PORTFOLIO

«De-Facto Entities in the Post-Soviet Space: Dynamics and Prospects» on 4-5 September 2014, Sevan.

The basic idea of the conference is to bring together for the first time the key scientists and experts involved in the academic study of the phenomenon of de-facto /unrecognized /partially recognized states. The current academic discourse on the issue of unrecognized states is mainly linked to ethno-political issues and to the international conflicts in which they are entangled. The goal of this conference is to identify the peculiarities of their internal political and economic development, to analyze the state- and nation-building processes that take place, and to study their impact on the internal discourses and the perception of the local populations. The goal is not only to understand the present dynamics but also to systematize existing academic approaches on the appearance and functioning of de-facto states.

The conference will take place on 4-5 September 2014 near Sevan Lake (Armenia). It will consist in a mixture of keynote speeches, thematic panels sessions and a roundtable. The senior experts will be invited by the organizers; the junior researchers will be selected through a call for papers.
Our local coordination unit, based at the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, is in charge of organizing the conference, both in terms of logistics and of content.

One of the major tasks of this conference is to develop a network of leading researchers in the field of unrecognized states, as well as to involve young scientists and PhD students. The conference will have a comparative approach and will take into consideration four different case studies (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh). A publication is planned.

The conference was an outstanding success bringing together scholars from different regions working on this underresearched topic. It consisted in a mixture of keynote speeches, thematic panel sessions and a roundtable. Additionally, within the framework of the conference the new Russian and English edition of the book «Black Garden» was presented by Thomas de Waal, a world renowned British journalist and expert from Washington-based Carnegie Endowment.

The conference will result in a publication gathering the best papers presented during the conference. It will be published in Armenia, in English language.