zones are created when they serves as obstacles to the expansion of the competitor’s influence or its penetration into the depths of another state.
The contact zones have inter-regional location. For example, such are the territories of Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region) and Tibet, ethnographic Kurdistan in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Balkans and others.
The way of life and relationships that have developed over many centuries in large regional spaces determine regional identity. According to the Swiss researcher I. Besson the synthesis of a number of components of regional identity “has a dominant power” over the consciousness of all ethnic and religious groups individually and the regional community in general [3. P. 136]. All that diversity must be regarded as a set of interrelated variables that develop independently or in interaction as a “function of time/space.” Any threats to the integrity of the regional community or emergence of an alien element, interference in intraregional relations and restructuring of the structures lead or may lead to a protracted identity crisis.
Thus, during the Ottoman Empire ethnic groups existed in a relative balance of cultures and economic specializations formed in the Middle East over the centuries. The collapse of the Ottoman regional power and expansion of the Western states destroyed the regional identity. The Western model of organization of social and political relations and external control by France and England were imposed on the Middle East peoples.
The uniqueness of the regional space of the Middle East lies in the fact that the energy of the so-called “axial time” accumulated there, at the intersection of the world religions. As noted by the German historian K. Jaspers in his work The Origins of History and its Purpose, this is a turning point in the history of mankind, and according to A. P. Nazaretyan “anthropogenic crises [14]” start to finish in breakthroughs in the new eras. Moreover, the symbols of such “breakthroughs” can be specific personalities, such as Alexander the Great or the first agnostics philosophers and scientists, who have actually formed a pre-modern human worldview. In that era, began to develop a common understanding of good and evil, of the individual as a sovereign carrier of moral choice and reflexive form of individual self-control – conscience as an alternative to the previously dominant religious “fear of God” [5].
This is literally really the Axis around which all of humanity revolves from some time ago. The axis of history gathers around itself and includes in the orbit of its influence a number of civilizations and world centers. As K. Jaspers wrote in his book [6], “the novelty which arose in that era in the three mentioned cultures boiled down to the fact that the man became aware of life as a whole, of himself and his boundaries. The horror of the world and his own helplessness opened before him. Standing over the precipice, he raised radical questions, demanded liberation and salvation. Being aware of his boundaries, he set himself the highest goals, learned the absolute in the depths of his self-consciousness and in the clarity of the transcendental world. All that happened through reflection. The consciousness became aware of the consciousness, thought made thinking its object. The spiritual struggle began during which everyone tried to convince the other telling the other of his goals, justifications and experience. Discussions, formation of various parties, the splitting of the spiritual sphere, which in the inconsistency of its parts retained their interdependence - all that gave rise to the anxiety and movement bordering the spiritual chaos [6. P. 30]”.
The Mediterranean-Middle East regional system is an entity naturally distinguished from other communities by its historical and social culture and its place in the global evolution. At the same time, the algorithm of formation of most regional communities to a certain extent was universal and, if you do not focus on specific features, was common to all geosocial regional spaces [19. P. 131-140]. Focal ancient civilizations (or foci and poles of emerging large regional civilizations), expanding their influence and binding external migrations, created a very dynamic system of the global level of pair categories “we or other”/ “friend or foe”. In the Middle East, this was expressed in the primary relationship in time between “indigenous” and “newcomers” [9. P. 124-178], that is those who came to this region earlier and who came later.
That mobile structure formed the contours of the region and to some extent their primary relations. Directly as a regional geosocial integrity, the Middle East arose in the course of Arab conquests, Islamization and formation of the Arab Caliphate, but as a result of the Mongol invasion in the second half of the XIII century the Caliphate fell. Although the Mongols left, the Arab world of the Middle East disintegrated, fell into a deep crisis and the Arab tribes were conquered by the Turkic-speaking Ottoman Empire [13]. Later on, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, it experienced a state of extreme frustration, because hopes for independent development were not justified. The winners of the First World War “divided” the Arabs. The Muslim world, which once owned half of Europe, began to feel cheated and cornered.
During the cold war period, the Muslim world ceased to be self-sufficient. Geopolitical dependence on the West and penetration of the Western mass culture in the civilization of the East caused a wide range of reactions: from the attempts to restructure in the European manner or to find a way out in the socialist orientation to the attempts to completely isolate and be tinned. Often, the reaction is internally contradictory in character from complete ideological rejection to the willing borrowing of technical and social mechanisms. In any case, any reaction continues to have a complex of inferiority and resentment, a sense of threat to their cultural identity and attempts to take revenge and win back the previous dominant position. It gives rise to extremist mood and aggression towards the outside world [8. P. 23-26].
Instead of the hopes for a revival, the Arabs came under the control of France and England. After the Second World War, attempts to resolve the Arab identity crisis in pan-Arabism and socialist orientation failed. And the stake on the nationalist autocracy of artificially created Arab states [1] has led to civil wars. In all Arab countries, tribal, clan and religious structures, to which social groups belonged, have become the main units of self-identification of the population. The population is beginning to return to its historical roots, the loyalty of the residents began to be transferred from the shattered and failed national states to their traditional confessional community [13]. In this regard, the states and their borders have lost their former importance. The centers of solidarity and conflict – especially in Iraq and Syria – have moved from the level of the state to the level of the primary local religious community – Sunnis, Shiites or alawites, etc.
