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

准国家是分裂主义地区，它们建立了内部领土主权，但缺乏作为国家的广泛承认和合法性。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的特征。一个美俄联合研究小组将重点研究乌克兰-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、格鲁吉亚的阿布哈兹和南奥塞梯。 之所以选择这些地点，是因为可以进行研究，对比历史经验，俄罗斯与欧洲-大西洋共同体之间的争端根源，以及对难民保护和承认自决的国际准则的不同执行情况。准国家提出了两个基本的研究和政策问题。第一，某些准国家是如何以及为什么能够持续存在的;第二，为什么有些准国家比其他准国家更能成功地积累合法性？2008年初科索沃有争议地宣布独立以及对先例效应的关切使这些问题特别及时。在界定政治单位的战争之后，内部和外部合法性的建立是解释准国家稳健性的一个关键因素。具体的研究问题包括：（1）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（战争经历、治理结构、国家建设和身份建构、移徙或流离失所、边界关系和国际控制）有助于解释这些分布情况？c）在科索沃的先例之后，有国家抱负的精英如何在各种规模上努力提高合法性？（d）在这四个案例之间进行比较是否合适？e）准国家的存在如何影响有关种族清洗和暴力的全球规范？为了克服可及性和可靠性方面的潜在困难，采用了多方法数据收集方法来考察各种尺度上准国家的内部合法性。这包括在每个研究地点对大约1000人进行民意抽样调查（包括准国家居民和流离失所者），焦点小组讨论（总共约400人）和精英访谈。公开和未公布的统计数据也在地理信息系统中进行了分析，其中包括过去20年来从Landsat卫星重复图像中得出的土地覆盖变化。这四场冻结的冲突是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，分裂主义准国家分裂出来的国家与外部支持者（其中三个是俄罗斯）之间的关系恶化。 准国家本身往往被标记为走私（特别是毒品和武器）、洗钱、侵犯边境、恐怖分子过境点和国际法管辖范围之外的罪犯避难所的灰色地带。如果没有更多关于准国家内部情况的信息（对本国人民的合法性程度、与支持国接触的程度和性质、人民接受领土妥协或其他解决方案的意愿、族裔间不信任的程度以及边境控制），政策的制定和执行就大大偏离了“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".