The Politics of International Interaction with de facto States

Conceptualising Engagement without Recognition

Eiki Berg, James Ker-Lindsay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367139858
• eBook ISBN: 9780429644023
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This comprehensive volume is the first systematic effort to explore the ways in which recognised states and international organisations interact with secessionist 'de facto states', while maintaining the position that they are not regarded as independent sovereign actors in the international system. It is generally accepted by policy makers and scholars that some interaction with de facto states is vital, if only to promote a resolution of the underlying conflict that led to their decision to break away, and yet this policy of 'engagement without recognition' is not without complications and controversy. This book analyses the range of issues and problems that such interaction inevitably raises. The authors highlight fundamental questions of sovereignty, conflict management and resolution, settlement processes, foreign policy and statehood.

This book will be of interest to policy makers, students and researchers of international relations. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Ethnopolitics.

1 A Conceptual Framework for Engagement with de facto States

James Ker-Lindsay & Eiki Berg

ABSTRACT Secessionist de facto states, by their very nature, sit outside of the international system. Having unilaterally declared independence from their parent state, they are invariably prevented from joining the United Nations, and thus taking their place as members of the community of universally recognised countries. While the reasons for such punitive approaches have a logic according to prevailing political and legal approaches to secession, it is also recognised that isolation can have harmful effects. Ostracising de facto can not only hinder efforts to resolve the dispute by reducing their willingness to engage in what they see as an asymmetrical settlement process, it can also force them into a closer relationship with a patron state. For this reason, there has been growing interest in academic and policy circles around the concept of engagement without recognition. This is a mechanism that provides for varying degrees of interaction with de facto states while maintaining the position that they are not regarded as independent sovereign actors in the international system. As is shown, while the concept has its flaws, it nevertheless opens up new opportunities for conflict management.

The study of de facto states—also known as contested states, unrecognised states or partially recognised states—has gained prominence in International Relations in recent years (Ker-Lindsay, 2017a; Pegg, 2017). What was once regarded as a rather marginal issue in the field has now become a growing area of interest to both scholars and practitioners. This attention has been driven by the increasing number of secessionist territories that have emerged over the past three decades. Prior to 1990, there was essentially just one separatist de facto state, the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (TRNC), otherwise known as Northern Cyprus. Now a multitude of such entities exist. The end of the Cold War saw the emergence of breakaway territories across the former Soviet Union, most notably Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Meanwhile, the wars in the former Yugoslavia not only saw the creation of two de facto states that eventually disappeared—Republika Srpska Krajina, in Croatia, and Republika Srpska, in Bosnia and Herzegovina—it also paved the way for the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. Further afield, Somaliland is perhaps the best example of a non-European de facto state. Meanwhile, more de facto states appear to be emerging. The conflict in Ukraine has seen the creation of several territories—namely the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’ Republic of Luhansk—that some observers, though by no means all, believe to be nascent de facto states.

With the growth of de facto states, academic attention on these entities has also blossomed. As well as the seminal literature that has defined the nature of de facto states (Bahceli, Bartman, & Srebrnik, 2004; Caspersen & Stansfield, 2011; Geldenhuys, 2009; Pegg, 1999), recent studies have sought to examine a range of other features of these entities. For example, there is a growing body of work that explores the internal political dynamics of de facto states (Broers, 2013; Caspersen, 2012; O’Loughlin, Kolossov, & Toal, 2014). However, the majority of work is still focused on the way in which de facto states interact with other actors on the world stage. While the work on how de facto states actually forge their foreign policies is rather less than one might imagine, there is a growing interest in this area (Caspersen, 2015; Comai, 2017; Ó Beacháin, Comai, & Tsurtsumia-Zurabashvili, 2016; Newman & Visoka, 2018). At the other end of the equation, rather more work is needed on the way in which the parent states try to prevent de facto states from gaining a foothold in the international system (Ker-Lindsay, 2012). Related to this, the role of major powers and supra-national bodies in the process of recognition and acceptance has also been the subject of interest by scholars (Berg & Pegg, 2018; Coggins, 2014; Ker-Lindsay, 2017b; Kyris, 2015; Relitz, 2016; Sterio, 2013). One area that has attracted considerable attention in recent years is the way in which states and international bodies can engage with secessionist territories that they do not recognise (Berg & Toomla, 2009; Lynch, 2004; Ker-Lindsay, 2015; Toomla, 2016).

