POWER» AS A COMPONENT OF SOCIAL CAPITAL: UKRAINIAN CONTEXT

«SOFT Abstract. The problems of using the «soft power» phenomenon for the protection and satisfaction of the national interests of Ukraine have been considered. It has been substantiated that «soft power» is not limited to the tools of affirmation of one-sided interests of this or that country in international relations; that is a means of improving society’s openness, increasing its internal and external attractiveness, that is the ability to offer social capital that meets general human needs in the post-modern society to the world. It is stressed that such elements of «soft power» as education, cultural infrastructure of the society, national intellectual resources are among the basic, fundamental pillars of the economy of knowledge, and shall, in their turn, be interpreted in the context of social capital development, the country’s human capacity growth, which is not sufficiently taken into account in the cultural and educational policy development so far. The economic and social components of «soft power» remain largely separated from one another. That is one of the core reasons for the paradox: staying in the group of fifty countries with the best systems of higher education in the world, Ukraine holds very modest places in the global rankings as far as the level of educational and cultural qualifications of its citizens are concerned. It has pointed out that information technologies in current educational and cultural practices have extremely for those to influence human but, along with that, have created for their transformation into a type of business with substantial financial issue of the methodology of estimating the economic of educational, cultural, and creative industries country’s is highly relevant, since it would help develop clear criteria for the state policy aimed at the development of those domains. The range of problems related to social costs of modernization of educational and cultural activity has been considered. The following conclusion has been substantiated: it is necessary to coordinate the process of modernization of the cultural domain and the educational system of Ukraine with the long-term social and economic development strategy as well as the technological structure of the national economy. The results obtained may be used for the determination of priorities in the state policy of educational and cultural infrastructure modernization.

Introduction. This topic is relevant and widely discussed in different directions of social studies. As the author of the theory of «soft power» J. Nye states, it lies in «the ability to engage and persuade. While hard power -the ability to coerce -is based on the military or economic might of the country, soft power appears on the basis of attractiveness of the country's culture, political ideals and policies» [1]. In our opinion, the effect of «soft power» is not limited to the tools of affirmation of one-sided interests of this or that country in international relations, while normally «hard power» resources are used for that. In its turn, «soft power» is a means of improving openness of the country, its attractiveness, capacity to offer human capital meeting the needs of post-modern society to the world. This is stated, in particular, in publications on the using of attractive national characteristics in international relations [2], neighborhood policy [3], using of the country's cultural influence on foreign economic partners [4], promotion of the national language in partner countries [5].
Analysis of studies and problem statement. In the conditions when a new system of the world policy is developed, capacity to efficiently affirm national interests depends more and more on such resources of «soft power» as «state development strategy, identification efficiency of the ideology and value orientations, social policy, development model, capacity to implement the main development line and strategy that unites the society, creative power of the nation, culture, and power of influence in international relations» [6]. Most authors of such studies state that so far Ukraine has not engaged all available «soft power» resources and stress the need for a targeted state policy of supporting positive and neutralizing negative factors that are active in the field [7].
Though in the context of «soft power» normally the global leading states are meant -the USA, EU countries, Russia, or China, as the authors of the study «Soft power» of Ukraine in the region: a tool of an effective foreign policy» stress, any country may have «soft power». The aim of the above project was exactly to make Ukraine popular among the neighboring states for it to be able to use this attractiveness for the sake of satisfying its own state interests [8]. «Soft power» consolidation aimed at improvement of Ukraine's reputation abroad and further reinforcement of its positions in the world is considered by the Ukrainian state as one of the fundamental tasks. In this respect Minister D. Kuleba, in the discussion of Ukraine's results in the global «soft power» index of 2021 р. Global Soft Power Index, pointed out the growth of Ukraine's soft power index this year and indicated that «synergy of all power institutions, civil society, experts, business is required. «Soft power» is not generated at one single place. It is like a river that gets its power as the result of all inflows and springs filling it. We cooperate closely with the ministries of culture, economy, the state agency for tourism development, and other authorities in order to ensure the synergy of effort» [9].
