A Federal Perspective on the Abkhaz-Georgian Conflict

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the problem of the development of regional security has become increasingly relevant in international politics. Of particular concern is the post-Soviet space, which remains in the most difficult process of transformation. The Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, which entered a sharp phase in 1992, was one of the first and most lengthy (1992–2008) international conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Complex factors, such as the deep roots of the confrontation, the great human sacrifices of the political parties during the hostilities, the high degree of defensive involvement of the entire population of Abkhazia, and the asymmetry in the approaches of the parties, all determine the need for an analysis of the nature and the origins and dynamics of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.This book identifies the nature and the origins of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and the causes of the inefficiency of the official negotiation process, and it evaluates the hypothesis of a possible federalist transformation of the institutions of both Georgia and Abkhazia. In the international panorama, federalism, in fact, is being increasingly considered as an instrument of conflict transformation in the case of conflicts based on cultural diversity and ethnicity.