VOL. 4 (1) - WINTER 2010
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Note from the Editor-in-Chief
(pp. 1-2)
Research Papers
Russia’s Pragmatic Reimperialization
(pp. 3-19)
by
Janusz Bugajski
Puzzles of State Transformation: The Case of Armenia and Georgia
(pp. 20-34)
by
Nicole Gallina
Russia’s National Security Strategy to 2020: A Great Power in the
Making? (pp. 35-42)
by
Sophia Dimitrakopoulou
& Andrew Liaropoulos
International Language Rights Norms in the Dispute over
Latinization Reform in the Republic of Tatarstan
(pp. 43-56)
by
Dilyara Suleymanova
European Foreign Policy after Lisbon: Strengthening the EU as an
International Actor (pp. 57-72)
by Kateryna Koehler
Commentaries
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Twenty Years of Reform
(pp. 73-81)
by Aleksandr Shkolnikov & Anna
Nadgrodkiewicz
Kazan: The Religiously Undivided Frontier City
(pp. 82-86)
by Matthew
Derrick
Interview
“The Current Trend of the Kremlin is to Rather Formally Distance itself
from the North Caucasus” (pp. 87-90)
Interview with Dr. Emil
Souleimanov, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
Book Reviews
“The Guns of August 2008: Russia’s War in Georgia”,
edited by Svante E. Cornell and Frederick Starr
(pp. 91-96)
Review by Till
Bruckner
“The Caucasus: An Introduction” by Frederik Coene
(pp. 97-98)
Review by
Alexander Jackson
“When Empire Meets Nationalism. Power Politics in the US
and Russia” by Didier Chaudet, Florent Parmentier & Benoît Pelopidas
(pp. 99-100)
Review by
Samuel Lussac
Note from the Editor-in-Chief
(pp. 1-2)
Events in the Caucasus have continued to offer observers choice issues for analysis. On everyone’s
mind, of course, is the lack of development in the normalization of relations between Turkey and
Armenia. The two sticking-points – the “Armenian genocide” issue and that of acknowledging
Azerbaijan’s call for first making progress toward a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict –
have remained major obstacles in the way forward. The “genocide” obstacle has been strengthened
by the statement of the Constitutional Court of Armenia that the application of the protocols signed
in October 2009 should comply with the paragraph 11 of the Armenian Declaration of
Independence…read
more
Research Papers
Russia’s Pragmatic Reimperialization
(pp. 3-19)
by
Janusz Bugajski
The
Russian authorities are engaged in a policy of “pragmatic
reimperialization” in seeking to restore Moscow’s regional dominance,
undermining U.S. global influence, dividing the NATO alliance,
neutralizing the European Union (EU), limiting further NATO and EU
enlargement, and re-establishing zones of “privileged interest” in the
former Soviet bloc, where pliant governments are targeted through
economic, political, and security instruments. Russia’s strategies are
pragmatic and opportunistic by avoiding ideology and political
partisanship and focusing instead on an assortment of threats,
pressures, inducements, and incentives. Despite its expansive ambitions,
the Russian Federation is – potentially – a failing state, and may be
resorting to increasingly desperate imperial reactions to intractable
internal problems that could presage the country’s territorial
disintegration…read
more
Puzzles of State Transformation: The Case
of Armenia and Georgia
(pp. 20-34)
by
Nicole Gallina
The problems of weak state structures,
including state territoriality, in the South Caucasus has highly
influenced political developments and the building of a democratic
state. This paper explains the difficulty of recovering statehood in the
cases of Armenia and Georgia, both in the context of post–Soviet state
transformation and post–conflict state-rebuilding. It argues that
recovering statehood in the South Caucasus meant at once maintaining the
status quo within the state structures and managing the highly volatile
political and ethnic relations (culminating in armed conflict).
