Two events in 2008 shaped the political map of the Caucasus: the West's decision on the independence of Kosovo and the Russo-Georgian War. First, on 17 February, Kosovo authorities unilaterally declared the independence of what was at the time a UN protectorate. This declaration enjoyed much support in the West, including near-immediate recognition by key states such as the US, Germany, France, the UK, and a dozen others. But it also faced strong opposition from Serbia and Russia and strong skepticism from prowestern countries such as Georgia. Russia opposed not only the Kosovo declaration itself but more importantly the western adoption of it. From the Russian perspective, by supporting Kosovo's accession to sovereignty western states were violating the rules set at the moment of collapse of the federal states of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union: to invite the former union republics to join the international clubs of sovereign states, but not extend such invitation to any other sub-units. In other words, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Kazakhstan, and Russia became members of the United Nations, but sub-entities like Chechnya, Kosovo, or Tatarstan did not receive the same recognition.

This paper assesses state recognition, the practice historically employed to regulate membership in international society, since the United States–led recognition of Kosovo and the Russian-led recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Its main goal is to succinctly examine the question of whether these two controversial episodes have signaled change in the existing norms of recognition of new states. The paper argues that there is not enough evidence for the claims of some observers and governments that unilateral secession is, as such, becoming legitimate internationally. The leading recognizing powers took great care in all three cases to reject the applicability of their decision to other situations of unilateral secession, and they have since approached those other situations as if no acknowledgment of the three territories had taken place. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the deeply contested nature of these cases has introduced confusion and uncertainty into the practice and that this has had, and will have, important implications elsewhere in the world, in terms of both re-invigorated claims of statehood and the potential for unilateral recognition decisions by powerful outsiders. In fact, it is extremely unlikely that Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in August 2008 would have ever occurred without the prior US-led recognition of Kosovo in February 2008.

The Taiwan model of conflict transformation and the Kosovo model of conflict settlement have specific features, and are useful for analyzing the Georgian and Russian policies toward Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There is a similarity between the Georgian strategy of engagement and the Taiwan model, with its declared readiness to interact with the other party regardless of any setbacks arising over the issue of status. Unlike the Taiwan model, however, the Georgian strategy includes no concrete view on how to involve the authorities controlling the breakaway territories or, in particular, how to have a positive impact on their relations with the outside world. A comparison between the Kosovo model and Russian policies toward these two entities demonstrates that, in deciding to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow largely drew on the moral and legal arguments put forward for the recognition of Kosovo. Russia has established political oversight over these entities, to a certain extent mirroring the Western policy of supervised independence for Kosovo. But Russia is still unable to adopt a conflict resolution policy toward Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Georgia that is based on regional integration prospects, in contrast to Western policies toward the Balkans.

A series of events in 2008 influenced the Karabakh conflict resolution efforts: the Kosovo declaration of independence, the August war, and Russian recognition of independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Two new diplomatic initiatives to resolve the Karabakh conflict were launched immediately after the August war, one by Russia and the second by Turkey. This article discusses why the two initiatives failed, and the structural problems of Karabakh conflict resolution efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the major political consequences that the August 2008 war had (or did not have) for Georgia: how the war affected Georgia's internal political dynamics and its policies toward its separatist conflicts, its neighbors, and the world. I start by briefly summarizing my views on the nature of and reasons for the war, and on its impact (or the lack thereof) on the global security architecture. These constitute the backdrop against which changes in Georgia can be understood.

Given its economic success and the political transformations of the last decade, it is not surprising that Turkey is now charting an ambitious course in foreign policy. This article provides a sober assessment of some of the shortcomings becoming evident in Turkish foreign policy, and argues that if these problems are not addressed, Turkey is due to fall short of its regional leadership ambitions.

In this article I analyze the term “Macedonian(s)” based on the discourse of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (1893–1908) from the aspect of the internal understanding of the term as a supra-local and supra-church identity. Another matter for analysis in this article is that of the stereotypes in the interpretation of Macedonian historical processes inherited from the nineteenth century, still present in some contemporary historiographies. Hence, the article makes an attempt to bring down the stereotype about the existence of some unique Macedonian ethnic phenomenon known as the “Macedonian salad.” This article also deals with the significance of the geopolitical position of Ottoman Macedonia within the empire. More specifically, the emphasis is placed on the change of its position after the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1881). Namely, for the first time since the Ottoman conquests in the Middle Ages, Macedonia's position within the empire changed from being a central to a peripheral Ottoman province, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this change brought about. This aspect of Macedonian historical reality is often neglected in the historiography.

This paper examines a less researched aspect of East European party politics: change within ethnic parties, which are conventionally regarded as stable or intransigent political actors. The main argument of the paper is that the decreasing relevance of a bipolar model of political competition has affected the relative positioning of ethnic parties. Their programmatic outlook, role in the party system, and mobilization strategies are being mainstreamed. Ethnic parties are no longer regarded as inevitable participants in power sharing and informal elite accommodation. They are increasingly treated by voters and the party system alike as national-level parties and national-level competitors. The paper applies the concept of mainstreaming to explain the long-term evolution of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgarian party politics as a critical case study of ethnic party repositioning from proximity to government to parliamentary opposition. It builds an argument about the MRF's continued relevance to the party system, ensuring minority representation beyond ethnicity, as a liberal-centrist party representing distinct economic interests and political orientations within the Bulgarian electorate.

This paper considers the role of Russian print media and government in forming and publicizing nationalist sentiment through a content analysis of newspaper coverage of ethnic conflict in Stavropol in 2007. It shows that though the government officially pursues an inclusive multicultural approach (which I call associative nationalism), newspapers owned by Kremlin-loyal business holdings printed quite nationalist and sensationalist versions of the events in question. I argue that this is a passive promotion of a dissociative type of nationalism on the part of the Kremlin, which works against its stated purposes of bringing together all those in the Russian territory into a united national identity.