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Vol. 38 (Nº 54) Year 2017. Page 24

The transformation of international cooperation enhancement criteria during the transition to multipolarity

La transformación de los criterios de mejora de la cooperación internacional durante la transición a la multipolaridad

Victoria PERSKAYA 1

Received: 14/07/2017 • Approved: 25/08/2017


Content

1. Introduction

2. Results

3. Discussion

4. Conclusion

References


ABSTRACT:

The transition to a multipolar world does not imply a return to a bipolar system, because nowadays, there is no single strategic or ideological force that could singlehandedly oppose the established material and spiritual hegemony of the Golden Billion countries. At that, multipolarity does not come down to either non-polarity or multilateralism, it does not imply the presence of a world government, does not give exclusive rights to regulation and government in the world to the “club of countries headed by the USA and their allies in protecting human rights and enforcing democracy”, and does not imply the exclusive influence of sub-state networks, nongovernmental organizations or other subjects of a civil society. It is not the regional centers, headed by regional states, that can act as the poles of the multipolar configuration and realize their interests, but the states (national, but not mono-national), regardless of their population size, economic power, and military potential. This ensures equality, respect for sovereignty, mutually beneficial partnership, non-intrusion into the traditions and values of other nations and peoples, and, most importantly, the sustainable development of each country, based on the national interests of partners. The multipolarity principles are implemented at the level of international treaties of sovereign states. A typical condition is the depoliticization of economic interaction, since multipolarity implies the abandonment of “bloc-based thinking”, the idea of “opposition”, and the creation of images of potential enemies.
Keywords: multipolarity; state; international cooperation; monopolarity; sustainable development.

RESUMEN:

La transición a un mundo multipolar no implica un retorno a un sistema bipolar, porque hoy en día, no hay una sola fuerza estratégica o ideológica que pueda oponerse de manera única a la hegemonía material y espiritual establecida de los países del billón de oro. En eso, la multipolaridad no se reduce ni a la polaridad ni al multilateralismo, no implica la presencia de un gobierno mundial, no otorga derechos exclusivos de regulación y gobierno en el mundo al "club de países encabezados por EE.UU. Sus aliados en la protección de los derechos humanos y la aplicación de la democracia ", y no implica la influencia exclusiva de las redes subestatales, las organizaciones no gubernamentales u otros sujetos de una sociedad civil. No son los centros regionales, encabezados por los estados regionales, los que pueden actuar como polos de la configuración multipolar y realizar sus intereses, sino los estados (nacionales, pero no mono-nacionales), independientemente del tamaño de su población, el poder económico y Potencial militar. Esto garantiza la igualdad, el respeto a la soberanía, la asociación mutuamente beneficiosa, la no intrusión en las tradiciones y los valores de otras naciones y pueblos y, sobre todo, el desarrollo sostenible de cada país, basado en los intereses nacionales de los socios. Los principios de la multipolaridad se aplican a nivel de los tratados internacionales de los Estados soberanos. Una condición típica es la despolitización de la interacción económica, ya que la multipolaridad implica el abandono del "pensamiento basado en bloques", la idea de "oposición" y la creación de imágenes de enemigos potenciales.
Palabras clave: multipolaridad; Estado; cooperación internacional; monopolaridad; desarrollo sustentable.

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1. Introduction

The modern post-crisis conditions do not exclude new economic shocks, because the basic causes of the modern crisis have not yet been eliminated – the gap between finances and the development of the real economy, loss of price platforms and internal pricing guidelines, poor manageability of new financial assets, depreciation of the purchasing power of virtually all reserve currencies, growing disproportionality of the income in developed and developing countries, etc (Perskaya, 2014, pp. 102-107). The world community can achieve sustainable development only by consistently forming new poles of economic growth and creating conditions that facilitate the realization of the personal potential of people within the framework of the market economy (Perskaya, & Eskindarov, 2013, p. 388). The latter plays a major role under a growing level of education in almost all regions of the world community (Perskaya, 2014, pp. 9-18). In other words, only a multipolar configuration of the world community can solve the problems of progressive development of the world economy on a non-confrontational basis and avoid the use of military conflicts as a means of overcoming the global economic crisis and stimulating economic development.

