Information on the thesis

The dissertation investigates the factors and characteristics of geospatial political activity (PA) in Western Ukraine in modern conditions.

The scientific-theoretical and methodological foundations of human geographical research of PA of the large region were elaborated. The scientific approaches to the interpretation of the PA and the key options for its structuring were explained. The human geographical nature of political activity was revealed. The main concepts and terminology were explored and defined more accurately. The typical criteria of PA separation were proposed. Component (PA division into types) and geospatial (PA level division) structure of PA was justified. The following forms of territorial PA organization such as political and geographical core, node, sub-region, region were distinguished.

The main factors of shaping the political activity of the region have been analyzed and their classification was suggested. The priority of the criteria of territorial coverage for the classification of factors PA, which selected global, national, regional and local factors are distinguished. Global factors are external to a certain state and are divided into geopolitical, geoeconomic and geocultural. National factors (legal, general political and information) are through out the country, but the intensity of their impact is not uniform in all areas. Regional factors manifest themselves in the territory of a particular region and are divided into natural geographical and human geographical factors. The latter include the human geographical position of the region, historical geographical, ethnogeographical, demogeographical, social geographical, economic geographic and information factors. Among the local factors which are at the level of elementary manifested forms of territorial organization of political activity of the population, local natural geographical features as well as local socio-economic conditions, the activities of local authorities and local political parties, especially the social interaction have been discriminated. The degree of factors influence on the formation and detection of PA region components was assessed. The importance of the criteria for spatial scale in PA factors classification is emphasized.

The spatio-temporal as well as structural and functional analyses of PA types in the region (ideological, electoral, professional and protest) were carried out. The map models of the development and spatio-temporal transformation of PA in the region were designed. The integrated assessment of the population PA in Western Ukraine has been made relying on multidimensional factor, index and cluster methods. Region ranging in terms of PA was made. Such forms of territorial PA organization PA as core, node, sub-region were distinguished and characterized. The scripts of PA changes in the region were suggested. Certain steps to guarantee the PA for substantial optimization of the election, party and political system of the country have been proposed.

Key words: political activity, ideological activity, electoral activity, professional activity, protest activity, forms of territorial PA organization, region.