TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF STATE IN THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATIZATION AND VIRTUALIZATION OF SOCIETY

Abstract

The modern world is in a transitional stage from an industrial to information (post-industrial) society. This process is the fastest in the countries of the Western world (Western civilization). They include the States of Western Europe, North America (Canada, the United States), as well as countries on other continents, which assimilated Western culture, including a political one (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand).

The establishment and further development of the information society is changing not only lives, but also their political organization – the State. Changes of the information society in the functioning of the State are the following. The State ceased to be a monopoly in the field of information, namely storage, creation, and distribution of information, including that of a political nature. Its competitors in this field are numerous non-governmental structures – from international organizations and transnational corporations to municipalities and individuals. There is also crisis in democracy – a system of citizen participation in governance. Having emerged in its modern form over two hundred years ago, it was not designed for a large number of participants of the political process and modern mass communications. States mostly lost control over political processes both on their territory and in their neighbourhood. This, in turn, has led to unprecedented activation of separatism – attempts of citizens on a certain territory to separate from their state in order to join the other more prosperous state or create a new one.

All this requires that the State as a political Institute should meet the challenges of the post-industrial era. First of all, it is introduction of an information policy -targeting the society, forming public opinion by means of the latest information technologies. The main directions of this policy are the following: a) recognizing policy actors values by regions; b) recognizing by the State in its Constitution and legislation the right to self-determination of the regions through regional referendum; c) interests of people from different regions belonging to the State are counted through the combination of elements of unity, federalism and confederation, according to changes in the political situation and the choice of citizens at the regional referendum. Such a State can be called a polystate, that is a State whose territorial system responds to the realities of the information society; d) even in the case of territorial losses the State has a chance to keep the impact on «separatist» territory that might become, for example, a new State, having established confederative relationship with it in the form of a personal or real Union, associated State, economic Union, etc.; e) the State is not a passive Viewer, but an active participant of the political process, guiding it to its benefit and for the benefit of citizens.

It is the way that States of the Western world follow. So, they have a chance in our stormy time not only to become victims of separatism, but also draw their destructive energy in their favour. For example, in the European Union countries, such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, France, Denmark, since the end of the 20th century the asymmetry in their territorial unit has spread. These States are unitary, but within their boundaries there are regions with broader self-government than others. For example, Bolzano in Italy, Catalunya in Spain, Corsica in France etc. Besides, the unitarity in these countries carries certain signs of federalism. Thus, in Italy, even regions with the usual status, that is, formally, without autonomy, have their own statutes (Constitution), and the head of the region is elected by direct election of the people of the region. Thus, the distinction between unitarity and federalism in these countries is erased and their territorial organization can be described as regional and decentralized.

Summing up it should be noted that the right to self-determination of the regions is becoming increasingly common in the countries of the Western world and has a chance to be enshrined in the constitutional law and the policies of these States. States themselves have a tendency to turn into polystates. So, we observe a formation of a new territorial division of information (postindustrial) society.