Currently, the Middle East is again a place of fierce rivalry between Russia and the United States affecting the processes of restructuring of the neighboring large Eurasian region.
REFERENCES:
1. Arabskij nacionalizm ili arabskie nacionalizmy: doktrina, jetnonim, varianty diskursa. Nacionalizm v mirovoj istorii [Arab nationalism or Arab nationalisms: doctrine, ethnonim, variants of the discourse. Nationalism in the world history]. Мoscow: Institute of ethnology and anthropology RAS, 2007 (In Russ.).
2. Аyupova Z.К., Kusainov D.U. Eshhe raz ob osnovnyh mezhdunarodno-pravovyh principah samoopredelenija nacij [Once again on the main international and legal principles of self-determination of the nations] // Eurasian Union: issues of international relations. – 2018. № 1 (In Russ.).
3. Besson I. Identity crises as a paradigm of Middle Eastern conflictuality [Identity crises as a paradigm of Middle Eastern conflictuality. Interrn]. Social science j. Paris, N.Y., 1991 (In Russ.).
4. Gomayunov S. Ot istorii sinergetiki k sinergetike istorii [From the history of synergetics to the synergy of history] // Social Sciences and modernity. – 1994. № 2 (In Russ.).
5. Erokhina L.D., Erokhin А.К. and others. Filosofija. [Philosophy]. Collective of authors // http://abc.vvsu.ru/Books/krl_filosofija/page0022.asp (In Russ.).
6. Jaspers K. Istoki istorii i ee cel'. INION. [The Origins of History and its Purpose. INION]. Мoscow, 1991. Issue 1 (In Russ.).
7. Нuntington S. The Clash of Civilizations? // Foreign Affairs. Summer.
8. Karpovich О.G. Politika obespechenija nacional'noj bezopasnosti gosudarstva [National security policy of the state] // Constitutional and municipal law. – 2012. № 2 (In Russ.).
9. Lamberg-Karlovsky К., Sablov G. Drevnie civilizacii. Blizhnij Vostok i Mezoamerika [Ancient civilizations. The Middle East and MezoAmerica]. Мoscow, 1992 (In Russ.).
10. Lebedeva М.L. Metodologija regional'nyh issledovanij politicheskogo prostranstva [Methodology of regional research of political space] // Issues of politology. – 2018. № 4 (In Russ.).
11. Мedvedev N.P. Politicheskaja regionalistika [Political regionalistics]. Мoscow, 2005 (In Russ.).
12. Medvedev N.P., Glebov V.A., Madatov A.S. To the Question of Typologization of the Russian Regions [To the Question of Typologization of the Russian Regions] // “Political Science Issues”. Volume 8, Issue 1 (29), 2018 (In Russ.).
13. Mirskiy G. Krovavyj haos na Arabskom Vostoke. Islamskie strany v poiskah istoricheskogo puti [Bloody mess in the Arab East. Islamic countries in the search of historic path] // Nezavisimaya Gazetta. 21.11.2014.
14. Nazaretyan А.P. Civilizacionnye krizisy v kontekste Universal'noj istorii (Sinergetika – psihologija – prognozirovanie) [Civilizational crises in the context of universal history (Synergy – psychology – forecasting)]. Moscow, 2004 (In Russ.).
15. Nazaretyan А.P. Vektory istoricheskoj jevoljucii [Vectors of historical evolution] // Social sciences and modernity. – 1999. № 2 (In Russ.).
16. Neimark M.A. Kul'tura i nacional'naja bezopasnost' Rossii. Bremja peremen [Culture and national security of Russia. Burden of change] // Bulletin of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Russia and the World. 2014. № 2 (2) (In Russ.).
17. Pryakhin V.F. Recenzija na stat'ju Z.K. Ajupovoj i D.U. Kusainova «Eshhe raz ob osnovnyh mezhdunarodno-pravovyh principah samoopredelenija nacij» [Review of the article by Аyupova Z.К., Kusainov D.U. Once again on the main international and legal principles of self-determination of the Nations] // Eurasian Union: issues of international relations. 2018 (In Russ.).
18. Pyzh V.V., Кorostelev S.V. Uchet geopoliticheskih faktorov v processe vybora sposobov razgranichenija morskih prostranstv v Arktike [The consideration of geopolitical factors in the process of selecting methods of delimitation of maritime spaces in the Arctic] // Issues of National and Federative Relations. 2018. № 2 (In Russ.).
19. Sadokhin А.P. Jetnologija [Ethnology]. Moscow, 2008 (In Russ.).
20. Zadokhin А.G. Evropejskie istoki arabo-izrail'skogo konflikta [European origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict] // Scientific and analytical Journal Obozrevatel – Observer. 2013. № 11 (In Russ.).
21. Zadokhin A.G. Samoopredelenie narodov i territorial'naja celostnost' gosudarstv: kategorii, problemy, perspektivy [Self-determination of peoples and territorial integrity of states: categories, problems, prospects] // Scientific and analytical journal Obosrevatel-Observer. 2011. № 5 (256) (In Russ.).