CC BY
41
Kenan ALLAKHVERDIEV
Ph.D. (Philos.), associate professor at the Political Science and Political Administration Department, State Administration Academy under
the President of the Azerbaijan Republic (Baku, Azerbaijan).
ETHNOPOLITICAL DIMENSION OF AZERBAIJAN'S NATIONAL SECURITY
Abstract
T
he author addresses the problem of measuring the ethnopolitical aspects of national security and offers meas-
urement methods based on a two-component analysis with various coefficients of variables.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The turn of the 21st century was marked by accelerated ethnopolitical activity and cardinal shifts in security paradigms. In the near future the interconnection between the two spheres will obviously emerge as increasingly important for the future of international security and stability. The time has come for politicians and academics to join forces in order to move away from descriptive and subjective assessments of the current developments toward making as many empirical data and factors as possible the object of studies and ensuring verification of and feedback regarding the suggested expert recommendations.
This article is a logical continuation of the previous one in which the author posed himself the task of formatting the key parameters of national development and indicators of ethnopolitical security in the post-Soviet states.1 I shall limit myself to the key aspects of the ethnopolitical dimension of national security.
1 See: K. Allakhverdiev, “National Development Strategy and Ethnopolitical Security in the Age of Globalization,"
The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2008, CA&CC Press, Sweden, pp. 14-31.
■ Formulation of the problem is the primary task and constitutes the first range of questions. It generates at least two difficulties. First, it is no secret that many experts reject the idea that ethnopolitical security can be identified as a specific type within the national security system. Without dwelling in detail on their arguments I have to say that the current reality and dynamics of the radical changes in the ethnopolitical picture of the world will inevitably force both the academic and political communities to revise their ideas about the “classical" philosophy of security. Second, the very idea that the transborder expanse between ethnopolitics and national security can be measured is now being actively discussed as an innovation. So far none of the political and academic projects to index the individual aspects of social life has taken the transborder expanse as a target of their studies. Like my previous publications this article can be described as an attempt (I cannot say whether it is a successful one or not) to introduce into academic circulation and research programs the idea of the dominant nature of ethnopolitical security in the world today and the fact that it needs adequate scientifically substantiated applied measurement methods.
■ The second range of questions is created by the conditions outlined above that, in turn, are responsible for the idea and the specific algorithm of the suggested methods of ethnopolitical measurement of national security through their basic components and the integral index of ethnopolitical security based on them. I hope that the resultant theoretical-methodological model will serve as the basis for further research, various structures, and mathematical solutions. What is important is the fact that ethnopolitical security is not an imagined but a tangible reality. Contemporary political science should study it in many ways, including using various measurement methods as one of its imperatives.
I have formulated the following tasks:
■ Substantiation of the calculation methods applied to the ethnopolitical aspects of national security and their main components;
■ Formulation of the main factors of and threats to Azerbaijan’s ethnopolitical security;
■ An analysis of the Azerbaijan Republic’s ethnopolitical security.
Substantiation of the Calculation Methods Applied to Ethnopolitical Aspects of National Security
The academic literature offers any number of methods for calculating indices of all sides and spheres of public life and their interconnection. The most prominent academic projects in this sphere are: the democratization index,2 the Foreign Affairs and A.T. Kearney/FOREIGN POLICY Magazine globalization index,3 and others. It should be said that some of the indices have already been recognized by the academic community and the public: the human development index,4 the press freedom index,5 the economic freedom index,6 etc.
2 For the indices, see: T. Vanhanen, Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of 170 Countries, The Center for the Study of Democratic Governance, London, New York, 2003, available at [http://www.csdg.uiuc.edu].
3 [http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf?p=5,4,1,127].
4 [http://hdr.undp.org].
5 Reporters without Borders. Worldwide Press Freedom Index, available at [http://www.rsf.org].
6 Three indices of economic freedom are better known than the others: the Economic Freedom of the World Index compiled by the Fraser Institute, available at [www.fraserinstitute.org] and the indices of economic freedom compiled by the Heritage Foundation [www.heritage.org] and Cato Institute [www.cato.org].
