The issue of increasing the role of social innovations in social development acquires special value from the point of view of the transition to the paradigm of sustainable development and the generation of social innovations. Concepts of sustainability require a rethinking of the whole palette of existing social practices. The creation of new lifestyles, changes in social behavior and consumer habits of people, alternatives in the transport system, agriculture, production are of greater importance for the future than the technological rearmament of civilization. Today, the indisputable thesis/idea is that innovation is the main factor determining competitiveness in the global economy. Depending on the level of analysis, innovation regions can be entire continents, countries, as well as meso- and micro-territorial entities located on the territory of one or several states. The concept of innovation regions is a model that explains the uneven spatial development of the innovation process and its concentration in certain regions of the world.
TopThe Evolution Of The Concepts Of Global Regionalization And Regionalization Of International Relations
Global regionalization with its particular features and complex character is an objective process: on the one hand, it is globalization, and on the other hand, one of its consequences appears. Thus, global regionalization is a new model of structuring world society.
The terms “global regionalism” and “global regionalization” are frequently used in assessing the general level of regionalization of international relations in the context of globalization, which in turn is characterized by the establishment of regional alliances between states with similar interests (Marshania, 2011) which allows them to work together and achieve their goals effectively.
Global regionalization can be treated as a regionalization (fragmentation, segmentation) of a hypothetically integrated global world, ie the formation of regions for both sublevels (within states) and the macro (planetary) level of the global political structure, so that processes at the macro level it models international relations in which the main interaction takes place between different regional groups rather than between major individual powers or coalitions of geographically distant states (Troitsky, 2009).
The regionalization processes change the system of international relations defined by the Treaty of Westphalia, as well as the global political order in the geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic field and form new global economic and political centers. In this context, a region is obviously becoming a fundamental and essential notion for the theoretical analysis, rhetorical and methodological approach to global regionalization.
However, there is no universally accepted definition of a region in modern science, because the interpretation depends on the method of analysis used, ie the particular approach to the analysis of regional phenomena and the sphere of regional life (Leonova O., 2016).
The Political Encyclopedia (n.d.) defines the region as an independent unit in space and geography, administrative and territorial, institutional and political, economic, social, historical and cultural, ethnic and demographic. The definition is extremely broad, as it can describe regions with a variable scale.