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Chapter OneExplaining Ethnic Conflict in the South CaucasusI. Breaking Up the South CaucasusWhen the USSR disintegrated in 1991, it was not only the state as a whole thatcollapsed. One region of the country, the Transcaucasus or “South Caucasus,” also fellapart. In this strategically sensitive region, surrounded by Russia, Turkey, Iran, and theBlack and Caspian Seas, the Soviet Union gave way to three independent states—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. In addition, it spawned three non-recognized statelets:the previously “autonomous” territories of Nagornyi (“Mountainous”) Karabagh(formerly an autonomous region of Soviet Azerbaijan), South Ossetia (formerly anautonomous region of Soviet Georgia), and Abkhazia (formerly an autonomous republicof Soviet Georgia). More than a decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse, this jumble ofstates and statelets at the crossroads of Eurasia persists.As the Soviet Union declined, what led to this unusually high level of statefragmentation in the South Caucasus? While all fifteen of the USSR’s union republicseventually became independent states, in the twelve states outside the South Caucasusonly two cases of further fragmentation—the autonomous republic of Chechnya fromRussia (temporarily) and the non-autonomous region of Transnistria from Moldova—ever occurred. Given the large number of autonomous territories in the USSR, not tomention the many other compactly-settled ethnic minorities living throughout thecountry, such a low number of incidents of state fragmentation outside the South25

Caucasus seems unusual. As the Soviet Union fell apart, why was this region in particularfilled with so many territorial disputes?This study provides a number of related answers to this question. First, I examinethe motivations that prompted members of three autonomous groups in the SouthCaucasus—Karabagh Armenians, Abkhazians, and South Ossetians—to originallyengage in mass mobilization in favor of institutional change (Chapters Three and Four).Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that their mass mobilization was not a responseto fears of physical or cultural insecurity. Rather, these groups mobilized because theyfeared demographic shifts in their regions, as well as the economic impact of continuedsubordination to their Soviet republics. Specifically, all three feared losses of local jobsand resources in competition with representatives of titular majority groups (i.e.,Azerbaijanis and Georgians). This was due to a number of concerns regarding the controlof local administrative apparatuses: in addition to potential demographic shifts, the likelyelimination of informal ethnic quotas and/or prospects of language-based discrimination.The politics of place and power explain the rise of mass mobilization among regionalgroups in the South Caucasus better than that of violence or culture.Next, I investigate the strategic calculations that led regional groups to preferinstitutional change over the pursuit of a compromise with union republics that wouldhave preserved the existing hierarchical arrangements (Chapters Five and Six). The firstcalculation regards trust. To protect the demographic and economic interests of regionalgroups, union republics were going to have to commit to the decentralization of politicalpower in the regional autonomies. However, the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev planned toinstitute in the late Soviet period promised to strengthen the powers of the USSR’s union26

republics, making it difficult to reassure regional groups that union republics wouldrespect autonomous powers of self-government in the future.This so-called “commitment problem” did not stem from shifting capabilitiesalone. Prior to mobilizing, all three regional groups received signals from titular groupsthat suggested an intent not to commit to decentralization. While these signals wereambiguous, they mapped onto familiar historical records of centralization thattransformed indicators of possible intent to evidence of highly probable outcomes.Together, the signals and historical records led regional groups to calculate that titulargroups could not be trusted to abide by the terms of a negotiated solution.The second calculation regards opportunity—specifically, whether or not theSoviet central government could be relied upon to support regional groups’ politicalgoals. The ideology with which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dressed his program ofreform prior to Soviet collapse offered a unique opportunity for at least two of the groups,Karabagh Armenians and Abkhazians, to attempt to eliminate the existing state-regionalhierarchy. In his calls for reform, Gorbachev promised to rectify “deviations” from theSoviet revolutionary path of state development as set out by Lenin and his Bolshevikfollowers. For Karabagh Armenians and Abkhazians, such a promise plausibly extendedto their own ethnopolitical institutions, the forms of which had distinctly diverged fromthe original designs of Soviet founders. By “piggy-backing” on Soviet reform, thesegroups believed they could pressure the central government to grant them their requests.By contrast, the ideology of Soviet reform did not grant South Ossetians a similaropportunity. South Ossetians consequently pursued only decentralization within their27

