LOEWE A1

International organizations’ policies and mechanisms of conflict management in comparative perspective: Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova

This project is part of the research consortium “Conflict Regions in Eastern Europe” [see here], funded by the State of Hessen under the "State Offensive to Develop Academic-Economic Excellence" (Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz, or LOEWE).

Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have been intensifying their integration policies with European and Euro-Atlantic structures since the Russian annexation of Crimea. All three face territorial conflicts accentuated by Russia’s involvement: as Georgia is confronted by Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moldova faces the breakaway Transnistrian Republic, and Ukraine grapples with war in its Donbass region. As a reaction to the perceived threat to their sovereignty, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine are working to build closer relations with western-led institutions like the EU and the NATO. In addition, further international actors, especially the OSCE and to a limited degree the Council of Europe, seek to augment conflict management efforts in the South Caucasus and Eastern European region.

While international conflict management strategies in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine have attracted considerable scholarly attention, the potential effect of the international integration paths on the conflicts per se has often been overlooked in the literature. These deeper regional integration processes in international organizations are accompanied by the distinctive societal polarisations of identity forging, further complicating the efforts of international actors in these countries.

Against this backdrop, the aims of this project are following:

1. The development of analytical frameworks for a profounder understanding of the nexus of international integration policies/international compliance policies and international conflict management strategies for territorial conflicts;
2. The development of analytical approaches, which help to evaluate cooperation and competition between international actors, which are engaged in the management of territorial conflicts;
3. An empirical application of the analytical frameworks to the cases of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and to the strategies pursued by the EU, the NATO, the Council of Europe and the OSCE towards these three countries.

The project will run for four years from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2020

Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Andrea Gawrich

Researchers: Dr. Farid Guliyev

Past researchers: Dr. Vera Axyonova, Dr. Lusine Badalyan, Dr. Alla Leukavets

Student assistants: Momo Matern, Lea Konrad, Finn Freund

Project publications

2020

Farid Guliyev & Andrea Gawrich (2020): NATO vs. the CSTO: security threat perceptions and responses to secessionist conflicts in Eurasia, Post-Communist Economies. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JEKIVYAZN9V3NAWFEWHB/full?target=10.1080/14631377.2020.1800316.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2020.1800316

2018/2019

Liana Fix, Andrea Gawrich, Kornely Kakachia & Alla Leukavets (2019) Out of the shadow? Georgia’s emerging strategies of engagement in the Eastern Partnership: Between external governance and partnership cooperation, Caucasus Survey, 7:1, 1-24. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2018.1541218

Axyonova, Vera & Gawrich, Andrea (2018) Regional organizations and secessionist entities: Analysing practices of the EU and the OSCE in post-Soviet protracted conflict areas, Ethnopolitics, 17:4, 408-425. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2018.1495358

Gawrich, Andrea & Axyonova, Vera (2018) Regional organizations and secessionist entities: Analysing Practices of the EU and the OSCE in post-Soviet protracted conflict areas. In: Berg, Eiki/Ker-Lindsay, James (eds.): The Politics of International Interaction with de facto States. London: Routledge.

2017

Gawrich, Andrea (2017): A Bridge with Russia? The Parliamentary Assemblies of the OSCE and of the Council of Europe in the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, in: Stavridis, Stelios and Jancic, Davor (eds). "Parliamentary Diplomacy in European and Global Governance" (Leiden/Boston: Brill Publishers). Brill's Diplomatic Studies series, pp. 156-173.

Axyonova, Vera and Zubko, Diana (2017): The European Union through the Eyes of Ukrainian Think Tankers: Studying EU Perceptions Post-Euromaidan. Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal 3, pp. 181-200.

Conference papers

Gawrich, Andrea, Badalyan, Lusine & Axyonova, Vera (2019) Effects of Critical Junctures on Inter-Organizational Relations: The Case of the EU-OSCE Interactions in Providing Regional Security, ISA Annual Convention, Toronto, 27-28.3.2019.

Gawrich, Andrea (2018) Conflict Management International Parliamentary Assemblies + Small states - The cases of Georgia and Moldova, 12th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Prague 12.-15.8.18.

Gawrich, Andrea & Axyonova, Vera (2018) The EU and Secessionist Conflicts in the Eastern Neighbourhood: A Practice Approach. Paper presented at the UACES 48th Annual Conference University of Bath, 2-5.9.2018.

Gawrich, Andrea & Axyonova, Vera (2018) Regional Organizations and Secessionist Entities: Analysing Practices of the EU and the OSCE in Post-Soviet Protracted Conflict Areas, Thirty Years Later: Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union, A Joint CREES/POLSIS/BASEES Workshop, University of Birmingham, 07.06.2018.