Post-Soviet Secessionism. Группа авторов
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of them updated, as well as new contributions that jointly address a number of important questions. How do post-Soviet de facto states survive and continue to grow? Is there anything specific about the political ecology of Eastern Europe that provides secessionism with the possibility to launch state-making processes in spite of international sanctions and counteractions of their parental states? How are these secessionist movements embedded in a wider network of separatism in Eastern and Western Europe? And what is the impact of secessionism and war on the parental states?
This book starts with the article written by Bruno Coppieters. The author argues that seceded authorities and parental states countering secession may enter into negotiations with regard to a ceasefire or some trade agreements without implying the recognition of statehood. Coppieters shows how such processes of communication regarding the non-use of force and trade lead to the de-escalation of conflicts, but do not suspend political contestation. Which means that policies of recognition and non-recognition provide the conflicting parties with tools to defend their statuses and identities, as well as to preserve or to strengthen international security. In his article, Coppieters refers to the cases of recognition- and non-recognition-policies regarding Abkhazia, North Cyprus and Transdniestria.
In the second chapter, Mikhail Minakov applies a world-system analysis to define the status of post-Soviet non-recognised states. The author argues that these non-recognised states constitute an ‘extreme periphery’ in relation to ‘the global centre.’ In the decades after the dissolution of the USSR, these breakaway territories or communities turned into a fairly stable network of polities that oppose international law and the global order. This opposition creates a state model that has proved to be sustainable in spite of conflicts and sanctions, and that proliferates across Europe. Minakov also shows how the establishment of the two non-recognised statelets of the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’ was affected not only by the political, military and economic sponsorship of Russia, but also benefitted from cooperation with the ‘governments’ and societies of Transnistria and Abkhazia. This leads the author to the conclusion that the states on the ‘extreme periphery’ tend to cooperate and proliferate regardless of international law and order.
In the third chapter, Petra Colmorgen analyses the parental states facing challenges to their sovereignty. The chapters focuses on Azerbaijan and Georgia in their entangled relations to the de facto statelets and communities living in the non-controlled territories of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and in neighbouring Russia and Turkey. Both parental states share fundamental similarities as peripheral states whose sovereignty has been compromised. But, at the same time, their foreign policy objectives in their relations with Russia and Turkey differ significantly. Emphasizing the ability to exert influence instead of focusing solely on the weakness of smaller states, Colmorgen demonstrates Azerbaijan’s and Georgia’s agency in dealing with their powerful neighbours.
In the fourth chapter, Gwendolyn Sasse and Alice Lackner revisit the famous dictum of Charles Tilly about the link between war-making and state-making. Based on original survey data from 2017 and 2018, Sasse and Lackner analyse Ukrainian society amidst the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, a case of secessionism encouraged and supported by neighbouring Russia. The authors identify a significant shift towards a civic identity centered on the Ukrainian polity, which contradicts the official Ukrainian state rhetoric at the time which focused on a narrower ethno-linguistic definition of the Ukrainian nation and its state. Thus, war does not necessarily increase polarization but can instead encourage a civic sense of belonging.
In the fifth chapter of this book, Nataliia Kasianenko contributes to an examination of the strategies used by the self-proclaimed governments of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ for achieving internal legitimacy. The author reviews how the two regimes use direct democracy for their purposes in the eastern Ukraine. Kasianenko argues that it is possible to attain legitimacy in the absence of external recognition and sovereignty. She shows that the two de facto authorities managed to gain some level of internal legitimacy due to the provision of basic public goods and services for the residents of the non-government-controlled territories of Ukraine.
In a concluding essay Jan Claas Behrends argues that the key to understanding post-Soviet separatism lies in the 20th century history of international and civil conflicts that shaped the unstable geopolitical order in Eastern Europe. The long-term driving force of this underlying instability is the dialectical relationship between nationalist and imperial politics. This dialectic helps to contrast post-Soviet secessionism with examples from Europe and other post-colonial settings.
We hope that our book with its discussion of secessionism challenges will encourage a wider research community to develop more nuanced perspectives on state-dissolving and -building processes in Eastern Europe and to see Europe as one region where macro- and meso-political processes are interconnected rather than being clearly separated into “east” and “west”.
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