EVOLUTION OF METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES IN STUDYING THE PROCESS OF REGIONAL INTEGRATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS

Abstract

Abstract. The processes of regional transformations gain momentum and go to the next level
under the modern conditions of environment turbulence and the struggle of certain countries for
competitive advantage in the international relations. The objectification process of intuitive and
subjective, as to their nature, theories and models of regional transformation started in the XVIIXVIII
centuries. The significant role in understanding these changes was played by the modernist
theories formed as a result of the dominance of capitalist social order, the processes of industrialization,
urbanization, secularization, the development of state institutes in the XIX-XX centuries.
The significant contribution to the development of theory of regional transformations
and their measurements was made by the representatives of neo-liberal and neo-Keynesian approaches,
federalism, neo-functionalism, intergovernmental approach and the theory of «new
management».
Nowadays, such factors, as the economic instability of the world economy, the transformation
of the economic regions to its components, regional geo-economic conflicts, multi-polarity,
etc. necessitated a rethinking of the nature and consequences of regional transformations. Modern
approaches to explaining these changes have a fragmentary character. Today, researchers
have no unified theory about the reasons of the development of regional transformations. With
the aim of deeper analysis of their content, nature and consequences, we propose to bring into
the use the term of «geo-economic coalitions». Depending on the degree of geo-economic affect,
geo-economic coalitions should be divided into coalitions-hegemons and coalitions-marginal’s.
The analysis show that among the modern tools of competitive struggle between these coali-

tions or in the occupation of new territories, the measures of economic and financial character
are used more frequently. The countries, which do not belong to any geo-economic coalition, lose
most in both economic and political spheres.
Key words: regional transformations, integration, geo-economic coalitions, multi-polarity,
instruments of influence.