union republic, not a complete undoing of their subordination from it. Only in a latercontext of conflict escalation did they eventually pursue this goal.In addition to discussing opportunity, Chapter Six also engages in a comparativeassessment of the three factors—economic discrimination, distrust, and opportunity—which explain mass mobilization among regional groups in the South Caucasus. Inparticular, opportunity provides the broadest explanation for why so many regionalgroups in the USSR did not engage in mass mobilization in favor of radical institutionalchange or, for that matter, any institutional change at all.Next, I examine the initial response of titular groups to the mass mobilizationefforts of regional groups (Chapter Seven). To explain the outbreak of conflict, we needto explain why titular groups did not accede to regional groups’ requests, or at leastrecognize their concerns and offer to pursue a compromise solution. In the context of asingle Soviet state, it should not have mattered if Mountainous Karabagh became part ofArmenia, Abkhazia separated from Georgia, or South Ossetia were an autonomousrepublic rather than an autonomous region. If titular groups had consented to suchchanges, or at least pursued negotiations, mass mobilization would not have led toconflict.When titular groups reacted belligerently, however, they confirmed the suspicionsof regional groups, initiating a “conflict-spiral” that eventually degenerated into war.Chapter Seven explains this reaction. Even though all groups were housed in a singleSoviet state, Azerbaijanis and Georgians perceived regional mobilization to be amanifestation of an external security threat from, respectively, Armenia and Russia.Thanks to this perception, titular groups could not comprehend (or chose not to28

acknowledge) the local concerns of regional groups, identifying their actions not as aproduct of their own insecurities but of external threats against which titular groups hadto defend themselves. 1Finally, I assess the implications of the origins of conflict in the South Caucasuson prospects for conflict resolution in the region, as well as conflict prevention elsewhere(Chapter Eight). I argue that the conditions that originally led groups to conflict have notdisappeared. Regional groups are still concerned about protecting their demographic andeconomic interests; the “political” commitment problem remains in force; and statesretain the same insecurities they had in the past. Altering these conditions is an arduous,multiyear task. If, however, decisive shifts in the balance of power between states andregions occur, speedier resolutions to conflict are possible.2The rest of Chapter One discusses the elements I have briefly outlined above. Ifirst discuss the most basic: the motivations of regional groups.II. Regional MotivationsWhen explaining civil conflict, many scholars downplay the study of groupmotivation. This is because so many groups that have a reason to engage in conflictualactivity do not. In her classic work on revolution, for instance, Theda Skocpol1In this dissertation, I do not address the mechanisms by which “conflict-spirals” led towar and, from there, to state collapse; I leave this for other studies. For an excellentexample, see Erik Melander, “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Revisited: Was the WarInevitable?” Journal of Cold War Studies 3, no. 2 (2001): 48-75. For a description of howconflicts escalated to war in all three cases, also see Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds:The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).2This dissertation was completed prior to the start of active efforts by Georgian PresidentMikheil Saakashvili to restore control over South Ossetia in the summer of 2004.29

condemned attempts to explain peasant revolutionary action as a “reaction againstexploitation,” since “[p]easants always have grounds for rebellion against [those] whoexploit them.”3 Explaining rebellion in medieval Europe, William Brustein and MargaretLevi similarly held that collective “reasons for antagonism to the state” can be found infar more places than there are rebellions.4 More recently, James Fearon and David Laitinhave argued that “ethnic antagonisms, nationalist sentiments, and grievances oftenmotivate rebels and their supporters,” but insist that “such broad factors are too commonto distinguish the cases where civil war breaks out.”5Even when motivations do play a role in analysis, it is typically not collectivemotivations—grievances or threats to the community at large—that attract the attentionof scholars but the individual motivations presumed necessary for group members toovercome the temptation to “free ride” on the efforts of others rather than engage in riskyor costly forms of behavior themselves.6 Some scholars who engage in such analysis3Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France,Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 114-115.4William Brustein and Margaret Levi, “The Geography of Rebellion: Rulers, Rebels, andRegions, 1500 to 1700,” Theory and Society 16 (1987): 471.5This perspective is shared by a large number of scholars. In fact, an entire subfield ofsociology, the study of “resource mobilization,” has developed around it. According to J.Craig Jenkins, “[r]esource mobilization theorists have argued that grievances aresecondary .[that they] are relatively constant, deriving from structural conflicts ofinterest built into social institutions .While grievances are necessary for movementformation, they are explained either by changes in power relations or by structuralconflicts of interest.” Some economists who study civil conflict agree; according toWorld Bank scholar Paul Collier, “the economic theory of conflict assumes thatperceived grievances are found more or less equally in all societies.” J. Craig Jenkins,“Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements,” Annual Review ofSociology 9 (1983): 530; Paul Collier, “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and TheirImplications for Policy,” mimeo, Development Research Group (Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2000), 4.6Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971, 1965). Also see Samuel Popkin, The30

