De Facto States

This book explores the phenomenon of de facto states in Eurasia: states such as Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic. It examines how they are formed, what sustains them, and how their differing development trajectories have unfolded. It argues that most of these de facto states have been formed with either direct or indirect support from Russia, but they all have their own internal logic and are not simply puppets in the hands of a powerful patron. The book provides detailed case studies and draws out general patterns, and compares present-day de facto states with de facto states which existed in the past.

This volume for the first time provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of a new and very significant development in the international politics of fragmentation.

This book presents an analytical framework which assesses how 'land-for-peace' agreements can be achieved in the context of territorial conflicts between de facto states and their respective parent states. The volume examines geographic solutions to resolving ongoing conflicts that stand between the principle of self-determination (prompted by de facto states) and the principle of territorial integrity (prompted by parent states). The authors investigate the conditions under which territorial adjustments can bring about a possibility for peace between de facto states and their parent states. It does so by interrogating the possibility of land-for-peace agreements in four de facto state–parent state pairs, namely Kosovo–Serbia, Nagorno–Karabakh–Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus–Republic of Cyprus, and Abkhazia–Georgia. The book suggests that the value that parties put on land to be exchanged and peace to be achieved stand at odds for land-for-peace agreements to materialise. The book brings theoretical and empirical insights that open several avenues for discussions on the conservative stance that the international community has held on territorial changes in the post-1945 international order. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, state formation, secessionism, political geography, and international relations.

This book analyzes how de facto states—including Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Kosovo, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somaliland, and Taiwan—have developed without recognition of sovereignty from the international community.

Originally published in 1998, International Society and the De Facto Society explores the phenomenon of de facto statehood in contemporary international relations. The de facto state is almost the inverse of what Robert Jackson has termed the ‘quasi-state’. The quasi-state has an ambassador, a flag, and a seat at the United Nations, but it does not function positively as a viable governing entity. Its limitations though, do not detract from sovereign legitimacy. The de facto state, on the other hand, lacks legitimacy yet effectively controls a given territorial area and provides governmental services to a specific population. The book engages in a birth, life, and death or evolution examination of the de facto state.

What is de facto about the de facto state? In Sovereignty Suspended, this question guides Rebecca Bryant and Mete Hatay through a journey into de facto state-building, or the process of constructing an entity that looks like a state and acts like a state but that much of the world says does not or should not exist. In international law, the de facto state is one that exists in reality but remains unrecognized by other states. Nevertheless, such entities provide health care and social security, issue identity cards and passports, and interact with international aid donors. De facto states hold elections, conduct censuses, control borders, and enact fiscal policies. Indeed, most maintain representative offices in sovereign states and are able to unofficially communicate with officials. Bryant and Hatay develop the concept of the "aporetic state" to describe such entities, which project stateness and so seem real, even as nonrecognition renders them unrealizable. Sovereignty Suspended is based on more than two decades of ethnographic and archival research in one so-called aporetic state, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). It traces the process by which the island's "north" began to emerge as a tangible, separate, if unrecognized space following violent partition in 1974. Like other de facto states, the TRNC looks and acts like a state, appearing real to observers despite international condemnations, denials of its existence, and the belief of large numbers of its citizens that it will never be a "real" state. Bryant and Hatay excavate the contradictions and paradoxes of life in an aporetic state, arguing that it is only by rethinking the concept of the de facto state as a realm of practice that we will be able to understand the longevity of such states and what it means to live in them.

In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, secessionist forces carved four de facto states from parts of Moldova, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Ten years on, those states are mired in uncertainty. Beset by internal problems, fearful of a return to the violence that spawned them, and isolated and unrecognized internationally, they survive behind cease-fire lines that have temporarily frozen but not resolved their conflicts with the metropolitan powers. In this, the first in-depth comparative analysis of these self-proclaimed republics, Dov Lynch examines the logic that maintains this uneasy existence and explores ways out of their volatile predicament. Drawing on extensive travel within Eurasia and remarkable access to leading figures in the secessionist struggles, Lynch spotlights the political, military, and economic dynamics--both internal and external--that drive the existence of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh. He also evaluates a range of options for resolving the status of the de facto states before violence returns, and proposes a coordinated approach, spearheaded by the European Union, that balances de facto and de jure independence and sovereignty. Slim but packed with information and insight, this volume also offers instructive lessons about the dynamics of intrastate and ethnic conflict and the merits of autonomy and power sharing in places as diverse as Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, and Chechnya.

What are the causes and consequences of the crisis in Ukraine, and what has been the nature of local, national, and external actors’ involvement in it? These are the questions that the authors examine in this comprehensive analysis of the situation in Ukraine. The crisis evolved from peaceful protests to full-scale military conflict and to an unstable ceasefire frequently interrupted by, at times, intense clashes between government forces and separatist rebels. Tracing the emergence of two new de-facto state entities in the post-Soviet space—the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics—from the chaos of the early days after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Spring 2014 to the second Minsk Agreement in February 2015, and focusing on the actions of the immediate conflict parties and their external backers, the authors investigate the feasibility and viability of several prominent ‘scenarios’ for a possible future settlement of the conflict. As an in-depth case study of the complex dynamics of the conflict at local, national, regional, and global levels of analysis, the book complements and advances existing scholarship on civil war and international crisis management and also provides insights for the policy community and the wider interested public.