The theoretical framework of the research lies in the examination of the materials featured in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which the UN adopted in 2015, the materials of the Group of Twenty for 2015-2017 (Reforming international cooperation towards transformative change, 2017; Enhancing BRICS cooperation for general development, 2017), other materials that deal with the transition to multipolarity, as well as national concepts and visions of certain countries in regards to the transition to multipolarity and multilateralism (the latter concerns EU member states).

2. Results

The research hypothesis is that the transition to the sustainable development of the world community can be achieved in modern conditions by carrying out a consistent policy at the level of national states. It reflects the national interests and does not aim to take a unified approach and standardize the specific development of separate countries. In other words, each states preserves its ethnic, social, cultural, historical, and linguistic identity of societies, while ensuring the free development of nations and ethnic groups and creating conditions for the realization of each individual’s potential.

The research methods are based on general and special scientific methods, the dialectic study of the content of integration during the transition to multipolarity, the empirical approach to the determination of the specificity of the modern development of integration processes, and the current and prospective analysis and synthesis of theoretical and practical materials.

2.1 Research procedure

In the late twentieth century, the neoliberal policy targets defined the economic growth by giving an impression of assistance of accelerated economic development, forming a service-based economy in industrially developed countries and a real economy in countries with a big population size, developing a financial sector that focused exclusively on self-expansion and self-development without focusing it on long-term lending in countries that served as the recipients of the exported production capacities, on the reduction of the disproportionate development of regions and territories of separate countries. The 2008-2010 economic crisis disproved this notion.

The monopolar configuration of the global economy turned out to be unstable, triggering permanent recessionary phenomena (ranging from specific countries to entire regions or the world economy in general, considering globalization), raising social tension, and facilitating the growth of disproportionate development of territories and income of the population in general or in certain groups. For comparison: the Gini coefficient in the world in 1997 was 0.372; in 2007, it reached 0.39; nowadays, its average level in the world is approximately 0.40 (GINI index World Bank, 2017).

The transition of the world community to multipolarity is a complicated process that takes place under the globalization of the world economy. The latter, as we have already proven in our previous works, is based on the fact that the internationalization level of the reproduction process in the global GDP has exceeded 70-75%. Consequently, the level of internationalization in the generation of the global GDP also reached 70-75%. Therefore, such global economy formation instruments as international commerce and its accelerated growth based on liberalization of production factor flow, investment interaction between economic subjects as “drivers” of economic interaction growth can be applied to integrative formations or groups of countries that focus on developing integration, including its institutional component. For countries, which do not have common territorial borders or are located on different continents, which are already involved in various political and economic integrative organizations, but wish to increase the significance of international economic cooperation, these criteria can serve exclusively as indicators of whether or not there is progress in interaction. Thus, their value as cooperation enhancement tools has virtually exhausted its potential during the transition to multipolarity.

The global world economy already has its established main centers of development and competition, while transnational corporations (TNCs) and transnational banks (TNBs), the main supporters of globalization processes, have already determined the main niches of their influence in the world economy and separate regions.

The process is further exacerbated by the fact that virtually all TNCs and TNBs are generally closely related to the governments of the countries in which their parent company is located on the one hand and the fact that they act as significant actors in the countries that are recipients of their activity and carry out a strategy that is both in the interests of the companies and complies with the foreign economic policy of the country in which the parent company is located on the other hand. The national interests of the recipient countries can be protected only by the governments of said countries, but under monopolarity, the gradual weakening of the role of national governments in the regulation of their economies has become widespread, which is why in most countries where TNCs constitute the bulk of the country’s national income, the government is incapable of protecting national interests, including in its own territory.

All this has a negative effect on the sustainability of the development of the world economy in general, increases the disproportion of income levels, reduces the share of the middle class in developed countries, and exacerbates social inequality, which, considering the global informatization and as shown by the events in the Near East, can be transformed into a social protest of the masses and inspire revolutionary processes.

