Caucasus, Failed States and Para States

Will Reno, Political Science, and Andrew Wachtel, Buffett Center, have received a $25,000 seed grant to conduct initial research on the eight republics that form the southern tier of the former U.S.S.R. These states, and the Russian Autonomous Republics they border, such as North Ossetia, scene of the recent school massacre at Beslan, are in many respects quite dissimilar. Some have made strides towards the market economy and democratic rule, some remain Soviet-style dictatorships, and others have developed diverse new forms of authority. Some are ethnically, religiously, and linguistically fairly homogeneous, others a patchwork of disparate groups. Some are secure in their borders, while others struggle to contain separatist or irredentist movements. What they share is that they all possess weak institutions, and, in the face of a number of predictable and unpredictable shocks, any and/or all of them could fall into the category of failed states. All of this is even truer of the parastates on the edges of these recognized countries, including Abkhazia, Adjaria, Chechnya, Daghestan, Ingushetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, North and South Ossetia, and even Tataria.

This grant will fund field research by professors Reno and Georgi Derluguian, Sociology, as well as lead towards a series of research discussions and a winter conference with partner institutions across Chicago.