The Conditions of Development of Peripheral Areas in the Context of Present-Day Transformations of the International Environment

The author of the article has tried to analyse the influence of transformations taking place in the international environment on the development of the countries and peripheral regions (i.e. regions that are underdeveloped in economic terms). It has been indicated that spontaneous globalisation and liberalisation - on the level of national and regional economies - intensify side effects of the market mechanism which is manifested as adversely growing development imbalances. Market fallibility points to the need of enclosing these processes in institutional frameworks, which would correct market regulations. Compensatory cohesion policy of the European Union makes integration processes more attractive to the underdeveloped countries and regions than the offer of global capitalism. However, overcoming mutual discrepancies between social goals and economic effectiveness still remains a challenge. On the other hand, evolving towards an information society and a knowledge-based society supports holistic and interdisciplinary thinking, where economic rationality is but one of a number of aspects, and not the key issue. Such tendencies favour dissemination of principles of humanism which motivate to reduce unnecessary development disproportions and to carry out sustainable development. At the same time, the fact that some areas are underdeveloped while functioning in a knowledge-based economy is mainly due to the quality factor, hence it is more durable by nature and it requires more time to be eliminated.