Incomplete Secession after Unresolved Conflicts

Political Order and Escalation in the Post-Soviet Space

Ana Maria Albulescu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000472882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Chapter2 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.

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

DOI: 10.4324/9781003194934-1

Introduction

At the end of the Cold War, a series of movements for self-determination have brought about various types of secession. Whilst former Soviet Socialist Republics have broken up from the Soviet Union in a mainly peaceful way, Yugoslavia saw some of the most atrocious civil wars brought about by secessionist movements seeking independence. Wars of secession are inextricably linked to international recognition. Thus, if most of the former Yugoslav territories have been recognised as independent states at the end of the Cold War, examples such as Kosovo stand as proof that international recognition has often been arbitrary, leaving behind cases of secession where the resolution of conflicts becomes more protracted in terms of status.

Alongside this example, the post-Soviet space is also abundant with cases where the termination of violence has not been clearly linked to a termination of conflict. This chapter examines several conceptual and theoretical issues related to the study of what have been commonly referred to as ‘frozen conflicts’ in the post-Soviet space and provides the background for the conceptual contribution of this book. It proposes a unique understanding of the post-war context in instances where the lack of international recognition in the aftermath of secessionist wars has left different territories with unresolved status such as Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a state of de-facto control over distinctive parts of territory of the former Soviet Union. It begins by exploring this context of ‘incomplete secession’ that is sustained by the following three inter-related conditions:

1. The prolonged lack of international recognition of unilateral secession.
2. The consolidation of parallel authority exercised by de-facto states.
3. Enduring dynamic interactions between metropolitan and de-facto states in the absence of political settlement.

Then, it engages with existing research related to secession, international recognition and unrecognised states in the post-Soviet space, focusing on various arguments that have accounted for these conditions. This book takes the view that a further step should be made in the direction of understanding the complex context of the post-conflict environments that are replete with interactions between metropolitan and de-facto states that take place under a particular set of conditions. Moving in this direction, this chapter provides a useful discussion regarding the specificity of post-conflict environments where the end of secessionist wars in the early 1990s has not brought about a stable political settlement. In this sense it seeks to present the limitations of existing research on unrecognised states that has gradually shifted in focus from the study of ‘frozen conflicts’ to research concerned with internal politics in de-facto states. After engaging with these limitations, this chapter concludes amongst others that in order for the conditions of incomplete secession enabling the particular context that arises in the aftermath of secessionist conflict to be fully accounted for, further conceptual innovation is needed. The final part of this chapter thus setts the discussion for the conceptual framework that this book is proposing as well as for the various theoretical arguments that will be made in relation to escalation in post-conflict political order under conditions of incomplete secession.

Incomplete secession

To understand the post-war context in the Republic of Moldova and Georgia – this chapter argues – one has to take into account the evolution of scholarly arguments from research dealing with secessionist wars to studies that seek to portray the long-term consequences of unresolved secessionist demands. Studies of sovereignty and self-determination have primarily focused on the way in which the development of secessionist movements across the globe has led to wars with various outcomes, leading to either the recognition of new states and their inclusion in the international system or to the long-term outcome of non-recognition that has given rise to de-facto states (Bartkus, 1999; Cox, 2008; Geldenhuys, 2009; Pavkovic, 2008; Radan, 2008).

Secession refers to the principal process of gaining independent statehood due to the fact that the constant detachment of territories from the sovereignty and jurisdiction of particular states since the 1980s has led to the creation of new states (Pavkovic, 2008).

By focusing on the outcome of the process of secession, cases exhibiting this phenomenon are identified as any territorial detachment from a sovereign state to which the response of the sovereign state in opposing this particular action is crucial. It is important to distinguish between various types of secession that include colonial secession, unilateral secession and devolutionary secession by which the continued existence of the host state allows for the creation of a new state, and not least the dissolution with or without consent of the host state (Pavkovic, 2008). These can be said to constitute the wider universe of cases of secession out of which various outcomes of interest may arise. These outcomes include newly recognised states as it was the case in Eritrea in the context of de-colonisation, partially recognised states as the case of Kosovo illustrated or de-facto states that have maintained their pursuit of unilateral secession for over two decades as the former Soviet space suggests. Hence it is important to regard the process of secession as a longer-term evolving phenomenon rather that an instant outcome. The various claims and decisions involved in this struggle and the negotiation between competing actors may or may not lead to the creation of a new state.

Indeed, to understand the post-war context of the cases addressed in this book one should consider the fact that:

Secession cannot be said to have occurred until the process has been completed by the creation of a new state. The process can generally be sad to start when representatives of a population settled on a territory (territorial community) proclaim a new state on that territory. In most cases, they do so by means of a declaration of independence. In some, but not all cases in which independence is proclaimed, other states formally recognize the independence of the proclaimed. When a sufficient degree of recognition has been achieved, the proclaimed state becomes, at that time, a state. The outcome of the process has been achieved and the process of secession is complete.

Radan, 2008, p. 19

The point made by Radan (2008) is particularly important if one is to understand the differences between secessionist conflict and its conditions and the longer-term process of what this book will term ‘incomplete secession’. This book is concerned with understanding the evolving conditions from the context of secessionist wars that have led to these types of unilateral secession to that of the ‘no war no peace’ situation that we witness today. As there is no clear cut off point in the ending of these conflicts – unless the recognition of secessionist demands and the creation of a new state takes place – questions arise with regards to the patterns of continuity and change in enabling the endurance of self-determination demands for over two decades. To what extent have the secessionist movements fighting the wars of Soviet succession, evolved and adapted to a specific international context that can make it either easier or harder to be part of the international society of states? This is of particular importance if considering that: ‘The bedrock organizing principle of modern international society is sovereign statehood’ (Thakur, 2018, p. 463) with the United Nations membership representing the ‘final symbol for freshly independent countries and their seal of acceptance into the international community of states’ (Thakur, 2018, p. 463).

