The Unrecognised States of the South Caucasus: Strategic Adjustments towards Recognition and Status Quo Instrumentalisation

The democratic external actors (the OSCE, the UN, the EU) have played a rather peripheral role vis-à-vis the unrecognised states of the South Caucasus, although they have favoured a peaceful settlement of the conflicts. They have often been considered to have contributed to the prolongation of the conflicts instead of resolving them, perpetuating the status quo. However, in addition to these external limitations, domestic factors further contribute to maintaining the status quo and thus the uncertainty. In the absence of sustained engagement and support from the international community, the unrecognised states have been left with few alternatives to ensure their survival and have had to find coping mechanisms of support, both at the local and international level: reliance on kinship-based shadow economies, funding from the diaspora, and support from their patron states, none of which facilitate the democratisation of the unrecognised states. Nevertheless, the secessionist states of the South Caucasus are not mere puppets or passive recipients, lacking their own capacity and will; albeit with a limited space of manoeuvre and displaying various degrees of economic and security dependence to their patron states, they have however an agenda of their own and use their agency to varying extents, with some of them manifesting a genuine drive for independence and an assertive attitude towards the external patron as circumstances dictate. They engage in adaptive strategies at the domestic as well as the international level, instrumentalising democratisation and dependency according to the perceived immediate threats to their survival and the goals they prioritise, employing mechanisms that both invite recognition and safeguard the status quo. The paper will look into the adapting strategies employed by the leaders of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh in order to gain legitimacy and instrumentalise the status quo.