There are indices directly related to the spheres of interest for the present article:
—in the sphere of ethnopolitics: the ethnicity index and its interconnections,7 ethnic minority,8 indices of political rights and civil freedoms,9 etc.;
—in the security sphere: the martial potency index,10 the international influence index,11 the index of terrorism,12 the failed states index,13 etc.
It should be said that there are no relatively prominent methods of measuring the ethnopolitical aspects of national security, which is probably explained by the dynamics and the widening conceptual volume of the basic categories, namely, ethnopolitics and security.
Ethnopolitics can be approached in two ways: the narrow approach (politically formulated and practically realized state policies in the sphere of ethnonational relations) and the extended approach (which includes, along with a purposeful state national policy, the sum-total of various manifestations and processes of political life in the ethnic sphere). I prefer the latter since in the globalized world ethnicity and politics demonstrate gradual interpenetration leaving no space for independent functioning of ethnic politics proper. In this context ethnopolitics can be described as historically developing forms of interconnection among the political and ethnic spheres of human life. They manifest themselves in sociopolitical processes, relations, institutions, and doctrines, as well as in the practical aspects of the subjective impact on them.
On the other hand, in the 21st century the security philosophy has been changing to a great extent; it is moving, with increasing clarity, from the military sphere to the sphere of human life, and the components of security are growing more humanistic, universal, and mutually dependent. At the present development stage security is integrating with other spheres of public life to a much greater extent; its interpretations are changing from the former exclusive interest in state and territory protection to dynamic human development. These processes are unfolding on the basis of awareness of human demands and requirements.
The fact that success of the human development models is largely associated with the requirements of large groups of people and nations in new forms of ethnosocial organisms (which combine “nationalization" and “internationalization" of statehood) moves the issues of security of ethnopolitical development to the fore. It should be said that the problems found at the crossroads of ethnopol-itics and national security are not merely complicated in themselves—this complexity is also created by the intertwining of various spheres of public life and research approaches (terminological, methodological, and others).
In this way, ethnopolitical security (or ethnopolitical aspects of national security in a different terminological context) can be defined as a state of protecting the vitally important interests, processes, and institutions of a country’s ethnopolitical development against the destructive impact of destabilizing factors (potential and real) that take the form of direct and indirect threats and dangers.
Any methodology should be substantiated, which means that its basic principles should be clearly stated. My research is based on the following principles:
7 The 5-level ethnicity index reveals the interconnection between this factor and political involvement (see: P. Lien, “Ethnickty and Political Participation: A Comparison Between Asian and Mexican Americans," Political Behavior, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1994, pp. 237-264).
8 Minorities at Risk, project of the Center of International Development and Conflict Administration at the Maryland University, available at [http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar].
9 Indices of political rights and civil freedoms compiled by the Freedom House [www.freedomhouse.org].
10 The martial potency index of RUSI, available at [www.rusi.org].
11 See: Politicheskiy atlas sovremennosti: Opyt mnogomernogo statisticheskogo analiza politicheskikh system sovremennykh gosudarstv, MGIMO-Universitet Press, Moscow, 2007.
12 This index was suggested by the Center for American Progress, available at [www.americanprogress.org].
13 See: The Failed States Index 2008, The Fund for Peace & Carnegie Endowment for Peace, available at [www.foreignpolicy.com].
■ Since science knows of successful attempts to formalize the spheres of ethnopolitics and security we can surmise that the product of their intertwining—ethnopolitical security—can likewise be measured;
■ Making the widest use possible of the relevant existing scientifically substantiated indices;
■ In order to be used for applied purposes, the suggested methodology for calculating the eth-nopolitical security index should be as simple as possible and digitally and graphically clear.