The Hostility of External Environment

De facto states, by their very nature, stand outside the established international system. However, this was not always the case. At one time, the international community was willing to accept territories that had seceded and had managed to prove their objective existence as independent and sovereign states—in other words, they had proven their de facto statehood (Fabry, 2009). However, over the past 70 years, this approach has been abandoned. Since the emergence of the contemporary international system, following the end of the Second World War, there has been a fundamental shift in the way in which states respond to acts of secession. Rather than accept territories that have broken away without permission and created the structures of independent statehood, the international community has almost uniformly condemned such actions. With very few exceptions, territories that have seceded unilaterally have been ostracised by the community of sovereign states. Indeed, only one country has seceded without the permission of its parent state and eventually managed to secure membership of the United Nations. This was Bangladesh, which seceded from Pakistan in the early 1970s. Although Kosovo has managed to gain a significant degree of acceptance and is now recognised by over 110 members of the United Nations, including the United States and most of the European Union, its hopes for universal recognition, in the form of full UN membership, is curtailed by strong opposition from Russia and China. Its path to tacit international acceptance is also obstructed by leading regional powers around the world, including India, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. For other secessionist territories, the picture of international acceptance has been far bleaker. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have secured a mere handful of recognitions, despite considerable lobbying Russia, by their patron. Northern Cyprus is still only recognised by Turkey. Somaliland, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh are each yet to be unrecognised by a single UN member state.

In view of this hostility towards acts of unilateral secession, the international community encounters a fundamental problem when dealing with de facto states. On the one hand, there is a deep reluctance by the parent state and other external parties to interact with the authorities and institutions of a breakaway territory for fear of legitimising, if not legalising, their status. By being seen to be interacting with them too extensively, there is a danger that the impression is given that these territories are implicitly accepted. On the other hand, isolating such territories rarely leads to their demise and eventual reintegration into the state from which they have seceded. Instead, it often means that they become increasingly dependent on an external patron. It also reduces their political determination to reach a settlement as they feel that they are being as unequal parties to the dispute, both by the parent state and by the international community. As experience has shown, this punitive approach can in fact hinder efforts to reach a viable and mutually acceptable solution. To this end, it is important to try to find some sort of balance. While it is often crucial not to give the impression that the act of separatism is condoned, an overly harsh reaction can undermine settlement efforts.

Alternative to Punitive Measures

In this context, there has been a growing interest, both among scholars and practitioners, in the concept of ‘engagement without recognition’. In the policyfield, the credits go to Peter Semneby, the then EU special representative for the South Caucasus. It was his brainchild, in 2009, to produce a non-paper in which he articulated the vision of interaction with break-away territories without compromising Georgia’s territorial integrity within the post-2008 August war context (De Waal, 2017). The key point of the paper was that it sought to enhance the EU’s engagement and leverage on the regional level so that the communication channels were kept open. These ideas were also presented in a report of the EU Institute for Security Studies (Fischer, 2010) and then systematically explored in the academic literature by Cooley and Mitchell (2010).

Essentially, the concept aims to explore how various actors, including the parent state and third parties, interact with separatist entities without being seen to accept them as independent and sovereign states. The intention behind engagement has been to undermine illiberal practices and promote change, while interactions with despicable regimes or activities under unusual legal and political circumstances remain unhindered (Smith, 2005). Rather than the threat of punishment, engagement has relied on the promise of rewards to influence the target’s behaviour (Schweller, 2005). By engagement, the US, for instance, has sought to increase its leverage and footprint in conflicts which affected its national interests while at the same time not compromising with the sacrosanct principles holding up post-Second World War international legal order (Berg & Pegg, 2018).

As a tool of conflict management, ‘engagement without recognition’ can be extremely powerful. It contains both economic (trade, aid and credits) and political (implied recognition and membership) incentives; it may open up official channels of communication or remain merely at the people-to-people contact level. To many observers, it seems only logical that innovative methods of interacting with de facto states should be sought; if only to prevent de facto states from being driven ever closer into the arms of a patron state. Overall, the widespread opinion is that engagement provides alternatives to punitive policies, and therefore has become the only serious policy frame available for the accommodation of de facto states.

There are indications that some of the traditional narrative on how sovereign states deal with de facto states is ripe for revisions. Especially the conventional wisdom that de facto states are typically shunned as illegal pariahs seems to be wrong (Pegg & Berg, 2016). In reality, however, the concept of ‘engagement without recognition’ remains both undertheorised and under-analysed. Upon closer inspection, there are a whole range of issues that emerge when trying to apply the notion of engagement without recognition in practical terms. As the contributions to this volume show, interacting with de facto states is far from straightforward.

