War and Revolution in the Caucasus: Georgia Ablaze

175 Pages·2010·3.858 MB·English

by  Stephen F. Jones (editor)

War and Revolution in the Caucasus
The South Caucasus has traditionally been a playground of contesting empires. This region,
on the edge of Europe, is associated in Western minds with ethnic conflict and geopolitical
struggles. In August 2008, yet another war broke out in this distant European periphery as
Russia and Georgia clashed over the secessionist territory of South Ossetia. The war had global
ramifications culminating in deepening tensions between Russia on the one hand, and Europe
and the USA on the other. Speculation on the causes and consequences of the war focused
on Great Power rivalries and a new Great Game, on oil pipeline routes, and Russian imperial
aspirations.
This book takes a different tack which focuses on the domestic roots of the August 2008 war.
Collectively the authors in this volume present a more multidimensional context for the war.
They analyze historical relations between national minorities in the region, look at the link
between democratic development, state-building, and war, and explore the role of leadership
and public opinion. Digging beneath often simplistic geopolitical explanations, the authors give
the national minorities and Georgians themselves, the voice that is often forgotten by Western
analysts.
This book was based on a special issue of CentralAsian Survey.
Stephen Jones is a Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mount Holyoke College in
Massachusetts, USA. He has studied Georgian politics and society for 30 years and has written
over 80 articles and chapters on Georgia and the South Caucasus. His recent book Socialism
in Georgian Colors:The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917, was published by
Harvard University Press in 2005. He is currently working on a book, Georgia:A Political Life,
1991-2007, to be published by I.B.Tauris, London.
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War and Revolution in
the Caucasus
Georgia Ablaze
Edited by Stephen F. Jones
First published 2010 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2010 Central Asian Survey
This book is a reproduction of Central Asian Survey, vol. 28, issue 2. The Publisher
requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical
details of the special issue on which the book was based.
Typeset in Times by Value Chain, India
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN10: 0-415-56527-8
ISBN13: 978-0-415-56527-1
Contents
Notes on contributors viii
Abstracts xi
Preface
Georgia on everybody’s mind: the aftermath of war
Ronald Grigor Suny xiv
Introduction
Georgia’s domestic front
Stephen F. Jones 1
The colonial context
‘David and Goliath’ and ‘Georgians in the Kremlin’: a post-colonial perspective
on conflict in post-Soviet Georgia
Laurence Broers 7
Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia: one step forward, two steps back
Jonathan Wheatley 27
The revolutionary state
The dangers of reform: state building and national minorities in Georgia
Julie A. George 43
The August 2008 war in Georgia: from ethnic conflict to border wars
Vicken Cheterian 63
A polarized democracy
Compromising democracy: state building in Saakashvili’s Georgia
Lincoln A. Mitchell 79
Saakashvili in the public eye: what public opinion polls tell us
Nana Sumbadze 92
The post-revolutionary economy
Georgia’s economy: post-revolutionary development and post-war difficulties
Vladimer Papava 105
Corruption and organized crime in Georgia before and after the ‘Rose Revolution’
Alexandre Kukhianidze 120
vi Contents
An alternative perspective
The view from Abkhazia of South Ossetia ablaze
Paula Garb 140
Index 152
Note on transliteration
I have asked the authors of this special edition of Central Asian Survey to observe a
simplified transliteration scheme of the modern Mkhedruli Georgian alphabet. All diacritic
marks have been dropped which renders our transliteration less discriminating than the
Library of Congress version, but less confusing. Georgian has no capitals though we have
kept them when it makes sense in English. Place names in the Caucasus are derived from
multiple languages. They are highly politicized and contentious. We have stuck, in large
part to the Georgian version, though I have let minor differences stand as long as the name
is recognizable (Sukhum instead of Sukhumi, Mingrelia instead of Samegrelo). Terms for
different national groups vary. We have opted for the use of Abkhazian over Abkhaz, and
Azerbaijanis over Azeris, with some minor exceptions.
Stephen F. Jones
Thirdworlds
Edited by Shahid Qadir, University of London
THIRDWORLDS
will focus on the political economy, development and cultures of
those parts of the world that have experienced the most political, social, and economic upheaval,
and which have faced the greatest challenges of the postcolonial world under globalisation:
poverty, displacement and diaspora, environmental degradation, human and civil rights abuses,
war, hunger, and disease.
THIRDWORLDS
serves as a signifier of oppositional emerging economies and
cultures ranging from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and even those ‘Souths’
within a larger perceived North, such as the U.S. South and Mediterranean Europe. The study
of these otherwise disparate and discontinuous areas, known collectively as the Global South,
demonstrates that as globalisation pervades the planet, the south, as a synonym for subalterity,
also transcends geographical and ideological frontiers.
Terrorism and the Politics of Naming After the Third World?
Edited by Michael Bhatia Edited by Mark T. Berger
Reconstructing Post-Saddam Iraq Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms
Edited by Sultan Barakat Edited by Radhika Desai
From Nation-Building to State-Building Globalisation and Migration
Edited by Mark T. Berger New issues, new politics
Edited by Ronaldo Munck
Connecting Cultures
Edited by Emma Bainbridge Domestic and International Perspectives on
Kyrgyzstan’s ‘Tulip Revolution’
The Politics of Rights Motives, mobilizations and meanings
Dilemmas for feminist praxis Edited by Sarah Cummings
Edited by Andrea Cornwall and Maxine
Molyneux War and Revolution in the Caucasus
Georgia Ablaze
The Long War – Insurgency, Edited by Stephen F. Jones
Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States
Edited by Mark T. Berger andDouglas A. War, Peace and Progress in the 21st Century
Borer Conflict, Development, (In)Security and
Violence
Market-led Agrarian Reform Edited by Mark T. Berger and Heloise Weber
Edited by Saturnino M. Borras, Jr.
Notes on contributors
ShirinAkiner,University of Cambridge, UK.
Laurence Broers, Conciliation Resources, London, UK.
VickenCheterian,CIMERA, Geneva, Switzerland.
Ondrej Ditrych, Institute of Political Studies, Charles University,Prague, Czech Republic.
PaulaGarb,Department of Anthropology,University of California, Irvine, USA.
Julie A. George,Department of Political Science, Queens College, New York, USA.
John Heathershaw,Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK.
Stephen F. Jones, Department of Russian and Eurasian Studies, Mount Holyoke College,
Massachusetts, USA.
Alexandre Kukhianidze, Department of Political Science, Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State
University, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Lincoln A. Mitchell, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University,
New York, USA.
David W. Montgomery, Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding Initiative, Atlanta, Georgia,
USA.
Vladimer Papava, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS),
Tbilisi, Georgia.
StephenH. Rapp,Russian StateHumanities University, Moscow, Russia.
NanaSumbadze,Institute for Policy Studies,Tbilisi, Georgia.
RonaldGrigor Suny,Department of History, University of Michigan, USA.
Jonathan Wheatley,Centre forDemocracy, Aarau, Switzerland.
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