Some aspects of the problem associated with identifying the systemic criteria of ethnopolitical security have been already discussed.14 The problem is too vast, which forced the author to merely outline the scientific approaches to it in his previous articles; the central question, “How can the eth-nopolitical dimension of the state’s national security be measured?" remained outside the scope of the earlier publications.
I believe that a systematized methodology for calculating the ethnopolitical security of the postSoviet transition states calls for the following algorithm:
(1) selection of the parameters related to the ethnopolitical aspects of national security to be measured;
(2) their measurement in conventional points combined with identification of the relative weight of the variables found in other indices;
(3) derivation of multiple coefficients of the studied groups of objects (parameters) and calculation on this basis of the integral index of ethnopolitical security;
(4) application of this methodology to the ethnopolitical aspects of the national security of the Central Caucasian transition states, particularly the Azerbaijan Republic.
The Basic Parameters of the Ethnopolitical Measurement of National Security
It should be said, first and foremost, that the main problem is selecting the parameters for further study. I believe that we should concentrate on the component studies of two large groups: the factors of and the threats to ethnopolitical security.
Since factors and threats generally have common sources, both groups can be formalized on the basis of the following introductory oppositions with differentiated coefficients:
■ Differentials (D)—1; Constants C—2;
■ Latent (Lt)—1; Open (O)—3;
■ Positive (P)/Low (L)—1; Negative (N)/High (H)—3.
It should be said that the differences between factors and threats are especially differentiated by a third group of parameters: factors may be positive or negative, and, consequently, can mutually balance each other out, while threats may be high or low, and in certain combinations can only add to the destructive nature. The coefficients are different because the degree of importance of dif-
14 For more detail on the theoretical-methodological aspects of the ethnopolitical security problem and the criteria of its measurement, see the articles of the present author: “Ethnopolitical Dimension of National Security and Globalization Challenges," The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 1 (5), 2007, pp. 39-53; “National Development Strategy and Ethnopolitical Security in the Age of Globalization."
ferent factors is different (latent or open) and because threats have different degrees of intensity (low or high).
For example, the Armenian-Azeri conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which became repeatedly intensified over the course of time, can be described as a permanent threat of an open nature and high level. At the same time, the factor of the country’s ethnic patchwork composition is not as unambiguous: its degree is variable and, depending on the specific historical conditions, can either be latent or open and play a positive or a negative role. This is amply illustrated by the ethnopolitical processes underway in Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and today.
The above suggests the following combinations of factors of and threats to ethnopolitical security (see Table 1).
Table 1
Ethnopolitical Security Components Parametrized
Parameters Coefficient Threats Factors
Permanent latent high /negative/ (2x1x3) = 6 TCLtH FCLtN
Permanent latent low /positive/ (2x1x1) = 2 TCLtL FCLtP
Permanent open high /negative/ (2x3x3) = 18 TCOH FCON
Permanent open low /positive/ (2x3x1) = 6 TCOL FCOP
Differential latent high /negative/ (1x1x3) = 3 TDLtH FDLtN
Differential latent low /positive/ (1x1x1) = 1 TDLtL FDLtP
Differential open high /negative/ (1x3x3) = 9 TDOH FDON
Differential open low /positive/ (1x3x1) = 3 TDOL FDOP
The table shows that the maximum value of an individual component (Permanent open high /negative/) is assessed as 18 conventional points and the minimum (Differential latent low /positive/) as 1 point. Assessments of individual components produced by various expert methods suggest a mean value for the entire group.
I intended to identify only twenty groups of components (both factors and threats) which I see as the most important; this means that the highest possible number of conventional points for any given group (the threat to the country’s ethnopolitical security, for example) is 360. This means that the correlation between the average sizes of a group of components and the highest values for them serves as an index of the components’ influence on the current state of ethnopolitical aspects of the security sphere. The correlation between the mean values of the two main groups of components (factors of and threats to national security) can be described as the next step.
This method is fairly schematic; it does not make it possible to obtain a more or less exact copy of reality (there is probably no theory or methodology capable of this); it, however, permits diagnos-
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
tics of individual security segments and, therefore, is conducive to identifying the main tendencies in this sphere.
