STUDYING COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS THE MOST IMPORTANT ENTITIES OF THE SOCIO-POLITICAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD 16-TH ANNIVERSARY OF FOUNDING THE DEPARTMENT OF COUNTRY STUDIES

Abstract

Theoretical and methodological problems of country studies and regional studies in the context of creating and functioning of the Department of Country Studies and International Tourism at the Faculty of International Relations of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv are being researched in the article. In the rather complicated current geopolitical situation it is especially important for Ukraine to strengthen its status quo on the international arena, as well as to build its own system of international relations that are focused on the government interest. Therefore political elite of Ukraine should have its own vision of every country’s part in global regional political economic and cultural processes as well as focus on the most powerful players of the current international system and influential countries Objective and reasonable attitude to the countries and regions, efficient use of the foreign experience in the transformation and creating the civil society based on democratic values and supremacy of law The problems of country studies as a subject of the scientific research in international relations. The first component of the system of knowledge about the country is defining its general specialties and its main features that sustain the country’s uniqueness and exclusivity. It also includes figuring out geopolitical situation of the country its political and economic value in the international process. Finding the most essential and typical information about the specific areas of the life of the country that could be of interest to the related area and help forming a complete image of the country is also very important. Analysis in the country studies should include natural combination of various elements and factors defining functioning of the given society. Another important problem is preserving the comparative method in country studies research. It is important to keep specific method and multilevel system (global or local) which will help to successfully define social and economic processes of the country. To sum up it is important to stress that knowledge collected by country studies should be not only educating but more importantly effective and fruitful impact. However country studies should be considered an synthetic science that provides complete vision of the country as well as analyzes its development makes predictions about its future based on the mix of historical political economic cultural religious and other factors. Importance of the country studies is crucial for the activity of Ukrainian embassies and diplomatic entities and other foreign representatives. It was stated at the meeting of Ukraine’s ambassadors diplomats and heads of the faculties of the universities who are educating diplomats that took place in December 2015 at the faculty of International relations of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Country studies is a necessary background, thorough theoretic and methodological base for the graduate to be able to make a professional evaluation of the processes in the country of stay, analyze them and make prognosis for the future. A graduate who specialized in specific country or region can be easily oriented onto political economic or cultural aspect of the country which will give him an opportunity to cover a much wider volume of work with spending less effort. Thanks to optimization of the specializations teaching staff of the department of the country studies and international tourism strengthened their scientific research in the regional studies sphere. Regionalization and regionalism became important elements of the scientific analysis in the beginning of the ХХІ century. It was supported by dynamic development of the regional cooperation and reaching to new geographical areas and confirmation from a lot of experts and politicians that region studies is a very effective way to strengthen international security. Regionalism and regionalization became crucial part of researching other processes characteristic for modern world such as globalization, integration, fragmentation, institutionalization and multialaterialism. It is also connected to the conflict solving matters, reformation of the system of international organizations, development politics of the underdeveloped countries, illegal immigration and environmental protection. The most important element in the concept of regionalism and the processes of regionalization is economic aspect. Economic connections are the most important part of the most regional structures and their cohesion is demonstrating the global dimension of the cooperation. Intensification of integration and disintegration processes in the world is also encouraging and increasing the interest to the subject which has objective and subjective dimension. All of the above is encouraging the department of country studies and international tourism to focus on developing theoretical and practical basics for country studies and region studies, learning about the experience of European regionalism, taking part in the forming regional strategy taking into account the international processes and analyzing regional transformation under the influence of geopolitical and geo-economic tendencies and influential factors. Key words: regional studies; European Union; globalization; region; international tourism; international education.