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Received 2021 Dec 6; Revised 2022 Feb 16; Accepted 2022 Jul 14; Issue date 2022.
Keywords: "de facto states," South Ossetia; unrecognized states; separatism; secession; state building; economic development
Third, there is a general turning of researchers to the study of internal factors of the consolidation of "de facto states" and the processes of (pseudo)state building (Il''in et al., 2010). The political systems and institutions of the unrecognized states, their socioeconomic situation, the development of certain sectors of the economy (Golunov and Zotova, 2021), public opinion, and the processes of formation of civic identity (O''Loughlin and Kolosov, 2017) were analyzed in increasing detail. Comparative studies have become widespread (Popescu et al, 2006; Broers et al., 2015; Markedonov, 2018; Zayats, 2020).
The purpose of this paper was to analyze the role of the economy in the formation of the statehood of the Republic of South Ossetia on the basis of modern theoretical ideas about the evolution of the statehood of unrecognized and partially recognized states, developed by N. Caspersen.
The tasks of the paper include:
— periodization of the co-evolution of statehood and the economy of the Republic of South Ossetia in accordance with the theoretical scheme of Caspersen;
— assessment of modern features and problems of the development of the economy of the Republic of South Ossetia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic;
— analysis of the relationship between ideas about possible pathways of economic development in political circles, media space, the expert community and the prospects for real sovereignty of the Republic of South Ossetia.
In the first part of the article, we will briefly characterize the theoretical approaches used in the study of the evolution of the statehood of unrecognized and partially recognized states, as well as the data collected and the methods used in this paper. We will then characterize the evolution of the economy at different stages of the state development of South Ossetia. In the last part, we will pay special attention to how the problems and opportunities for economic development are seen in expert and socio-political discourse. All this will allow not only assessing the current state of the economy of South Ossetia, but also approaching the question of what role the economy plays in understanding the prospects of their own statehood by the South Ossetian society.
The first phase is associated with the establishment of power control over the territory of an unrecognized state. It constitutes the fundamental basis of state building, without which the whole project of statehood is in jeopardy. Another important task of this period is to establish control over own borders. The issue of ensuring military security has a natural priority.
The second phase is associated with the assertion of a monopoly on "legitimate" violence. At the beginning of this stage, the integration of irregular paramilitary groups, challenging the civilian government, into the regular armed forces usually occurs. The future of state building largely depends on the success of this process, since most often personal interests of authoritative field commanders run counter to the task of building effective state institutions. Another major task of this period is the formation of authorities, administrative structures, institutions, and procedures for the reproduction and distribution of public goods.
An active post-war recovery usually ends the second and opens the third phase of development, in which questions of internal legitimacy become increasingly important. The main task of the government is to expand the range of public services provided. The issues of arranging the communal infrastructure are being resolved, the systems of healthcare, education and culture are being developed, which are assigned a special role in creating and maintaining a common identity.
We assume that the issue of economic stateness plays a central role here. On the one hand, patron states act as key drivers of the economy of unrecognized states, becoming intermediaries in their international transactions (financial transfers, trade in goods and services), providing access to their own markets (labor, goods, services and capital), rendering direct economic assistance. This dependence is greater the more isolated an unrecognized state turns out to be. On the other hand, the high participation of a patron state in the economy of an unrecognized state gives rise to economic and political dependence, which is painfully perceived by the elites and the population, creates a crisis of "sovereignty," and contributes to the development of irredentist sentiments.
The study relies on three main groups of information sources.
As part of the Georgian SSR, the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (SOAO) was the least developed region with an industrial-agrarian economy. By 1989, 2% of the population of the union republic (95.8 thousand people) lived in it, and the contribution to the economy was only 1.1% of its GDP, 0.8% of industrial and 0.7% of agricultural production. The largest enterprises (Elektrovibromashina and Emalprovod, as well as mechanical and woodworking plants) participated in the all-union division of labor, but most of the sales were carried out through Georgia. The agro-industrial complex played an important role: the production of wines, beer, canned food, etc. (Champain et al., 2004; Zayats, 2004).
In the 1980s, in the context of the rise of the national movement in all the union republics, the relative economic backwardness, interpreted as part of the policy of discrimination by the authorities of the Georgian SSR, was one of the key arguments in favor of the region''s sovereignty. By 1989, mutual claims were increasingly moving to the plane of interethnic relations and contributed to the transition of the conflict into a hot phase.
Using Caspersen''s scheme, three successive phases can be distinguished in the development of the statehood and economy of the Republic of South Ossetia.
The first phase of state building covers the period from 1989 to 1994. It was during this period that the "hot phase" of the conflict occurred, officially ending on June 24, 1992 with the signing of the Sochi agreements, according to which the parties pledged to cease fire and withdraw their armed formations from the zone of contact. According to official materials of those years, hostilities led to the loss of a significant part of the housing stock, the destruction of the most significant transport infrastructure (including the Tbilisi-Tskhinvali railway), as well as the shutdown of almost all industrial enterprises in the region.5
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