Competition between Civilizational Models of Development as a Factor of Historical Dynamics and Global Polarization

The problem of global historical dynamics and polarization was investigated in the context of human social evolution civilizational analysis of history, which is theoretically diverse. Two alternative research strategies are noted to be present in this analysis: universalist and particularist. The process of countries and peoples “civilizing” in the context of the evolution of Homo sapiens communities and the realization of a more general macrohistorical trend — the globalization of humanity – was proposed to be considered. In this context humanity “civilizing” is shown to appear as an other-being (“its own other”) of globalization, being realized through a diversity of regional socio-cultural forms that embody this general historical tendency. The largest and most stable of these forms of human coexistence are civilizations and the development models created by them. It is noted that in geopolitical and geoeconomic terms, competition among civilizations for influence, territories and the resources concentrated within them is analogous to the movement of “geological plates” of the Earth crust, the displacement of which determines the dynamics of global history, forming successive “poles of development”. At present humanity is shown to have transitioned from a brief period of dominance by Euro-Atlantic (Anglo-Saxon) civilization, led by the United States, to a multipolar world. This has manifested itself in the revival of civilizational and national self-awareness among the world major regional powers, which have keenly felt an objective confrontation with the West in terms of values and meaning as distinct “civilizational countries”. These events are stated to have stimulated Russia to turn away from the unfriendly West towards the South and the East. Various possible scenarios for possible development of further events have been analyzed in detail in the context of NATO expansion and the Iranian–Israeli conflict.

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