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Conflicts

This theme embraces the study of ethnopolitical conflicts in the South Caucasus. It has three main focus areas: (1) assessing the current status and the risks of escalation, (2) proposing innovative theoretical approaches, and (3) putting the conflict in a wider historical and geographical perspective. This theme includes research papers.

  • The Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh after Two Decades: an Inevitable Prolongation of the Status Quo? by Dr Sergey Minasyan, Head of Political Studies at CI, was presented to the public in October 2010. Mr Arman Melikyan, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, reviewed and criticized the research paper, followed by a discussion of current trends and approaches to the conflict, the risks of war and how they can be mitigated.
  • Nagorno-Karabakh: Paradoxes of Power and Weakness in an Asymmetric Conflict, by Prof. Larisa Deriglazova of Tomsk State University and Dr. Sergey Minasyan of CI, was presented and discussed in January 21, 2011. It was reviewed and criticized by Major-General Hayk S. Kotandjian, Head of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Defense of Armenia. The ensuing discussion focused on how the theory of asymmetric conflicts can be applied to this and other conflicts in the South Caucasus, and what the added value of such an approach can be.
  • De-Facto Entities In The Post Soviet Space: Twenty Years Of Statebuilding: authored by Sergey Markedonov, a scholar currently working in the U.S. The research paper presents the dynamics of state-building and post-conflict recovery in Abkhasia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transdniestria and South Ossetia in a comparative perspective, looking at the prospects of the breakaway de-facto states, their domestic development and challenges. The paper was presented to the wider public on May 3, 2012 in order to attract media attention on the eve of the “day of silence” prior to the parliamentary election in Armenia.

Efforts towards widening the perspective on conflict and promote reliance on international experience were launched in 2011, when the CI co-organized (with International Alert) two series of events (discussion with leading journalists, a closed meeting with members of political parties, a public conference, lectures for students and meetings with public officials) to attract public attention to the experience of other ethnopolitical conflicts: Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Indonesia/Timor Leste and the Philippines /Mindanao.