The volume focuses on main issues of the southern Caucasus and the Black Sea Region: consequences of unresolved ethno-territorial conflicts, reconstruction of ethnopolitical identities, political regime transformation and influence of external actors on this process, the clash of interests and policies with regards to local hydrocarbon resources.

Since the early 1990s, the southern Caucasus and its larger neighbourhood, the Black Sea region, have experienced deep and sometimes painful transformations, including bloody conflicts. They have also become an arena of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition between great powers. This has attracted growing attention from social scientists. In this volume, authors from universities in Europe, the United States and the southern Caucasus focus on several of the most topical problems of the region, particularly how nascent states and societies grapple with the results of unresolved ethno-territorial conflicts and how they try to construct new civil societies from the cultural mosaic that they inherited from their Soviet past. How do elements of democracy and autocracy combine in the political regimes of the new states? Can the West have an effect on their internal development and, if so, how? How do the rich mineral resources of the Caspian region influence the development of the region's economies and define the geopolitical standing of these countries?

Autorentext

Ghia Nodia is Professor of Political Science and Director of the International School of Caucasus Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is also the founder of the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD), which he has led since 1992. He has published extensively on regional security, state building and democratization in the Caucasus, and on theories of nationalism and democratic transition in the post-Cold War context. Christoph H. Stefes is Associate Professor for Comparative European and Post-Soviet Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. He is a visiting scholar at the Social Science Research Center Berlin where he investigates the conditions of stability of autocratic regimes. He specializes in the successor states of the Soviet Union in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. His research focuses on governance and the detrimental consequences of corruption in this region.

Inhalt

Contents: David Sichinava: Cleavage Theory and the Electoral Geographies of Georgia - Anvar Rahmetov: Structural Causes of 'Colour Revolutions': Postelectoral Mobilization and Outcomes in the South Caucasus - Marcy E. McCullaugh: Typical Tin-Pots: Wealth without Welfare in Azerbaijan - Povilas ielys: Guarding or Retarding? US Democracy-Assistance Programmes in Post-Rose Revolution Georgia - Thijs Rommens: Spreading Democratic Governance? NGOs in the Eastern Partnership: The Case of Georgia - Kevork K. Oskanian: Citizenship or Ethnicity? National Identity and Insecurity in Southern Caucasia - Maroussia Ferry: Georgian Migrants in Turkey: Reconstruction of Gender and Family Dynamics - Peter Kabachnik/Beth Mitchneck/Joanna Regulska: Return or Integration? Politicizing Displacement in Georgia - Giulia Prelz Oltramonti: War Economies and Protracted Conflicts: The Cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - Minna Lundgren: Crossing the Border - An Intergenerational Study of Belonging and Temporary Return among IDPs from Abkhazia - Hanna Shelest: Foreign Policy Particularities of the De Facto States in the Black Sea Region - Fabio Indeo: Azerbaijan's Role in the Euroasiatic Energy Chessboard: Geopolitical and Strategic Perspectives - Sybilla Wege: The Black Sea Region as a Strategic Energy Corridor: International Dynamics of Cooperation and Competition - Oana Poian : Regional Cooperation and National Preferences in the Black Sea Region: A Zero-Sum Game Perpetuated by Energy Insecurity? - Slawomir Raszewski: States over Markets? Development of a Turkish Gas Hub and its Effects on Regional Energy and Security - Nikoloz Sumbadze: The New Gas Era: Shaping Energy Policy in the South Caucasus Region.