M. Porter’s theory of competition, which he developed in the late twentieth century, aimed to prove that the competitiveness of the national economy was basically subjected to the interests of creation of a monopolar configuration of the world economy (Perskaya & Eskindarov, 2015, p. 244), while the ideas of global development and global sustainability have begun dominating over the national interests of separate economies and the interests of people of separate countries. A three-level model of the world economy has started to emerge in the economic sphere, where the USA and G8 countries were at the top of the pyramid and formed their own GDP through the financial sector and the development of intelligent technologies and the service sector; the USA developed their military industry as the main investor in NATO, while European Union member states developed the automobile industry, intelligent technologies, agriculture, etc. At that, the volume of domestic consumption set quotas for the production of a series of industries in EU member states. The real sector was transferred from industrially developed countries to countries with a high population size dynamics – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, India, etc. Meanwhile, other countries were considered the third level that provided the resource potential for the first and second levels. These countries included Russia, African countries, and South American countries (Perskaya, & Rusanov, 2010, pp. 8-18).

Some foreign researchers have evaluated this process and explained it through the dominance of the ideological concept over a real and pragmatically arranged economic policy of developed countries. For instance, in the study titled Real Economy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2016, Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong), the authors basically prove that the formation of a monopolar world economy with the prevalence of the ideology of global dominance of “western liberal values in economy and politics” predetermined the foreign political strategy of the USA since the Washington Consensus of 1992, which hinders the sustainable development of their national economy. The authors point to the fact that since the mid-1980s, the US government organized a national economic policy that was subjected to ideological determinants. The economic policy with an “ideological vision, subject to abstract economic theories was neither pragmatic nor realistic” (Perskaya, & Rusanov, 2010, pp. 8-18). Emphasis was placed on the rapid growth of the financial sector, which was supposed to generate a source of growth for the national economy of the USA during a gradual transfer of real sector companies to countries with a large population size. The idea of developing the real sector as a segment that ensured the sustainable development of the national economy was enshrined in the program of the Republican Party and voiced by President D. Trump (Mason, 2016).

Foreign sources have frequently considered the idea of a transition to multipolarity. In particular, D. Kampf (The Emergence of a Multipolar World), P. Kennedy of the Yale University (The Rise and Fall of Great Powers), geopolitician D. Walton (Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the XXI century: Multipolarity and the Revolution in Strategic Perspective), and American political scientist D. Hiro (After Empire: Birth of a Multipolar World) have tried to present their vision of multipolarity. British researcher Fabio Petito made an attempt to rationalize an alternative to a monopolar world based on the legal and philosophical concepts of Carl Schmitt. The formation of a monopolar world was mentioned in the speeches of politicians and even in the 2008 US National Intelligence Council report Global Trends – 2025, albeit with a caveat that the most realistic expectation of this phenomenon falls within the nearest two decades.

Several western experts and politicians claim that monopolarity or unipolarity is a world structure that enables maintaining security in the world community that appointed the USA as its leader that does not suppress the expression of will of countries or groups thereof, which share their democratic values; at that, the USA dominate the world through their military, economic, and cultural supremacy, including in the field of establishment of personal relationships (Tomja, 2014; Maranga, 2011; Agrawal, 2013; Romashkina, 2003, pp. 8-16). In France, a movement for the protection of national interests within the EU (similar to Italy, Spain, and Greece) is gaining traction; for the members of this movement, multipolarity means the ability to express their national interests as opposed to simply following the USA (de Keersmaeker, 2015, pp. 3-5). Several European researchers have put forward a thesis that there is no need to resort to multipolarity when it comes to general security and defense policy. In its current form, monopolarity ensures the security of Europe and does not require Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own safety and defense. The dominating opinion of the European Union’s establishment regarding multipolarity comes down to the notion that the idea of multipolarity emerged in countries that lost their “sovereign position”, primarily in Russia and China, the economies whereof have started to gradually revive, augment their potential, and, consequently, position themselves as independent players in world politics (Ikenberry, Mastanduno, & Wohlforth, 2009, pp. 1-27; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2011; Tomja, 2014; Arianda, 2014). According to G. de Keersmaeker, Russia is an example and initiator of the promotion of the multipolarity idea (de Keersmaeker, 2015, p. 5). The foreign policy of BRICS member states is interpreted in a similar fashion, where, according to European officials, imperialistic ambitions are also typical for India, South Africa, and Brazil. Monopolarity (or unipolarity) provides more tools to suppress the desire of these countries to pursue their national interests. Since 2009, US President B. Obama was regarded as a harbinger of the “age of multipolarity”, while Secretary of State H. Clinton declared in that same year that the world would be multilateral (Dickinson, 2009). For the USA, multilateralism would mean avoidance of actions in international relations that relied exclusively on their own interests and forces and a shift of certain tasks onto their allies and “vassals”.

