Incomplete Secession after Unresolved Conflicts Political Order and Escalation in the Post-Soviet Space Routledge Studies in Statehood Series

This book analyses cases of incomplete secession after separatist wars and what this means for relations between central governments and de facto states.

The work explores the interplay between violence and power by examining the micro-dynamics inherent in the process of escalation between separatists and central governments. These dynamics affect not only the security interactions between these entities, but also the character of political and governance relations that are built in the aftermath of secessionist war. The book provides comprehensive analyses of the evolution of post-conflict relations between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria and between Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Beyond these empirical and conceptual examples, the book contributes to a key debate in International Relations that addresses the relationship between democratisation, nationalism and violence, and its applicability to the study of escalation in the post-Soviet space.

This book will be of much interest to students of secession, statehood, conflict studies, democratisation, post-Soviet politics and International Relations in general.

Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Introduction Part I: Contested concepts: De-facto states and the exercise of authority in the aftermath of secessionist war 1. From secessionist wars to incomplete secession 2. Post-conflict political order: Conceptualizing the exercise of authority under conditions of incomplete secession Part II: Political order and escalation in the post-Soviet space 3. Political order and escalation in the Republic of Moldova. Between accommodation of secessionist demands and stalemate with Transnistria 4. Political order and escalation in Georgia: The failure to accommodate Abkhazia’s secessionist demands 5. Political order and escalation in Georgia: From stalemate to confrontation with South Ossetia Part III: Understanding the dynamics of post-conflict political order 6. Democratization, elections and the politics of secession and counter-secession: Understanding escalation in political order 7. External actors and the principles of the liberal international order: Addressing the crisis of the nation state Conclusion

Ana Maria Albulescu has a PhD in War Studies Research from King’s College London, UK. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Romanian Centre for Russian Studies, University of Bucharest.