Research results. «Soft power», definitely, the same as any other tool, can be used to achieve objectives going in diametrically opposite directions, depending on the intentions of those who apply it. For our country of importance is both how it should use its own «soft power», and how «soft power» is used by other states in relation to Ukraine. For example, in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation, where it constitutes an organic component of the National Security Strategy, state documents from year to year keep reflecting the core principles: improvement of cultural and information impact, strengthening of the scientific and educational tradition, implementation of the idea of expansion of the «Russkiy mir». Thus, the National Security Strategy of the RF until 2020 (it is important to note -in the section dedicated not to internal humanitarian development aspects, but exactly in the context of security) directly stresses that national security with application of culture in the mid-term and long-term prospect is achieved via «development of the general humanitarian as well as information and telecommunication environment within the space of the CIS countries and in the intermediate regions» (underlined by the author of the article) [10]. The RF's National Security Strategy approved by the Decree of the President of that country on July 2, 2021 stresses such provisions as «increasing the role of the Russian Federation in the global humanitarian, cultural, scientific, and educational space, strengthening the positions of the Russian language as the language of international communication» (underlined by the author of the article), «support provision to fellow countrymen living abroad», «strengthening fraternal contacts between the Russian, Belarus, and Ukrainian peoples» [11]. There is no need to comment upon the fact that «strengthening of the positions of the Russian language», «support provision to fellow countrymen», and «strengthening fraternal contacts» in the context of Ukrainian-Russian relationship became just an excuse for transforming «soft power» into «hard power». However, one of the reasons for this also was excessive «softness» of our «soft power» at the level of state institutions, its insufficient capacity to «engage and persuade».
Ukrainian «Foreign Political Activity of Ukraine», declared as «a systemic strategic document on foreign policy», developed in 2021, for the first time over thirty years of independence [12], also directly mentions the use of «soft power» -«via means of public diplomacy for establishing new political contacts, development of trade and economic partnership, dissemination of reliable information about the development and achievements of Ukraine» [12]. The «Strategy» rightfully stresses such objectives that are components of «soft power» as «activated development of relationships with other states … in the cultural and humanitarian, sci-tech fields», «more active engagement of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the United Nations Organization in the issues of education, science, and culture (UNESCO)», «contacts with ethnic Ukrainians living beyond it (Ukraine. -І. S.), … satisfaction of their national and cultural as well as language needs», «preservation of the objects of cultural heritage of Ukraine abroad» [13].
If the priorities prescribed in 254 paragraphs of the cited document are compared with the above similar objectives of the Russian Federation (improvement of the role of the RF in the global cultural, scientific, and educational space, strengthening the positions of the Russian language, development of the pro-Russian humanitarian as well as information and telecommunication environment in the territories of the neighboring countries), the resources of Ukraine that are still waiting for their scientific interpretation and practical implementation become noticeable.
Here the ability not just «to develop cultural contacts» is meant, but also the ability to actively and persistently integrate own cultural processes in the global cultural space, to efficiently protect own humanitarian as well as information and telecommunication environment against the striving to make it «general» on the conditions of the aggressor state.
There is some grain of truth in the statements that the world loves beauty, but respects only power. However, more important is another truth: each country gets affirmed in the global community via its cultural and civilization capacity, and, therefore, educational, scientific, cultural resources of Ukraine should be perceived not as the reason for admiring the beauty of the language, songs, embroidery, etc., but as the capacity to create and multiply human capital meeting the needs of not just economy, but social development in general.
Here is that the key to the efficiency of Ukrainian «soft power» lies -in approaching it as social capital into which it is expedient to invest social resources and expect effective return. It is by no accident that such elements of «soft power» as education, communication infrastructure of the society, national intellectual capital have been included by the World Bank experts to the basic fundamental pillars of the economy of knowledge [14]. That must pre-determine the core direction of modernization of Ukraine's system of education through the prism of social capital generation. In the conditions of the «society of knowledge» there takes place a deep transformation: not losing its sense as the field of citizens' social rights implementation, the system of education at the same time acquires the functions of the innovative system of generation of knowledge, competences, and infrastructural services that are supra-important factors of knowledge concentration and restoration of the intellectual elite, ensuring global competitive leadership of states and enterprises [15].
An important trend in the education system development in Ukraine is the fact that over the three decades of the existence of the independent state the principles of its organization have transformed from administrative command state paternalism with «free-of-charge» education of all levels to the market of educational services. The social and economic task of ensuring interconnection of the market of educational services with the market of innovative products and the market of skilled labour force has come to the foreground. In this direction the goal of the system of education has been worded in the Law of Ukraine «On Higher Education» as of July 01, 2014: to train competitive human capital for high-tech and innovative development of the country, selffulfillment of individuals, meeting the needs of the society, the labour market and the state for qualified professionals.
