СОЦІАЛЬНО-ЕКОНОМІЧНИЙ РОЗВИТОК ПОСТСОЦІАЛІСТИЧНИХ КРАЇН: СУПЕРЕЧЛИВІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ ТА ВИКЛИКИ СУЧАСНОСТІ

Abstract

The article analyses the social and economic development of 14 post-socialist countries from 2001 to 2020. By assessing their clustering, a conclusion was made about the contradictory combination of two evolution tendencies of these countries: simultaneous deployment of processes of divergence, asymmetry of their social and economic development and deployment of convergence processes, and formation of separate clusters of the specified countries. In particular, the European Union member states, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, formed a separate cluster in 2020, characterized by the highest GDP per capita in the group, the share of expenditure on education and the highest level of the spending on health care in GDP. A separate cluster was formed by Ukraine and Moldova, potential EU candidate countries. The place of Ukraine among the considered countries in the period 2001-2020 and in modern conditions was analyzed. It was concluded that the indicators of socio-economic development of Ukraine demonstrate cyclical dynamics under the influence of global factors and shocks, taking into account the turning point events for the whole world in 2022. It was noted that new world order is currently developing. There are new initiatives and concepts within the EU, which provide great opportunities for Ukraine for European integration. In this context, the institutional factors of convergent and divergent development of post-socialist countries, which will be aimed at resolving the existing military and political conflicts, settlement of global imbalances, stabilization of world economic development, have an essential role.