This was a brief review of the diversity of opinions of the western establishment regarding the emergence and development of multipolarity.

The purpose of this research is to rationalize the notion that the transition to multipolarity is a steady trend in the development of the modern world community, which is based on the international interaction of reconciled actors of international law and rules out bloc-based ideology and the search for enemies.

2.2 Research

We believe that multipolarity is a set of political and economic conditions, which (under the globalization of the world economy, when the economy becomes the main field of partnership) acts as a tool for forming new poles – centers of junction of political interests, economic interaction, and fair competition. The multipolarity of the world community aims to prevent the confrontation of poles, arms race, and extensive use of military strategies, with a view to achieving political and economic goals.

The multipolarity of the world community does not rule out the formation of blocs, alliances, and other associations that aim to achieve coordinated political goals through treaties and the use of primarily economic tools. At that, the typical feature of such formations is the national, ethnic, historical, and religious factor, which facilitates the development of common political positions and consolidates nations during the realization of set goals. The social, ethnic, religious, and historical unity of peoples enables expanding the set of political tools. In the economic sphere, such formations are based on regional integration or strategic partnership treaties.

The transition of the world community to multipolarity (or polycentrism, as it is sometimes called) does not rule out regionalization, which is implemented in the form of an integrative association or through strategic partnership treaties.

As a process, regionalization is a geopolitical positioning, which implies the presence of supporters and allies in the achievement of the set goal. At that, with a view to consolidating the partnership of the parties, they figure out strategic directions of economic interaction, which will ultimately guarantee their clear positions in the existing geoeconomic space of the formed association, union, etc. The essential content of regional integration can be formulated as orientation on the convergence of the economies (interpenetration) of member states.

Reliance on the integrative formations that have already been established or are being established requires not only a lengthy period of time, but also certain institutional conditions and appropriate political and economic prerequisites of integrative interaction.

Multipolarity can be achieved through the formation of non-integrative associations based on the strategic interests of the parties (for instance, BRICS member states (Perskaya, 2016, pp. 74-78; Leksyutina, 2014, pp. 81-89)). Therefore, it is necessary to search for new niches and forms of development of economic cooperation, with a view to “augmenting” the combined potential of economic “power”. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the leaders of the multipolar configuration of the world community oppose the development of new points of growth in the world economy while trying to maintain their positions in the established environment. Therefore, the creation of a new potential of global development should be sought in the strategic needs of national economies, which should be integrated into the context of strategic positioning, with a view to guaranteeing the sustainable development of the world community in general.

Previously, foreign economic policies focused on detecting potential objects of interaction, but the transition to multipolarity implies the determination, first and foremost, of strategic guidelines of separate states and development of a consolidated position of the parties, which would allow for their “integration” in the foreign economic policy while ensuring the growth of the integral potential of the group of countries that are members of the non-integrative formation. Thus, foreign political agencies get the opportunity to implement strategically important initiatives on the global scene by supporting them through enhanced internal cooperation of countries. The latter corresponds with both the tasks of national socioeconomic policies and the goals of world community stability in general.

A major problem in the modern world is the reduction of the disproportion of income levels. The participants of the World Economic Forum 2017 (Davos) stressed that only the achievement of sustainable development goals, which the UN set in 2015, could be an effective agenda for the establishment of a fair world order that satisfied the interests of most of the people on the planet, rather than the interests of certain levels and groups of businesspersons, bankers, and managers. According to this, all 17 identified reasons – challenges to sustainable development – are directly related to social stability. The exacerbation of one or several of them in a separate country, supported by an appropriate informational “heating” in the modern information society (including through the information technologies of social protest), could cause social protests, which, in turn, can be used by radical forces and lead to revolutions. The unstable state of one country has a tendency to leak into other countries (also called the “contamination effect”).

The considerable nuclear potential on the planet, growing frequency of terrorist attacks with declining social support of the native population (not only migrants and refugees), uneven distribution of income, increasing polarization of income levels in the society, lack of social guarantees for all people and protection for those who need it – all these factors increase the turbulence of the modern world community significantly.