investigate “selective incentives,” or promises of personal gain, offered exclusively toindividuals who participate in a particular action.7 Others research the selective“disincentives” that are doled out to individuals who refuse to participate in collectiveaction.8 Still others focus on mechanisms of social interaction like obligation andloyalty.9This focus on opportunity and individual motivations should not preclude ananalysis of collective motivations, however. Scholars of social movements havetraditionally held collective motivations to be a necessary component of theirexplanations for action, even if they argue that “variations in their interpretation acrossindividuals, social movement organizations, and time can affect whether and how theyare acted upon.”10 A voluminous amount of research has been devoted to the collectiveRational Peasant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 252-259; and PamelaOliver, “Rewards and Punishments as Selective Incentives for Collective Action:Theoretical Investigations,” American Journal of Sociology 84 (1980): 1356-75.7Such gains can be material in nature, ranging from payments and social services to theacquisition of loot and plunder. They can also be social, such as the attainment ofcommunal respect and honor. See, for example, Mark Lichbach, “What Makes RationalPeasants Revolutionary?: Dilemma, Paradox, and Irony in Collective Action,” WorldPolitics 46 (1994): 383-418; John Mueller, “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’,” InternationalSecurity 25, no. 1 (2000): 42-70; and Roger Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion: Lessonsfrom Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).8These can be a host of punishments ranging from social ostracism to injury or death.See, for example, David D. Laitin, “National Revivals and Violence,” Archiveseuropéenes de sociologie 36, no. 1 (1995): 14-18, 21-23; Stathis Kalyvas, “Wanton andSenseless? The Logic of Massacres in Algeria,” Rationality and Society 11 (1999): 24385; Mueller, “The Banality of Ethnic War,” 53-54, 60; and James D. Fearon and DavidD. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97,no. 1 (2003), 80.9Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, Guerillas and Revolution in Latin America: AComparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956 (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1992), 138-53, 250-61; Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion.10David A. Snow, et al, “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and MovementParticipation,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 465.31

motivations of those who engage in rural rebellion.11 One exponent of the selectiveincentives approach, Mark Lichbach, has even argued that it is “absurd” to assume thatcollective motivations do not contribute to peasant rebellions.12 Lichbach flatly states thatthe theory of selective incentives “does not apply” to cases where individuals “do notpursue a public good in addition to selective incentives are not interested in socialjustice as a complement to personal aggrandizement [or] have no political ambitions butonly criminal ones.”13 Collective motivation, in other words, is still a necessary, ifinsufficient, factor for explaining conflictual collective action.Just as scholars have devoted attention to the group motivations underlining ruralrebellion, there is little reason to forsake their study when it comes to explainingparticipation in ethnic mass mobilization. In this study I investigate the collective11See Arthur Stinchcombe, “Agricultural Enterprise and Rural Class Relations,”American Journal of Sociology 67 (1961): 165-76; Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of theTwentieth Century (New York: Harper, 1969); Jeffery M. Paige, Agrarian Revolution(New York: Free Press, 1975); James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1976); Samuel Popkin, Rational Peasant; Theda Skocpol,“What Makes Peasants Revolutionary?” Comparative Politics 14 (1982): 351-75; J.Craig Jenkins, “Why Do Peasants Rebel? Structural and Historical Theories of ModernPeasant Rebellions,” American Journal of Sociology 88 (1982): 467-514; Jeffery M.Paige, “Social Theory and Peasant Revolution in Vietnam and Guatemala,” Theory andSociety 12 (1983): 699-737; and Wickham-Crowley, Guerillas and Revolution in LatinAmerica.12Lichbach, “What Makes Rational Peasants Revolutionary?”, 390.13Admittedly, Lichbach goes on, rather inexplicably, to argue the precise opposite: “Wecan now understand an often observed syndrome in peasant struggles: dissident peasantsdo not formally, explicitly, or consciously pursue a common goal; collective goals,ideologies, and policies are only remotely connected to peasant collective action;peasants take individual actions for personal aggrandizement; peasants are somehow ableto overcome these difficulties and alleviate their burdens .Successful collective actionthus appears fragile, an unintended consequence of self-interest.” Ibid., 413, 415-16.32

motivations that promoted mass mobilization in support of institutional change inMountainous Karabagh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.14III. Discerning Collective MotivationsWhat sort of collective motivations inspire individuals to engage in massmobilization? Many scholars of ethnic conflict hold that identifying such motivations isnot that important. In an influential work on the strategy of conflict, James Fearon hasargued that minority groups that mobilize for secession may be concerned about future“exploitation”, or their “political status,” or “economic and even physical insecurity.”Rui De Figueiredo and Barry Weingast have similarly noted that “subjugation and,perhaps, even genocide” are fears that could motivate individuals to support separatistactivity. Stephen Saideman has offered a detailed discussion of various insecurities thatcould motivate separatist activity, economic, physical, and political, but treats them all asinterchangeable threats.15This assumption of interchangeability, however, may not be the best way tounderstand the mass mobilization of ethnic groups in favor of institutional change. If14For one novel approach to the study of group motivations in ethnic conflict, see RogerD. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in TwentiethCentury Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).15James D. Fearon, “Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict,” in TheInternational Spread of Ethnic Conflict, eds. David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 108, 116;

questions of nationalism, mythmaking, and ethnic conflict. I also wish to thank Roger Petersen, who joined the MIT faculty too late for me to engage his talents more fully but who eagerly discussed issues of historical memory and ethnic mobilization with me and whose creative works on the subject continue to inspire.