However, this task it not yet fully performed within the current system of education, since its economic and social components remain considerably detached from one another. That, in particular, is proven by the reduction of the already low figure of employment of the graduates of higher educational institutions: while in 2010 right after graduation from higher educational institutions 27.8 % graduates were officially employed, in 2018 the figure was only 12.1 %which means that almost 88.0 % of the graduates of higher educational institutions were forced to get employed on their own, since, in fact, they were not in demand in the labour market. Over the period from 2010 to 2018 the scope of the state order for the training in higher educational institutions went 41.8 % down [16].
The dynamics of higher education infrastructure over the period of independence of Ukraine is provided in Table. Attention is attracted to the increase in the number of universities, academies, institutes, not supported by the improved quality of educational services, that took place in the conditions of decrease of the country's population, as well as some trend to the optimization of the number of higher educational institutions which may be considered to have started in the 2010/11 academic year.
It is logical that the «Strategy of Higher Education Development in Ukraine for 2021-2031», on the basis of analysis of the global indices and rankings of the level and quality of higher education, states the controversy available in the Ukrainian educational infrastructure: by the share of residents having higher education or just getting it, Ukraine is in the group of fifty countries with the best systems of higher education of the world, but the leading world rankings of universities include just several Ukrainian institutions which take by far not the top positions [16]. The strengths and opportunities creating the actual basis for the respective response to the current challenges of the educational environment of Ukraine include an expanded network of higher educational institutions, aiming to provide educational services on a mass scale, diversified educational offer, sufficient number of highly-qualified scientific teaching staff members, transparent procedures of accessing higher education, stable demand, and high level of population coverage with higher education. The country has a number of scientific schools producing worldlevel scientific results, which keep supporting the history of research traditions and teaching methodologies. Our educational system is widely involved in the processes of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of the educational space, IT industry and digitalization are rapidly developing.
However, the efficiency of those factors goes considerably down due to numerous negative factors. The main problem, according to the authors of the Strategy of Higher Education Development in Ukraine for 2021-2031, is absence of the long-term strategy of social and economic development of Ukraine, on which the choice of the educational system model meeting the objectives of the country's future definitely depends. In combination with poor technological system of the national economy, intensified deindustrialization and de-intellectualization of the country, this poses a real threat for the plans of modernization of the system of education.
The regulatory legal basis of education remains imperfect and unstable; thus, the Law of Ukraine «On Higher Education» has already undergone 34 revisions from the date it was passed on July 01, 2014 till 2020. The country still has a considerable number of uncompetitive general educational institutions and higher educational institutions, they have got outdated material and technical base. The system of budget resources allocation between educational institutions remains imperfect. The salaries of the scientific and teaching staff in Ukraine are much lower than in the leading countries. As the result, just over the period from 2010 to 2019 the overall number of teachers of colleges, technical schools and vocational schools has gone down by 36.9 %, and that of lecturers of universities, academies, and institutes -by 22.4 %. The Law of Ukraine «On Education» pre-determines that the state shall allocate funding for the field of education amounting to no less than 7.0 % of the GDP out of the national, local budgets and from other finance sources not banned by the legislation. But, except for 2010, this norm has been violated: thus, the share of costs of higher education in percentage to GDP has gone down from 1.6 % in 2015 to 1.3 % in 2018 and to 1.2 % in 2019. The qualifications of graduates do not meet labour market requirements, and that evokes the society's distrust in the system of education as far as the demand for the knowledge gained is concerned. And the authors of the «Strategy» speak about the absence of any objective, valid, reliable indication of the quality of higher education.
The problems of modernization of the educational infrastructure is further aggravated due to the fact that, as D. O. Ilnytskyi points out, «when it comes to the infrastructure, the market often proves its incapacity to ensure its efficiency, therefore the state has to invest into its development» [15], while the state, as the dynamics of education funding shows, does not consider this to be one of its priorities. Therefore, more realistic seem to be the prospects of the conceptual model of the educational infrastructure, based on the principles of the «required diversity», that is built jointly by both state entities and local self-government bodies, and on the basis of public private partnership, cooperation of business structures and associations with academic centres and universities, patronage, and international educational cooperation.
