Description
Developments in the EU's immediate neighbourhood in recent years - an armed conflict in East Ukraine and annexation of Crimea by Russia, have once again reignited the debate about the idea of (national) self-determination and the 'right' to secession. This paper aims to re-examine this highly contentious topic by focusing on the dynamics of self-determination (and secession) in the former Soviet Union and provide a comparative case study analysis of secessionist conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transdnistria, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. The author seeks to historically contextualise current claims to self-determination and secession in these territories and examine in depth how the historical developments in these regions relate to (and shape) the contemporary ones. By placing these cases in comparative perspective, the paper aims to observe (and analyse) historical continuities and changing trajectories in how the principle of self-determination has evolved in the Soviet Union and how it has been applied in the former Union republics since the disintegration of the USSR. By better understanding different forms of agency and institutional structures that have fostered (or curtailed) these conflicts the author aims to fill the gaps in the existing political science literature on the subject and move the scholarly debate beyond the 'Kosovo precedent'.
