PATRON AND CLIENT: Russian President Vladimir Putin and former leader of Abkhazi, Raul Khadzhimba, during a press conference in 2017.
Research project
Dynamics of de facto state patron-client relations
Events
'DeFacto' will, through surveys, fieldwork and expert interviews address three overarching questions:
- How do popular attitudes restrain/resource de facto state leaders vis-a-vis the patron?
- How do these leaders navigate between domestic demands and the patron's expectations?
- And how do patron states exert their influence?
De facto states - states that have failed to win international recognition - have long been understudied 'blank spots,' overlooked in academic literature and on maps. However, they play critical and contentious roles in international politics: Since the end of the Cold War, de facto states have been involved in a disproportionately large number of violent conflicts, resulting in their establishment, change of status, or elimination. Achieving a better understanding of the dynamics of de facto state politics is, therefore, crucial.
Almost all de facto states that survive for some time have a powerful 'patron' that provides security guarantees and economic support. Too often this has resulted in the de facto states simply being brushed off as hapless pawns in their patron's power play. In 'DeFacto' we challenge this assumption, examining what room de facto states have for independent agency.
We want to shift the research focus from (the lack of) conflict resolution to the factors that perpetuate the status quo, developing a new model for understanding patron-client relations. In particular, we are interested in exploring the role of domestic constituencies in serving as both a constraint and a resource that leaders of de facto states can mobilize in negotiations with the patron. The study will cover all eight existing de facto states that have a patron: Abkhazia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, Taiwan and Transnistria. Further, we include the only two cases of failed post-Cold War de facto states that had a patron: Srpska Krajina and Republika Srpska.
External project resources:
- De Facto States Research Unit, University of Tartu
Project Manager
Participants
Articles
PODCAST: Abkhazia between Russia and the outside world
New publications
Trade, Trust, and De Facto State Conflicts: Abkhazia’s International Economic Engagement
Does trade really foster trust? In the case of conflict-torn regions, developing trade links is often believed to contribute to transforming conflict or even facilitate peacebuilding. However, when it comes to de facto states—states with no or limited international recognition—the relationship between the two may not be quite as straightforward. A closer look at Abkhazia, a de facto state in the contested neighborhood between Russia and the EU, shows that trade can thrive even in a post-conflict situation where mutual distrust is high. However, as long as trade occurs informally and in the shadows, it does not help in building trust at the state level.
Russia's Neighborhood Policy and Its Eurasian Client States: No Autocracy Export
Do authoritarian regimes engage in active export of their political systems? Or are they primarily concerned about their geopolitical interests? This article explores these questions by examining Russia's policy towards Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. In all three de facto states, Moscow is fully able to dictate election outcomes should it desire to, but, we argue, has increasingly refrained from doing so. These client states are unlikely to attempt to escape from Russia’s tutelage; and with its geopolitical interests fully ensured, Russia appears willing to grant them latitude. We then ask whether these findings can be extrapolated to serve as a template for understanding Russia's policy towards its client states more generally, discussing Moscow's reactions to attempted regime change in Armenia and Belarus.