The World of Polycentrism: The Role of Values in Major Powers’ Competition

The Cold War was replaced by the postbipolar world, which is morphing into polycentricity (multipolarity). With all uncertainty of its final parameters and structural pillars, we can assert that the features of the current stage of international relations are selective deglobalization and a new round of major powers’ competition. In the 21st century, centrifugal forces have proved to be stronger than necessity of consolidation in the face of universal challenges: international terrorism, climate change, pandemics, etc. Apart from economic and political contradictions, as well as opposite interpretations of national security interests, the sphere of competition of values has emerged and is going through structuring. The task of this research is to determine if value narratives and accompanying ideologies are causes or consequences of escalation of tensions in the Russia–USA–EU triangle. The author compares the role of value antagonisms at the current stage and in the period of the Soviet−American clash of capitalism and socialism paradigms. It is demonstrated that the geopolitical competition’s resumption is caused not by incompatibility of certain socioeconomic models but by the struggle for leadership in the system of global governance and regulation. During this struggle, the value discourse, which has objective foundation, with time is exposed to profound securitization and geopolitization, leading to the construction of antagonisms: democracies–autocracies and pseudovalues–traditional values. It is noted that in case of hypertrophied usage the values’ differences, with all their objectivity, can evolve from the function of cultural interaction to a self-perpetuating factor of interstate contradictions, which hinders adequate assessment of national and foreign resources and potentials.