Thus, it is important to stress that the initial causes of secessionist violence at the end of the Cold War may no longer be relevant for a comprehensive understanding of what makes competition over claims to statehood between metropolitan and de-facto state endure. Whilst identifying the causes of secession is beyond the scope of this book, it is important to clarify some of the factors that have been identified as increasing the possibility and probability of this phenomenon. Amongst the contributing factors that should be accounted for, it has been stressed that secessionism is enabled by specific conditions of possibility amongst which the weakening of state capacities, the nature of the Cold War interstate order, the consumption and reception of secessionist appeals and the role of global media and communication (Cox, 2008).

These are processes that have been in constant change over the past two decades and may or may not influence the subsequent context of incomplete secession. Considering that these conditions differ from those sustaining de-facto states, this book argues that incomplete secession represents a distinctive phenomenon that is strongly related to the existence of de-facto states as elements that engage in a dynamic process of state contestation in the absence of political settlement. Thus, whilst the initial secessionist wars in the post-Soviet space had a central focus on the claims to independence, subsequent interactions between the metropolitan and de-facto state have proven that additional issues have surfaced in the politics of secession such as parallel state-building attempts and the tendency to forge closer relations between the de-facto states and the Russian Federation (Isachenko, 2012; Popescu, 2006).

If the secessionist conflicts addressed by the subsequent chapters of book can be said to form an integral part of the ‘age of secession’ (Radan, 2008) in the immediate aftermath of Cold War, where enabling conditions have contributed to the emergence of self-determination demands. The same cannot be said about the aftermath of these conflicts and the enduring process of state contestation that followed in the Republic of Moldova and the Republic of Georgia. As it has been pointed out with regards to secession in the aftermath of the Cold War, a certain easing of the position of the international community towards secession could be observed in the context of cases such as Eritrea, East Timor, Czechoslovakia or indeed in the former Yugoslavia and the USSR. In contrast, after 2001, it has been argued that separatists have faced a more hostile environment when it comes to international recognition of their demands (Bahcheli, Bartmann and Srebrnik, 2004).

It should be noted that both the international context has changed in terms of the norms towards recognition that are favoured by the international community, as well as the fact that secessionist movements have evolved and adapted their agendas to such context. In the aftermath of secessionist war, competing claims to statehood and the pursuit of international recognition by de-facto states continue. Aspects such as ‘the opposition of the host state’ and the ‘use or threat of force by the secessionist movement’ – that have been specifically identified as enabling conditions of unilateral secession (Pavkovic, 2008) – remain an integral part of the dynamic process of state contestation that is here analysed as the third condition of incomplete secession.

In the post-war context, the absence of political settlement is thus crucial alongside the issue of recognition as it relates to the potential for action and reaction in the relationship between metropolitan and de-facto states. The more prolonged the absence of political settlement, the more possibilities exist for the contestation of authority through various means that range from conflict to negotiation. These means of contestation form an integral part of what constitutes the focus of analysis of this book: Namely escalation in political order under conditions of incomplete secession, based on the conceptual framework that will be outlined in Chapter 2. But firstly, in order to understand the context in which this unique form of political order develops it is important to discuss the norms of recognition more broadly as well as the practices of international recognition, as additional enabling factors for the consolidation of conditions of incomplete secession across the post-Soviet space.

Understood as the politics of recognition, the practice of the international community in the post-Cold War era has often been arbitrary, depending on the interests of major powers rather than based on normative principles of international law. Acknowledging the common nature of the outcome of non-recognition for entities such as Transnistria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia, a series of initial accounts for the lack of violence in the secessionist conflicts remaining unresolved in the post-Soviet space have emphasised the frozen nature of these conflicts (Bebler, 2015; Ciobanu, 2008; MacFarlane, 2009; Sabor, 2012). Gradually moving away from the study of conflict, scholars concerned with the endurance of de-facto statehood have then analysed various aspects of the state-building and legitimisation strategies of the de-facto states (Berg 2012, 2013; Berg and Mölder, 2012; King, 2001; Lynch, 2004; Popescu, 2006). This shift from analysing conflict to the study of politics has then paved the way for acknowledging that these entities do not evolve in isolation but rather maintain a dynamic relationship with the host state from which they wish to separate from, one that puts to the test their individual agency and their ability to manage their relations with their patron states (Blakkisrud and Kolstø, 2012; Kolstø, 2020).

Norms and practices of international recognitions

Throughout recent history, unilateral secession has represented a controversial issue due to the necessary condition of success being international recognition (Pavkovic, 2008). This represents one of the most important dimensions of incomplete secession as the lack of international recognition gives way to the emergence of political order. Understanding the relationship between secession and recognition involves accounting for the practice and criteria of recognition.

The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States sets out a series of criteria based on which recognition of new states in the international system should take place. Amongst these criteria, one can find the following: (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) government and (4) the capacity to entire into relations with other States (‘Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States’, 1933).

Alongside these principles of international law one has to take into account the political aspects of recognition and the practices of recognition undertaken by the international community.

As Richard Caplan (2005, p. 51) points out based on the experience of t...