For instance, when it comes to the EU, one can note that this association is currently characterized by a de facto abandonment of a socially oriented economy for all citizens. A socially oriented economy is a type of economic system that best suits the development of the personal potential of citizens, because for the transition to multipolarity, this criterion is regarded as one that defines the sustainable development of the world community. According to a research by E.-F.Macías titled A Single European Income Distribution (Vacas-Soriano, & Fernandez-Macias, 2017), about 4.5% of working age Europeans have equivalised income of households that ranges from €10,000 to € 11,000 per annum. The inequality of income in the EU tends to grow. Firstly, this difference is found between Eastern European countries (and Mediterranean countries, to a lesser extent) and EU15. Secondly, the unequal income within countries is greater than the differences in incomes between EU member states. Figure 1 shows the differentiation in income levels among the households of certain EU countries.

Figure 1
EU–Households: Distribution of real income with regard to PPS-Euro, 2013.

Table 1 shows samples for different EU countries that characterize the Gini index up to 2017.

Table 1. Gini coefficient in EU member states.

Country

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

EU6 (1972)

30.5

30.5

30.9

31

EU28

30.5

30.5

30.9

31

…..

Belgium

+26.5

25.9

25.9

26.2

26.3

Bulgaria

33.6

35.4

35.4

37.0

38.3

Spain

34.2

33.7

34.7

34.6

34.5

Latvia

35.7

35.2

35.5

35.4

34.5

Hungary

27.2

28.3

28.6

28.2

28.2

Austria

27.6

27.0

27.6

27.2

27.2

Romania

34.0

34.6

35.0

37.4

34.7

Finland

25.9

+25.4

25.6

25.2

+25.4

Germany

28.3

29.7

30.7

30.1

….

France

30.5

30.1

29.2

29.2

….

Lithuania

32.0

34.6

35.0

37.9

….

Estonia

32.5

32.9

35.6

34.8

…..

 

In practically all countries of the world, the situation is that the level of polarization of income levels in big cities is significantly higher than the average one in the country is. For instance, in Moscow, the percentage of households that earn from $15,000 to $45,000 per annum reached 42% in 2016, but it drops to 27% in Saint Petersburg and to 15% in Novosibirsk. In Eastern Europe, in Prague and Bratislava, about 72% and 68% of households, respectively, earn from $15,000 to $45,000 per annum. In other words, the abovementioned cities maintain a more averaged level of household income. In 2016, the Gini index in Moscow and Saint Petersburg neared 0.43 and 0.44, respectively, basically reaching the top five cities in Europe with a high level of income inequality. However, Prague and Bratislava have some of the lowest Gini indexes among big cities of the world – about 0.30 in 2016 (Euromonitor – International, 2017).

At the Munich Security Conference 2017, participants noted that it was necessary to “lay the foundation of a Europe that would be strong and capable of taking independent measures and defending its adherence to Western values” (Munich Security Report, 2017). Thus, as expected, in 2017, the European Union should become stronger as a unified supranational formation while gradually transferring the functions of national states to the supranational level. However, it was noted that a considerable challenge comes from the anti-globalist movement, growing inequality in western societies, and growing skepticism in terms of the correctness of decisions concerning Muslim immigration, accompanied by a general loss of confidence in democratic institutions (Munich Security Report, 2017).

Europe’s stance in this regard is clear – it positions itself in the modern world as an independent centralized region of decision-making and decision implementation, which relies on the military support of the USA.

The guarantee of socialization of the modern society development is the main challenge for the modern world community that aims to achieve sustainable development by 2030. However, as the functioning of the European Union shows, the level of social protection has been dropping drastically in almost all countries ever since the EU expanded (Eurostat, 2017). Therefore, it would be logical to resolve this problem at the level of the state, to which the population will address all its demands.

