THE GREAT MEDITERRANEAN AS A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT OF POLITICAL RESEARCH

The article is a presentation of the research program for the study of political processes in the greater Mediterranean region; the scientific and practical reasons for actualizubg the problems of political development within the macroregion are demonstrated. Special attention is paid to political evolution in the region, including its transformations and transitions, which have recently put it at the top of the global political agenda. A review of the study of the Mediterranean in the history of socio-political thought and in modern political science is provided. It is proposed that the Greater Mediterranean should be conceptualized as 1) modern States of the Mediterranean, Black, and Azov seas; 2) regions including these States; 3) regions described by the contours of empires and civilizations which had access to the Mediterranean and influenced its development; 4) the middle regions, functionally similar to the Mediterranean; and 5) the scope of multilateral global communications, including the Mediterranean or being correlated with it. This design determines the direction of comparative studies: 1) the manifestation of Mediterranean trends in individual countries and subregions of the "basin"; 2) a comparison of the political dynamics of the Mediterranean with other regions; 3) a comparison of mediterraneans; 4) a correlation of trends in the political development of the Mediterranean and mediterraneans with global trends. Thus, the Great Mediterranean is presented in the article as a subject of political research across a the long historical timeline and in the macroregional spatial "unfolding". It is interpreted as a macroregion - an ecosystem in which, due to its resource and civilizational attractiveness, geopolitical strategies compete and evolve most intensively. This conceptualization helps to reveal a cluster of interrelated problems of political development within the region (transits, migrations, hybrid conflicts, secessions, fragility of states, international legal dysfunctions), and to form a relevant framework for their study.