AOC: The Dynamics of Secessionist Regions: Eurasian Unrecognized Quasi-States after Kosovo's Independence

准国家是指已经建立了内部领土主权，但作为国家缺乏广泛承认和合法性的分离主义地区。尽管这些地区的地位脆弱且存在争议，但它们长期以来一直是世界政治地图上的特色。一个美俄研究小组将重点关注巴尔干-黑海地区的四个准国家——科索沃、摩尔多瓦的外德涅斯特摩尔多瓦共和国（TMR）、格鲁吉亚的阿布哈兹和南奥塞梯。之所以选择这些地点，是因为有研究机会、对比历史经验、俄罗斯与欧洲-大西洋社区之间争端的根源，以及对难民保护和国际准则的不同实施和对自决的承认。准国家提出了两个基本的研究和政策问题。首先，某些准国家是如何以及为什么会存在下去的；其次，为什么有些准国家在积累合法性方面比其他国家更成功？2008年初科索沃有争议的独立宣言以及对先例效应的担忧使得这些问题显得尤为及时。在界定政治单位的战争之后，内部和外部合法性的建立是准国家稳固的关键因素。具体的研究问题包括：a)未被承认的准国家的农业、工业、贸易、社会和政治动态的特征和局部分布是什么？b)哪些因素（战争经验、治理结构、国家建设和身份建构、移民或流离失所、边界关系和国际控制）有助于解释这些分布？c)在科索沃先例之后，有国家抱负的精英们如何在各种尺度上促进合法性？d)对这4种情况进行比较是否合适？e)准国家的持续存在如何影响有关种族清洗和暴力的全球规范？为了克服在可及性和可靠性方面的潜在困难，采用了一种多方法数据收集方法来检验准状态在各种尺度上的内部合法性。这包括在每个研究地点对大约1000人进行民意抽样（包括准国家的居民和流离失所的人口），焦点小组讨论（总共包括大约400人）和精英访谈。在一个地理信息系统中还分析了公开的和未发表的统计数据，其中包括过去20年从陆地卫星重复图像中获得的土地覆盖变化。这四个冻结的冲突是20世纪90年代内战的结果，其特点是种族清洗，基础设施的破坏，以及分裂的准分裂国家与外部支持者（其中三个是俄罗斯）之间关系的恶化。准国家本身通常被标记为走私（特别是毒品和武器）、洗钱、违反边境、恐怖分子的中转站以及国际法无法触及的罪犯的避难所的灰色地带。如果没有更多关于准国家内部情况的信息（对本国民众的合法性程度、与支持国接触的程度和性质、民众接受领土妥协或其他解决方案的意愿、种族间不信任的程度和边境控制），政策的制定和实施就会明显脱离“实地事实”。

Quasi-states are secessionist regions that have established internal territorial sovereignty but lack widespread recognition and legitimacy as states. Despite their tenuous and contested status, such regions have long been features of world political maps. A U.S-Russian research team will focus on four quasi-states in the Balkans-Black Sea region - Kosovo, Transdniester Moldovan Republic (TMR) in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. These sites were chosen because of research access, contrasting historical experiences, sources of dispute between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community, and the varied implementation of international norms of refugee protection and recognition of self-determination. Two fundamental research and policy concerns are raised by quasi-states. First, how and why do certain quasi-states endure and, second, why are some more successful at accumulating legitimacy than others?The contested declaration of independence by Kosovo in early 2008 and concern about a precedent effect render these questions particularly timely. The establishment of internal and external legitimacy in the wake of wars that defined the political unit is a key factor in accounting for the robustness of quasi-states. The specific research questions include: a) What is the character and localized distribution of the agricultural, industrial, trade, social and political dynamics of the unrecognized quasi-states? b) What factors (war experience, governance structure, nation-building and identity construction, migration or displacement, border relations and international control) helps explain these distributions? c) How do state-aspirant elites work across a variety of scales to promote legitimacy, in the wake of the Kosovo precedent? d) How appropriate is it to make comparisons between these 4 cases? e) How does the enduring of quasi-states affect global norms concerning ethnic cleansing and violence?To overcome potential difficulties in accessibility and reliability, a multi-methods data gathering approach has been adopted to examine the internal legitimacy of quasi-states across a variety of scales. This includes public opinion sampling of about 1000 persons in each study site (among both residents of the quasi-states and the displaced populations), focus group discussions (including about 400 persons in all) and elite interviews. Public and unpublished statistical data are also analyzed in a geographical information system, incorporating land cover change derived from repeat Landsat satellite imagery over the past 20 years.The four frozen conflicts are outcomes of civil wars in the 1990s that were characterized by ethnic cleansing, destruction of infrastructure, and deteriorating relations between the countries from which the secessionist quasi-states splintered and external supporters (Russia in three of the cases). The quasi-states themselves are often marked as grey zones of smuggling (especially drugs and weapons), money laundering, border violations, transit points of terrorists, and refuges of criminals beyond the reach of international law. Without more information about the conditions inside the quasi-states (level of legitimacy with their own populations, the extent and nature of their contacts with the supporting countries, the willingness of the populations to accept territorial compromises or other settlement options, the level of inter-ethnic distrust, and border controls), policy formation and implementation is significantly removed from "facts on the ground".