Makukha Y. Integration strategies of ASEAN countries in the context of socio-political modernization

The thesis systematizes conceptual, theoretical and methodological principles for the study of political and socio-economic modernization in the countries of South East Asia and its influence on the formation of a specific integration model – ASEAN. From the standpoint of historical and relativistic methodology, it has been proved that this model of regional integration is, at the same time, a factor in the modernization of ASEAN member countries. A historical relativistic approach was used as the basis for an analysis of modernization and integration in the region in synergy. This approach made possible to consider their dynamics as a single, synchronized process throughout the region. It was also shown that integration within the framework of ASEAN is carried out on a solidarist basis and is a result of the use of mobilization, solidarist in character, national-selfishness models of modernization. The work describes the specific features of such models and examples of their practical application. It was proved that this model of regional integration, as a system-forming factor of social and political modernization in the region and a mechanism for closing its space (using hidden autarky methods), provides counteraction to attempts by global actors to intervene in the social and economic space of the region. In the context of solving security problems, trends in the political dynamics of integration processes in the region have been studied, taking into account the presence of external factors of influence, considered by ASEAN as destructive from the US and Russia and constructive from neighboring countries, primarily China. The impact of the transformation of the national security policy of the ASEAN countries on the evolution of the security policy of integration in general is analyzed. The issue of regional security remains the most controversial element of integration: the influence of global players in this area remains dominant, and some ASEAN states actually support this state of affairs - either through partnerships with major powers or because of their own vulnerability due to weaknesses and conflicts with stronger neighbors. The peculiarity of economic transformation in comparison with liberal standards (denationalization, demonopolization, privatization) in countries such as Singapore, and later Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, was that a state leadership of these processes was based on the management of the activities of state enterprises and large monopolistic entities that possessed significant financial resources and a concentrated hierarchical control channel. For the domestic expert environment certain methodological isolation of analytical generalizations is a common issue: scientists do not tie their research to the tasks of Ukraine's foreign policy in global dimension, to great extent because of their fuzzy statement. Therefore, such studies had very limited practical value (except for those carried out by diplomats within the framework of projects implemented by Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine).