De-facto States: the Post-Soviet Political Phenomenon

Abstract

If viewed from a formal-legal point of view, the de facto entities (the ones which are most important for the present discussion: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria and the so called People’s Republics in the South-Eastern Ukraine) do not exist for the international community. However the “virtual” existence of these states does not prevent them from being real participants in the political and security processes in the post-Soviet space. Many momentous events in Eurasia are connected, in some way, with the developments around such statelets. The author considers the establishing of the de facto states in the context of the USSR dissolution, of the ethno-political self-determination during this process and the transformation of the international law after the end of the “Cold War”. He defines the unrecognized states, creates their typology and explains their similarities and differences. In his view, the phenomenon of the de facto entities is not limited exclusively to the “frozen conflicts’’, so a productive analysis of these formations is not possible without considering their domestic dynamics, the peculiarities of nation/state-building and the processes of democratization. The author pays special attention to the importance of the Eurasian de facto states to the international affairs, particularly in the context of the lack of common criteria for self-determination and territorial integrity of states.