The need to socialize the community development enhances the importance of the national state (not in the sense of a nation-state, but as a state that protects its territorial integrity and the safety of all social groups, nations, and peoples that live in its territory), which has to serve as the main actor in international relations and protect national interests on the one hand and take measures to eliminate the disproportions in countries that were caused by “unfair globalization for the chosen ones”, an ideology that was implemented over the last decades, under growing social instability on the other hand. It is characteristic that the 17 global challenges to sustainable development (Kumar, 2017) are typically found not only in developing countries, but also in developed ones (McArthur, & Rasmussen, 2016). Consequently, the state has to be the main subject of international relations, including economic relations, in the modern world order.

Therefore, the assumption is that in the modern world community, with a view to ensuring sustainable and dynamic development, it is necessary to take into consideration the priorities of development of the personal potential of nations and peoples of each country. For this purpose, the socially oriented economy that the Federal Republic of Germany built is the most appropriate one in terms of both its structure and the scientific potential that was created in the late twentieth century. Russia is also a social state that seeks to form the optimal structure of its national economy.

Multipolarity is conceptually different from the system of international relations that are identified as multidimensional, multifaceted or multilateral. It is based on the principles of relationships between subjects of international law that are based on equal expression of will and respect, tolerant reception of all subjects of international relations, and respect for international law and the world order that was established after World War II.

The basic principles of the formation of a multipolar world are as follows:

a. mutual respect for territorial integrity and national sovereignty;

b. nonaggression;

c. noninterference in internal affairs;

d. equality and mutual benefit;

e. peaceful coexistence.

These principles were established by bilateral international treaties of the early 1980s.

Due to the dynamically changing situation in the world community, in modern conditions, the above principles are supplemented by the following ones:

- unconditional and mandatory abidance by international law by all members of international organizations, including in the economic sphere;

- both collective and national security with mutual assistance and cooperation for this purpose;

- fight against terrorist and cyberwarfare, information attacks, and defamation in the international field on the basis of false facts of certain countries and nations, which is realized on both the level of separate countries and the international level through consensus of interests and treaties for measures of collective security and cooperation;

- enhancement of the legal state and its democratic institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of citizens and aim to achieve the sustainable development of national economies and creating a social environment that would reduce the disproportion of income and improve the social protection of all population strata;

- realization of the national interests of states that are based on the preservation of self-identification in the world community, ethnic, social, and religious diversity, historical roots and public traditions by detecting junction points of national development strategies and engaging in international partnership, with a view to strengthening and using the internal potentials of national economies and their international competitiveness;

- international cooperation should help to consolidate the positions of each participating country in the world community, including within the framework of international and regional economic and other organizations, forums, and associations;

- promotion of international security and stability, with a view to establishing a fair international democratic system based on the principle of collective investigation and resolution of international problems, on the supremacy of international law and, first and foremost, the United Nations Charter, on equal and partner relationships between countries with the central coordinating role of the UN as the main organization that regulates international relations;

- carrying out of the good neighboring policy with certain states, assistance in the relief of strain and conflicts, including their prevention, on a contractual basis and the use of soft power and public diplomacy;

- development of bilateral and multilateral mutually beneficial and equal partnership with foreign countries, international associations, and international organizations within the framework of forums based on the respect for the principles of independence, sovereignty, pragmatism, transparency, multi-vector relations, predictability, non-confrontational protection of national priorities, expansion of international cooperation on a nondiscriminatory basis, and assistance in the establishment of network alliances and more active participation of interested countries therein;

- enhanced role and importance of humanitarian partnership at the international level, including non-intrusion into other societies’ cultural traditions and views, maintenance of a fair competition environment in the informational and cultural space, respect for the national historical roots and cultural originality of countries, including small ethnic groups and diasporas that are located in the territory of other countries.

Regardless of their population size, economic power, and military potential, national states at this stage of transitionary non-revolutionary transformation of the world community (from monopolarity to multipolarity) act as the main subjects in the multipolar configuration, which are capable of forming and realizing national interests that meet the requirements and expectations of their respective societies.

3. Discussion

In the economic sphere, the monopolar world community was based on a comprehensive consolidation and enhancement of the role of transnational and multinational companies, which started to de-industrialize the economies of developed countries and focus direct investments on countries with a large population size. In other words, globalization as purposeful actions of TNCs and multinational companies, enhanced by the transnationalization of the financial sector and its dominating role in the structure of the national economies of developed countries (primarily the USA and EU15), predetermined the development of de-globalization, regionalization, and increase in the role and significance of national economies in the solution of urgent social, humanitarian, economic, and other problems that were created by “unfair results of globalization that favored the upper oligarchic elite”.

