Exclavity as a challenge and a resource for foreign positioning of the Kaliningrad region
- Pages
- 77-85
Abstract
The exclusive position of the Kaliningrad region is a fundamental geopolitical factor in its socio-economic and socio-cultural development. Given the region’s foreign positioning, exclavity is both a challenge and a resource. Guided by the principles of factor analysis, through the method of principal components, the author puts forward several theses regarding the possibilities and limitations of exclavity in overcoming foreign positioning of the region. The economic dependence of the Kaliningrad region on the federal government policies inside and outside the country makes the region “fragile” in terms of promoting its sociocultural image. The article shows the tough dependence on the foreign economic decisions of the federal authorities using the development trends of the manufacturing industry in the region as an example. The increased potential conflict around the Russian exclave in the Baltic slows down the convergence of regional interests in the socio-economic sphere with the interests of neighboring countries. Intensified relations with other regions of the Russian Federation could make up for the situation. In practice, such intensification is limited in nature, and results in some cooperation benefits in the short and medium term. While the Kaliningrad region is secured geopolitically by the military superiority of the Russian state over a potential adversary in the Baltic, there are no comparable social and economic guarantees Here, paradoxically, the situation can open up opportunities for increasing the coherence of the narrow, purely peripheral interests of the Russian exclave and the regions of neighboring countries, primarily Lithuania and Poland.