The object of the study is separatist movements in Ireland and Catalonia. The purpose of the dissertation research is to formulate and compare the prerequisites for the emergence and features of the conflict in Catalonia and Northern Ireland, to outline the main trends of the impact of these conflicts on global and European integration processes, to determine the prospects of the separatist movement for the modern system of international relations. The methodological basis of the research is philosophical, general scientific and special political scientific research methods. Among the philosophical (universal) methods used are dialectical, hermeneutic and analytical. The basis of the dissertation research is a comparative methodological approach - the study of separatist movements in Ireland and Catalonia. The use of this method makes it possible to carry out a systematic and structured analysis of similar and different features between both cases, providing valuable insights into the dynamics of separatism in different regions of Europe. In addition, in order to achieve the goal set in the dissertation and solve scientific problems, a complex of general scientific and special scientific methods was used, namely: synergistic, content analysis, event analysis, comparative, behaviorist, cognitive mapping, statistical, method of scientific modeling of political reality , integrated application of universal (general science) research methods (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, induction, deduction). The conclusions obtained in the course of the study arouse interest in both scientific and theoretical aspects, as well as in practical aspects, the possibility of their use in: the scientific and research field, the educational process, in the practical activities of politicians and international organizations regarding political decision-making. The scientific novelty of the obtained results is determined by the fact that, for the first time in Ukrainian political science, a thorough and comprehensive study of the phenomenon of separatism was carried out on the example of two separatist movements in Europe – Northern Ireland and Catalonia, and further prospects for the existence of separatism in EU member states were determined, a number of new theoretical conclusions were formulated and generalizations For the first time: a comparison of common and different strategies of separatist movements in Ireland and Catalonia was made; existing concepts regarding the use of the term «separatism», its features, origin are systematized; a comprehensive political and legal analysis of the right to self-determination in EU law and the EU’s response to manifestations of separatism and radicalization was carried out; the prospects of the existence of the problem of separatism and radicalism in Europe in the near future were analyzed and the author’s periodization of the stages of the formation of Catalan and Irish self-identification was developed.
