ВНЕШНИЕ СВЯЗИ СУБНАЦИОНАЛЬНОГО УРОВНЯ УНИТАРНЫХ СТРАН КАК ЭЛЕМЕНТ ЕВРОПЕЙСКОЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ

Abstract

In the second half of the XX century the researches have started to perceive regions both as a level of governance and as actors in the political process (I. Duhachek, M. Keating, etc.). A distinctive feature of the modern period is the active involvement of unitary subnational regions in political activity, which is especially evident in the example of the European Union. The objective of the research is to consider the external relations of the subnational regions of the unitary EU member-states as an element of the political architecture of this integration entity. A systematic and structural-functional approach is used to analyze the reasons for the development of external relations at the subnational level within the framework of integration unification, systematize these relations by groups and consider the degree of their embeddedness in the political architecture. The entire complex of external relations of subnational-level regions is divided into four groups depending on the number and level of actors. The analysis of these reasons, taking into account the groups of external relations, allowed us to confirm the hypothesis that the external relations of subnational regions of unitary countries (both asymmetric and symmetrical) within the EU can be considered as part of the EU political architecture. The embeddedness analysis of these links in the EU decision-making process allowed us to conclude that the external relations of the subnational regions of the unitary EU member-states have become part of the EU political architecture