The Power of Definitions and Stigmatisation

In the opening contribution, Bruno Coppieters explores the meaning of de facto statehood. As is explained, the term ‘de facto state’ is not merely a way to describe a particular type of political entity in the international system. It goes far beyond this. The notion of ‘de facto statehood’ and the use of other terminology in the context of de facto states, such as ‘de facto authorities’ and ‘occupation’, are fundamentally normative. They are used to define the very nature of these territories as autonomous political actors in the political system. Such terms are often used to undermine their claim to full independence and statehood in the future. There can be a wide range of ways that the international community can respond to de facto states, depending on the terminology it uses and makes its actions meaningful. In order to illustrate this, the piece explores the way in which the European Union interacts with de facto states. To this end, ‘engagement without recognition’can perhaps be thought of as a more benign outcome than the concept of ‘engagement and non-recognition’, which refers to a more prevalent state of affairs in secessionist disputes where there is a policy of collective non-recognition, but an understanding that some form of interaction, to a greater or lesser degree, can be beneficial.

Following on from this, James Ker-Lindsay explores the way in which de facto states are stigmatised within the international system and how this shapes the degree of interaction they enjoy with external actors. Given the strong opposition to secession by the international community, de facto states have often found themselves ostracised. On closer inspection, there is in fact a wide variation in the way in which de facto states engage with the outside world. This variation can be described by systemic, contextual and national factors. The systemic factors refer to the broad opprobrium attached to acts of secession and the way that this is then translated in formal international opposition. The contextual factors may include particular historical elements that might mitigate the act of secession. Finally, the national factors address the concerns of the state that is considering engagement with a de facto state. Interestingly, as is shown, the levels of stigmatisation, and therefore the degree of engagement without recognition, can change with the passage of time. To this extent, stigmatisation should be thought of as a spectrum, rather than a dividing line.

The Reception of Engagement Practices

While the position of the international community towards ‘engagement without recognition' is crucial, the position of the parties is also vital. In her contribution, Nina Caspersen explores the very different ways in which de facto states and their parent states consider the question of engagement. The parent state is usually keen to see engagement that could pave the way for the future reintegration of the secessionist region. It will therefore focus its efforts on engagement with the population of a breakaway territory, rather than the authorities of the entity. In contrast, the de facto state will often view engagement with the parent state with considerable suspicion. It will prefer to focus instead on international engagement. These processes of external engagement are naturally viewed as a vital mechanism for underlining their self-determination and thereby securing eventual widespread acceptance and formal recognition. However, as the study shows, there is also a great deal of variation in how de facto states respond to differing forms of engagement.

Continuing on from this examination of the ways in which the parties to a conflict regard engagement practices, Eiki Berg and Kristel Vits explore the foreign policy practices of de facto states. As they highlight, de facto states try to compensate their marginal position with patron-client relations. But this creates a dilemma. While it may strengthen their position, it also undermines their legitimacy. They are not seen as actors fighting for self-determination. They are seen as mere proxies for an external power. To overcome this, they are often forced to try to engage more actively on the international stage. This presents outside actors with a problem. Do they want to cement the patron’s power over the territory by isolating the de facto state? Or do they want to break that hold, but in doing so run the risk of legitimising them, and antagonising the parent state? As the authors explore the ways in which four post-Soviet de facto states seek to engage with the wider world, they show that the avenues for international engagement are often far greater than many observers realise. In some cases, they are able to establish extensive networks of international offices. They also draw on diaspora communities. However, their attempts to reach out to the wider world can also be limited by their suspicion of the international community, which they often see as insufficiently engaged or even hostile to their existence.

The Politics of Interaction on the Supranational Level

While the goals of the de facto state and the positions of the parent state are crucial elem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 A Conceptual Framework for Engagement with de facto States
• 2 'Statehood', 'de facto Authorities' and 'Occupation': Contested Concepts and the EU's Engagement in its European Neighbourhood
• 3 The Stigmatisation of de facto States: Disapproval and 'Engagement without Recognition'
• 4 Recognition, Status Quo or Reintegration: Engagement with de facto States
• 5 Quest for Survival and Recognition: Insights into the Foreign Policy Endeavours of the Post-Soviet de facto States
• 6 Regional Organizations and Secessionist Entities: Analysing Practices of the EU and the OSCE in Post-Soviet Protracted Conflict Areas
• 7 Sovereignty and Engagement without Recognition: Explaining the Failure of Conflict Resolution in Cyprus
• Index