On the other hand, the internationalization of the reproduction chain as an economic process remains important for the generation of the global GDP; however, the concept of “fair globalization for all” requires stricter regulation by national states. In this respect, the dynamic changes of the international community in 2016-2017 implies the consideration of the ongoing transformations, which will also change the way in which the multipolarity system is viewed.

The performance by the USA of the global messianic function of domination and submission to their national interests, which includes changes in the international legal system of regulation of world commerce, investment, employment relations at the national level, competition within countries, etc. (within the framework of transoceanic partnerships) (Kharas, & McArthur, 2017), created a notion that multipolarity will be based on subjects in the form of regional centers that incorporate independent and sovereign states that are authorized to develop and make global strategic decisions, including via participation in the UN. This implied a certain organizational transformation of the UN system, as well. These centers should be adequately equipped and financially independent, so that they are capable of protecting their sovereignty under direct intervention of a potential enemy at the material level.

However, this configuration (when regions of the world are subjects), in turn, would focus on opposition and potential enmity between the poles, which is an inherent feature of the human nature – to expand one’s influence and improve one’s authority and position in the society. After superimposing this thesis onto the current state of development of the world community, one can expect this feature of the human nature to manifest itself in the form of increasing strain and threat to the security of regional poles, accompanied by an arms race. The would-be decision-making centers would not be obliged to accept the unified western standards, norms, and values (including democracy, liberalism, free market, parliamentary government, human rights, individualism, cosmopolitism, multiculturalism, etc., which are imposed in accordance with Western ideas) and could be fully independent from the spiritual hegemony of the West. However, the assumption is that this approach will not relieve the political strain in the world, considering the current trends.

The formation of regional centers was supposed to limit the sovereignty of existing countries. It was confirmed purely on the level of a legal subject, but was not guaranteed through sufficient economic power or strategic, economic, and political potential. Consequently, it will be restricted to the boundaries of the regional center, which represents the interests of separate countries on the international level (which basically corresponds with the 1992 Washington Consensus treaties). This approach helped preserve the neoliberal vision of the development of the world community with a gradual loss of dominance by the USA. The conclusion is that the Westphalian system, which exists de jure, no longer reflects the reality of the system of international relations and should be reconsidered.

4. Conclusion

The transition to a multipolar world does not imply a return to a bipolar system, because nowadays, there is no single strategic or ideological force that could singlehandedly oppose the established material and spiritual hegemony of the West and its leader, the USA. At the same time, multipolarity does not come down to either non-polarity or multilateralism, because it does not imply the presence of a world government, does not give exclusive rights to regulation and government in the world to the “club of the USA and their democratic allies”, and does not imply the exclusive influence of sub-state networks, nongovernmental associations or other subjects of a civil society.

The research proved that it is not the regional centers, headed by regional states, that should act as the poles of the multipolar configuration and realize their interests, but the national states themselves, regardless of their population size, economic power, and military potential. In the conditions of the modern unstable world order, such an approach can ensure equality, respect for sovereignty, mutually beneficial partnership, non-intrusion into the traditions and value orientations of other nations and peoples, and the sustainable development of each country based on the national interests of partners. Thus, the multipolarity principles are implemented at the level of international treaties of sovereign states. A typical condition is the depoliticization of economic interaction, since multipolarity implies the abandonment of “bloc-based thinking”, the idea of “opposition”, and the creation of images of potential enemies.

The modern world is changing rapidly and radical changes in the geopolitical and geoeconomic scene imply an appropriate transformation of the understanding of the institutional component of multipolarity. This includes the subjective content of the multipolarity theory in the modern world for the purpose of achieving global sustainable development and the recognition of the abovementioned principles of multipolarity by the world community.

Therefore, the assumption is that only the inviolability of international law, coordinated principles of functioning and regulation of international relations within the framework of the UN (including the UN Security Council) with a growing role of the state as the main subject of international relations will allow achieving the goals of sustainable and dynamic development of the world community.

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1. Finance University by Government of RF, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: perskayav.v@yahoo.com

2. Said paper was based on a research conducted at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation in 2016-2017


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