In the cases of conflict, elite management impeded conflict solution. In
this context, this paper finds that elite power slowed the
construction of a democratic and effective state. In particular, elite
fragmentation has led to serious impediments for state development and
the consolidation of territoriality. In sum, elite-led state development
and conflict management hindered the successful consolidation of state
territoriality…read
more
Russia’s National Security Strategy to 2020: A Great Power in the
Making? (pp. 35-42)
by
Sophia Dimitrakopoulou & Andrew Liaropoulos
The publication of Russia’s
National Security Strategy in May 2009 provoked a discussion regarding
the security challenges that Moscow is facing. This article reviews,
firstly, the security context that defined the Putin era and then
relates the analysis of the latest national security strategy to the
broader dilemmas that Russia will encounter in the next decade. The
purpose is to identify the priorities and threat perceptions that are
outlined in the latest national security strategy and to question
whether Russia will become a great power in the near future…read
more
International Language Rights Norms in
the Dispute over Latinization Reform in the Republic of Tatarstan
(pp. 43-56)
by
Dilyara Suleymanova
This paper explores the role of
international language rights norms in the dispute over script reform in
the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. In the late 1990s, the authorities of
Tatarstan initiated reform to change the orthographic base of the Tatar
language from a Cyrillic- to a Latin-based script. However, this reform
was subsequently banned by a Russian federal law that stipulated the
mandatory use of the Cyrillic alphabet for all state languages in
Russia. In protesting this decision, Tatar language activists referred
to international human and minority rights provisions and used
categories of international law to frame their case as a violation of
international norms. However, it is not clear whether this case would
really qualify as a violation of international norms and whether
international instruments would have the power to overturn this state
decision. Rather than being practically applicable, international
language rights norms have shaped the strategies minorities employ in
advocating their rights and contesting state decisions…read
more
European Foreign Policy after Lisbon: Strengthening the EU as
an International Actor (pp. 57-72)
by Kateryna Koehler
Following years of compromise, the
Treaty of Lisbon finally came into force on December 1, 2009. This
article analyses the new substantive law regulations and institutional
arrangements of the Lisbon Treaty in the field of external relations and
their impact on the effectiveness of the European foreign policy and the
European Union as an international actor. For this purpose, this paper
starts with analyses of the principle of coherence and continues with
the reformed structure and legal personality of the EU, which was
previously a serious challenge for the coherence of the EU’s foreign
policy. Finally, this article examines the functions and implications of
institutional innovations, namely, the positions of the High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the
President of the European Council and the European External Action
Service. This paper argues that the Treaty of Lisbon improves the
preconditions for a higher degree of coherence in European external
relations and strengthens the EU as an international actor, even if the
success of the European foreign policy, especially in the field of CFSP,
still depends to a great extent on the Member States’ willingness to
cooperate…read
more
Commentaries
The
Fall of the Berlin Wall: Twenty Years of Reform (pp. 73-81)
by Aleksandr Shkolnikov & Anna
Nadgrodkiewicz
Reflecting upon transition twenty
years after the fall of the Berlin Wall yields important lessons about
the challenges of establishing democracies and market economies. Neither
appears overnight; both require difficult and often unpopular reforms in
order to create inclusive and responsive institutions of governance and
business. The outcomes of the systemic transition in Central and Eastern
Europe are undoubtedly impressive but vary greatly, and even the most
successful countries continue to struggle with corruption, delayed
reforms of key economic sectors, and disillusionment and lingering
nostalgia among their populations. In order for the region’s democracies
to deliver growth and prosperity, their democratic and market
institutions must become more representative and inclusive so that a
genuine public-private dialogue can lead to concrete reforms. Local
civil societies and business communities are crucial agents of this
process, providing grassroots input into policymaking and bringing
substance to the region’s democratic development…read
more
Kazan:
The Religiously Undivided Frontier City (pp. 82-86)
by Matthew
Derrick
Located at the confluence of the
Turko-Islamic and Slavic-Christian worlds, Kazan, the capital of the
Republic of Tatarstan, a semiautonomous region of Russia, is populated
by roughly even numbers of Muslim Tatars and Eastern Orthodox Russians.
