THE IDEOLOGY OF REGIONALISM AS A SOCIO-CULTURAL TECHNOLOGY OF THE GLOBALIZING WORLD

The paper examines the phenomenon of the regionalist rhetoric in the Russian mass media space and the activation of regionalist groups and its supporters in Russia in 2012. The author explores the relationship between regionalism-supporters and the civil protests “For Fair Elections” of that period. The paper points out the main arguments and goals of regionalists in Russia. It notes that the regionalists transfer the idea of cultural and political autonomy even to the regions where ethnic Russians are in the majority. The reasons for the regionalist sentiment weakening after Crimea’s return to Russia and the beginning of the war in south-east Ukraine are also explored. The paper examines the phenomenon of regionalism from two different perspectives: on the one hand, it’s a political technique of constructing a new regional identity and a new regional image (in this case regionalism can be compared to the rebranding of regional sociocultural landscape); on the other - it’s an ideology, which launches this technique. The author reviews regionalism as the ideology of cultural, economic and political independence of a region in the modern global world, figuring as one of the forms of the ideology of globalism, levelled against the historic phenomenon of the nation state. In this case regionalism is compared to a new form of nationalism serving the idea of post-Westphalian world order. Additionally, the paper notes that regionalist ideologues in Russia make attempts to use this conception to strengthen domestic protest movements’ agenda