Особливості парадипломатії Львівської області у глобальній політиці
Peculiarities of paradiplomacy of the Lviv region in global politics

Summary/Abstract: Paradiplomacy has been one of the leading trendsin global politics over the past 50 years. Ukraine is no ex-ception, as after the restoration of its sovereign statehoodin 1991, it allowed its territorial communities to engage insome transnational activity, especially in the framework ofthe country’s European integration. However, the attemptsof Ukraine’s regions to become subjects of global politicshave not been studied sufficiently, unlike their European(cross-border) activities, both because of the researchers’emphasis on the latter and because of the theoretical andpractical difficulties of studying the paradiplomacy of theregions of unitary states in general. Against this background,the study of the global activity of the authorities of the Lvivregion, a region of a unitary state, especially under martiallaw, which is characterized by the concentration of powerin the hands of the center of the state, and on the ground– in state bodies as opposed to self-governing ones, is animportant case that shows the practical ability of regionsof unitary states to act in global politics. Moreover, Lvivregion, with its border location, is active in cross-borderrelations with regions and communities of EU memberstates. Therefore, it should demonstrate similar activity inrelations with subnational actors from other continents andparts of the world. However, an analysis of the website ofthe self-governing regional authority (Lviv Oblast Counciland its specialized units) involved in international (trans-national) activities shows that in its international activities,the relations of the Lviv Oblast of Ukraine with Europeancountries and regions are dominated by similar attempts toact in the global arena. This global activity of the region-al council, as a regional government body, is focused onseveral economically and politically important countries(the United States, India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan) and oneintergovernmental organization – the United Nations. Thisis paradoxical against the background of more balancedtransnational (bilateral, continental, global) activity of theauthorities of the regional center, Lviv. This fact, on the onehand, can be explained by the difference in the status of a re-gion and a city in a unitary state, which traditionally grantsthe right of subjectivity in transnational relations, and evenin global politics, to individual local communities, but not totheir associations – regions, for reasons of national security,in particular territorial integrity. On the other hand, it canbe explained by the fact that the region’s global activity isdriven by image and humanitarian considerations ratherthan economic ones, and therefore cannot be fruitful andlasting without an economic basis. This is in contrast to thecooperation of Lviv region with the EU and its memberstates and regions, which has a substantial economic content.

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