The city is separately important to each group’s national history. For
the Tatars, it is remembered as the seat of their Islamic state that
held sway over Russian principalities to the west for three centuries
before facing defeat at the hands of Moscow in 1552. For the Russians,
the victory over Kazan marked the beginning of a vast multinational
empire. In light of its geography and history, Kazan would seemingly be
counted among the world’s religiously divided frontier cities. Yet
Kazan, in spite of pursuing a sovereignty campaign throughout the 1990s,
has managed to avoid the type of ethno-religious-based conflict visiting
other frontier cities, such as Jerusalem, Sarajevo, and Belfast. What
lessons might Kazan offer other religiously divided frontier cities? In
approaching this question, this article analyzes bordering processes,
specifically looking at the invisible socio-spatial borders socially
constructed through narratives and symbols…read
more
Interview
“The
Current Trend of the Kremlin is to Rather Formally Distance itself from
the North Caucasus”
(pp. 87-90)
Interview with Dr. Emil
Souleimanov, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
CRIA: Can you contextualize the
recent surge in violence in the North Caucasus, especially in Daghestan
and Ingushetia.
Souleimanov:
In my understanding, the ongoing violence in the North Caucasus can be
understood as an outcome of the continuous intermingling of ethnic
nationalism, religious fundamentalism (some call it “Jihadism” and
militant Islam) and customary law of the mountainous Caucasus. In other
words, some North Caucasians found themselves in the resistance movement
because of their ethno-separatist aspirations – their desire to free
their homeland, to make it independent on Moscow, to establish nation
states. This was especially the case in Chechnya in the last decade…read
more
Book
Reviews
“The Guns of August 2008: Russia’s War in Georgia”,
edited by Svante E. Cornell and Frederick Starr
(pp. 91-96)
Review by Till
Bruckner
“At the very least, it will be all
but impossible hereafter for anyone to deny that Russia had engaged in
detailed planning for precisely the war that occurred,” write editors
Svante Cornell and Frederick Starr of the Central Asia–Caucasus
Institute & Silk Road Studies Program in the introduction of their new
book on the August 2008 conflict between Georgia and Russia. The volume
develops three main themes. First, it presents evidence that Russia had
been actively engaged in preparing for fighting a war against Georgia
prior to August 2008. Second, it argues that the culpability for the
conflict lies overwhelmingly with Russia. Third, it claims that
Georgia’s actions were justified both morally and legally, irrespective
of who may have fired the first shot in that fateful month…read
more
“The Caucasus: An Introduction” by
Frederik Coene
(pp. 97-98)
Review by
Alexander Jackson
Frederik Coene is no stranger to
the Caucasus. Currently the Attaché dealing with post-conflict
assistance in the European Commissions’ Mission to Georgia, he has also
worked in organisations on both sides of the Caucasus Mountains, dealing
with conflicts and developments. It is unfortunate that Mr Coene’s
on-ground experience – he worked in the North Caucasus during the savage
violence of the Beslan school siege, for instance - does not always come
through in this informative, but sometimes slightly shallow, volume…read
more
“When Empire Meets Nationalism. Power Politics in the US
and Russia” by Didier Chaudet, Florent Parmentier & Benoît Pelopidas
(pp. 99-100)
Review by
Samuel Lussac
From the Iraq war in 2003 to the
Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008, both neoconservative and neo-Eurasianist
politicians have been held responsible for the recent power politics of
Russia and the United States. After analyzing this issue in French in
2007 at the end of the presidential mandates of George W. Bush and
Vladimir Putin, the English translation of the book allows Didier
Chaudet, Florent Parmentier and Benoît Pelopidas’ work to reach a wider
audience during the early days of Barack Obama’s and Dmitri Medvedev’s
mandates…read
more |