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The article represents an attempt to apply G. Hofstede’s typology of cultural dimensions to analyze international relations in a constructivist view. The study sheds light on competing and cooperating interaction of traditional and rising powers. The methodology implies to implement the list of cultural variables such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/ femininity, short-term/long-term orientation, indulgence/restraint to map the position of states with a focus on great powers.The constructed diagrams made it possible to reveal the differentiation of cultural dimensions that characterize traditional and rising powers. This differentiation is one of the factors that may contribute to the increase in the potential conflict in the international relations at present. The overall cultural representativeness of the Global North leaders, i.e. traditional powers, is lower than that of the representatives of the Global South leaders, i.e. rising powers. The results of the study generate the conclusion that the current disorder as transitional stage of the international relations is more likely to be replaced by a multipolar rather than a bipolar world order architecture.

Regionalization and participation at the integration associations represent a typical way of national economic development. To be inside an integration process allows member states to address better their socio-economic problems and political coordination. The stability and resilience of integration associations are critical to their success. In this optic the integration associations may be subjects convergence and divergence. These phenomena may be envisaged in the income inequality of the participating countries.Aim. To study the features and prospects of the socio-economic convergence within the EEU member states, the EEU strategic contour and within the main trends of integration processes in Eurasia.Task. The tasks are following. The first one is to study the sustainability of the EEU and within its strategic contours formed by agreements on free trade zones through the convergent and divergent trends assessment. The second task is to conduct a comparative analysis of Eurasian integration to the European Union and ASEAN development.Methods. Assess the level and dynamics of income inequality among the EEU states and samples of states with which the EEU has agreements on free trade zones, which are the CIS, Serbia, Vietnam, Iran and Singapore, as well as states with which such agreements are planned to be concluded in the near future. This list of the EEU’s prospect partners includes Egypt, Israel and India, based on the Gini index, using the European Union and ASEAN as reference parameters. Use calculations to interpret the processes of convergence and divergence of various types of integration processes.Results. The estimates showed, in general, a significant interpretive potential of the interstate Gini index. The study particular results demonstrated that the EEU has a level of convergence comparable to the level of the EU before the accession of a large array of states in 2004. The level of convergence of the CIS, estimated using the Gini index, is comparable to the current level of the European Union. It was also revealed that both in the EU and in the CIS, the reduction in inequality over the selected analysis interval does not have a clear prospect. Calculations also showed the convergence of states within the EEU and its strategic contours to be sensitive to external shocks, while the convergence of ASEAN states is more directed.Conclusions. The approach used by the authors to assess the convergence of integration processes based on the calculation of the interstate Gini index explains with sufficient completeness the reasons for the successful development of the EEU and its sustainability. At the same time, the use of the interstate Gini index for the analysis of convergence and divergence of integration processes made it possible to conclude that the integration models of the states of the Global North and the Global South are diverse.

The instability and uncertainty of international relations accentuate the role of new and inclusive platforms of interaction and cooperation. Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) alongside its regional and transregional partners represent an example of such a platform based on new principles and values, an element of international relation configuration.Aim. Assess the prospects for a zone (cluster) within the planned and potential transregional EEU’s expansion beyond the CIS borders.Task. To evaluate the dynamics of the consolidation concerning, first, current free trade EEU agreements (FTAs or the EEU FTAs) with Serbia, Iran, Vietnam and Singapore, second, potential agreements with listed in the EEU official strategy, third, other developing states with relevant economic and/or demographic potential.Methods. The authors use additional consolidation (share of intra-bloc trade) as a metric. It is calculated as the difference between the share of EEU intra-trade and within the existing or potential EEU FTA partnerships.Results. Based on the assessment of additional consolidation, the research revealed that the existing EEU FTAs with Iran and Vietnam are effective, while trade integration with Serbia, Singapore and China are ineffective. The presence of additional consolidation was revealed for Turkey, Egypt, and Bangladesh.Conclusions. The implementation of the transregional integration track is an important development step for the Eurasian Economic Union. However, trade partnerships have different trade efficiency.

The article explores the resource capabilities and strategies the traditional and rising powers use to bring food, energy and military-political security to the world most fragile states. There is a certain complementarity in the relations between both the mentioned actors in international relations, since the negative externalities forming in and around fragile states require resources that could be provided and effectively provided by the world most powerful countries. The assumption that the key characteristic of a power (center) is a capability to translate outside military-political security allowed to the authors to categorize the USA, EU and, with certain restrictions, Japan as traditional centers of power; while Russia, China, Brazil, Turkey, and, to a lesser extent, India and Korea as rising ones. In terms of quantitative parameters, the United States, the EU, India and Russia have the resources to ensure food security, while Russia is the only major power that has a net surplus in energy foreign trade. Russia's comprehensive resource capability in the context of “broad” security supports its leadership status in its efforts to stabilize and maintain the world order. Considering the behavioral and not resource aspect, the strategies of global and middle powers in the world most fragile states, with the exception for the EU and Turkey, correspond to their resource capabilities. Both deliver mineral fuels as well as Turkey supplies crops to fragile countries having overall defi cit of such commodities. This may indicate that these centers of power as well as Russia implement the “donor” strategies conceptualized in the literature for the rising powers of the modern world order.

The purpose of the study is to compare the role of the G7, the G20 and BRICS in the global governance system on the basis of an assessment of the representativeness and potential impact of these informal associations on the rest of the world on the basis of a comparative analysis of a number of socio-economic indicators of participating countries. The relevance of the research is related to the fact that these institutions represent a certain counterbalance to the leading formal universal international organizations, functioning on a permanent basis, primarily the UN. Based on a two-tier economic consolidation assessment of considered multilateral institutions participants and their respective macro-regions, the authorы came to the following conclusions: the «Group of Seven» and «Group of Twenty» have a higher potential for implementation of joint economic projects and initiatives because of a higher level of their economic consolidation based on bilateral trade; the analysis of economic connectivity of macro-regions the countries participating at global leading informal associations belong to showed a low level of effective potential for joint projects realization for most of them. It means that the multilateral institutions of highest level are capable to provide better common coordinated solutions to the problems of insiders, and not those of outsiders; the G7 members consolidate four of the five macroregions to which they belong, while among thirteen macroregions G20 members belongs to there is only one additional consolidated entity which is Southeast Asia. Thus, a threefold increase in the number of the G20 participants does not enlarge the effective geography of the G20 impact on the rest of the world; even though the BRICS group has the reduced potential for effective implementation of joint participant initiatives because of low level of consolidation union members lesser than 10%, and only China belongs to the economically connected macro-region - East Asia; Brazil, Russia and South Africa are included in the potentially prospective regions with a level of connectivity more than 15%.