The study of the place and role of countries in the system of modern international relations is due to the need to identify asymmetries and contradictions that are inherent in a globalizing society. The paper is aimed at determining the global status of countries and to interpreting the present state of their positioning. Summarizing the scientific principles that form the idea of the state of the global society and options for its possible transformation confirms the relevance of the analysis on this issue. The paper presents an approach to the parametric estimation of the global status of countries, the necessity of which is due to the unresolved problem in the thematic field of these scientific studies. The methodological basis for determining the global status of countries is the synthesis of the effects of the internal factors of the national systems development by the spheres (economic, technological, social, spiritual and cultural, political, as well as the functioning of state institutions, and natural resource management), the synergistic effect of the interdependence of all components of such social and natural complexes (the effects of the aggregated endogenous factor) and the effect of globalization (the exogenous factor). By an aggregate assessment of the situation, the status of countries reflects the current picture of the world and the configuration of forces in the system of modern international relations and is also considered as a functional transformation of the globalized world. The method of scientific analysis is agglomerative clustering, conducted with a software algorithm and implemented in Python. An empirical analysis is based on data from international organizations for 2018. The analysis involves data from 142 countries. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves the fact of the modern world asymmetry, which is a serious challenge to a globalized society. At the same time, the emergence of asymmetry is a warning; a signal of the existence of a threat of systemic contradictions on a global scale. Therefore, asymmetries contain not only the potential of destruction but also the potential for a qualitatively better restructuring of the world. Taking into account this fact and continuous monitoring of changes based on the assessment of the global status of countries allow to identify the options for the future development of civilization and to prevent such negative phenomena as global problems, risks, crises and others, including the global catastrophe. Keywords: globalization, globalized society, the global status of countries, country positioning, contradiction, asymmetry.

The article examines the vector and structural changes in the modern world, caused by exogenous and endogenous factors and identified on the basis of determining the countries status taking into account the processes of changing their positions according to the group affiliation (hegemonic countries, applicant countries, «third world» countries, as well as other countries which gravitate to the world vanguard or rearguard ones). The proposed methodology of research into the countries global status is based on a comprehensive approach to the analysis of socio-natural systems, presented as a combination of economic, political, innovative, social and spiritual spheres, as well as the sphere of functioning of institutions and the sphere of human interaction with nature. The k-means clustering and the fuzzy logic apparatus were used to find out the vector and structural changes taking place in a globalized society. The analysis is based on processing the country data by the following indicators: the KOF Globalization Index, the Legatum Prosperity Index, the Global Competitiveness Index, the Global Innovation Index, the Human Development Index, the Fragile States Index, and the Environmental Performance Index (2009—2018). They were selected as the attributes, the set of which allows to distinguish clusters. The countries were clustered according to the components of their socio-natural systems. According to the Index of Global Status of Countries, the place that belongs to the subjects of international relations was estimated and their status was identified. On this basis, the differences in the development of the countries were detected. Significant differences in the positioning of states in the globalized world were objectified. The conditions of the formation of countries global status and the causes of the status dynamics were revealed. The fact of asymmetry, polarization and inequality progression was proved. It was demonstrated that the study of vector and structural changes occurring in the world economic system and globalized society extends the scientific notion about the present day systemic contradiction of the post-industrial and post-capitalist eras of the globalized world being formed.