Educational issues take one of the leading places in the scientific literature dedicated to human development matters. Unfortunately, less attention is paid to the role of cultural domain, though it has a critical effect on social stability, successful performance of the tasks of social medium consolidation and human personality development adequate to the current needs. Let us point out that J. Nye among the «three pillars» on which «soft power» is kept names culture as number one, while international politics appears to be in the third place, after political values the country has [18]. We consider the need for the respective shift of emphasis in the determination of the priorities of Ukraine's social policy to be expedient and well-grounded.
That is primarily necessary since there exists a wide range of problems intrinsically linked to considerable public finance spending, reform of the economic principles of cultural activity, revision of a large number of legislative acts. Since a considerable part of the objects of Ukrainian cultural infrastructure were created in order to meet other objectives -in the Soviet times, when culture was an ideological tool. The networks of cinemas, houses of culture, museums built as the institutions of the Communist propaganda have not been modernized to follow the realia of the independent state, vice versa -today they are largely lost: ruined, their functional designation has been changed, or they do not function at all.
Researchers and practitioners in the field of culture, in fact, are unanimous about determining the core problems of the cultural domain: 1. It is overloaded with outdated infrastructure which becomes less and less funded from year to year and is not refurbished.
2. Public expenses for cultural objectives are insufficient, and their use is inefficient. And 70 % of the units/offices/departments dealing with the issues of culture in communities have never submitted any applications for any grant programs to involve external funding [19]. Chronic underfunding leads to the neglect of the social and awareness-raising as well as innovative role of culture.
3. Gradual decay of the objects of intangible and tangible cultural heritage undermines the society's capacity to protect and re-translate historical memory.
4. The level of cultural competence and cultural practices of Ukrainians is much lower than that of the residents of the European countries. The residents have insufficient skills developed in the cultural domain. 5. Current system of intellectual property protection does not provide adequate protection of copyright and related rights in the field of culture.
To overcome those problems, it is necessary to adjust the model of the cultural field and educational system of Ukraine to the long-term strategy of social and economic development as well as technological order of the national economy. In particular, improvement of the system of budget resource distribution in the field of education must bring in public allocations in correspondence to the Law of Ukraine «On Education», that states that the state ensures allocations for education in the amount of no less than 7.0 % of GDP.
In the state standards of education the results of training and competences of graduates must be brought into conformity with the European Qualifications Framework and the Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Space, in particular, as far as their cultural component is concerned.
The long-term strategy of cultural policy and cultural practices in Ukraine must presuppose expansion of self-regulation and self-organization of culture, application of the principles of transparency and publicity, establishment of the system of state and public support of innovative forms of culture, aimed at the adaptation of the Ukrainian society to the global processes.
Information technologies in cultural practices have extremely expanded the opportunities for the effect of cultural factors on human development, but, along with that, have created conditions for their transformation into a variety of business activity, with huge financial resources. Therefore, the issue of the methodology of calculating economic contribution of cultural and creative industries into the country's GDP remains relevant. It is necessary to facilitate economic activity in the field of culture, to lift irrational restrictions related to the use of public finance, long-term preferences for cultural and artistic sector via provision of tax benefits and exemption from payment of customs duties, efficient state stimulation of non-budget, patronage and other charity funds in the finance of cultural and artistic activity, public private partnership for carrying out cultural and art projects. Considerable innovations are required for the promotion of Ukrainian culture abroad, in particular, via the mechanisms of selective support of cultural entities that are most capable of that [20].
Conclusions. «Soft power» in modern humanitarian policy of Ukraine stands for the capacity of our society to offer the cultural and civilization model of human relations, based on value orientations disclosing the nation's creative power, to the world. However, the necessary precondition for the development of social capital as the basis of «soft power» in Ukraine must be modernization of cultural and educational policy: approval of the model for provision of Ukraine's cultural domain and education system with a long-term strategy of social and economic development and technological system of the national economy; expansion of self-regulation and self-organization of education and culture, application of the principles of transparency and publicity, establishment of the system of state and public support of innovative forms of education and culture, facilitation of economic activity in the field of culture, removal of irrational restrictions related to the use of public finance, public private partnership in the implementation of educational, cultural, and art projects.