The finite integral index is another important component of the national security ethnopolitical dimension offered here. I do not aspire to invent a universal formula yet I believe that the following can be offered as a working hypothesis.
The ethnopolitical security index is a formalized value obtained by extracting from as many values of ethnopolitical security as possible a mean value of ethnopolitical danger (the remainder of dividing the mean sum of its key quantitative indices in conventional points by their maximum).
This index has the following form:
EtnpS = 1 - Etnp
dang/mid
F + A
N
: Etnp
dang/max
where:
■ EtnpS (Ethnopolitical Security)—index of the country’s ethnopolitical security;
■ Etnp dang/mid—mean value of ethnopolitical danger;
■ F (Factors)—ethnopolitical security factors;
■ T (Threats)—threats to ethnopolitical security;
■ N—number of ethnopolitical security components;
■ Etnp dang/max—maximum value of quantitative indices of ethnopolitical danger (in conventional points).
To clarify I shall supply the formula with figures: if the factors of ethnopolitical security of a certain state come to 120 conventional points and the threats to 240 points, the correlation between the mean value of ethnopolitical danger (180 points) and its maximum (360 points) produces the corresponding index—0.5. Since the ethnopolitical security indices are calculated according to a 0—1 scale, subtraction of the index we arrived at earlier (1 - 0.5) provides the needed value: EtnpS = 0.5.
This index creates several advantages.
■ First, the index and the methods of ethnopolitical measurement as a whole are of an applied nature. They offer a systematized empirical basis for static and dynamic models of the ethnopolitical aspects of a country’s national security. A comparative analysis of the indices’ values for a basic period of 5 to 10 years suggests a mean extrapolating curve with this or an even longer anticipation period. This means that short- and mid-term fairly highly scientifically substantiated forecasts are possible. In the context of the emerging ethnopolitical instability in most regions (the Central Caucasus being no exception in this respect), pragmatic forecasts may become efficient instruments of prevention and neutralization of destabilizing trends.
■ Second. This version of ethnopolitical measurement of national security is flexible and highly adaptive since the very sampling of factors of and threats to ethnopolitical security is variable enough. Their selection may depend not only on precise approaches but can also be directly adjusted to the specific conditions of a country or a region. Indeed, the dominant ethnopolitical aspect of national security in Azerbaijan (the factor of Armenian irredentism burdened with external aggression) differs greatly from the situation in the Baltic countries (the Russian speakers factor) or the Philippines (the Muslims of Moro Island). The threats created by the Anyanya separatists of southern Sudan differ to the same extent from the terrorist threats in Trentino-Alto Adige in Northern Italy (close to the Austrian border) populated by a German-speaking minority. In all cases, however, when adaptive values are intro-
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duced into the group of factors and threats the results will reflect the current state of the country’s ethnopolitical security; and a corrected methodology will create an idea of the situation in any given ethnic area.
■ Third, this methodology can be described as integral since it combines two main approaches—systemic (structural-functional research) and situational (studies of the process), each of them overcoming their mutual limitations (the abstract nature of the former and the empirical approach of the latter). This makes it possible not only to measure the segments of ethnopo-litical security but also to enrich the research model with facts.
There is one more thing. I deliberately kept one of the most important components, viz. the system of ensuring national security out of the present methodology of ethnopolitical measurement.15 I believe that it is too diverse in nature to be introduced as a component into the measuring methodology. The state, the most important political institution, is at one and the same time an object of security (the state’s vital interests) and its key subject, the activity of which largely changes the configuration of the factors of and threats to ethnopolitical security. For example, a state that failed to assimilate local ethnic groups or discriminate against them creates sources of threats while a course toward a stronger civil society and social state and a civil agreement based on multiculturalism are positive factors of ethnopolitical security. The cause and effect of this interconnection and the internal correlation between the groups of components should be studied separately.
The above substantiation of the methods of ethnopolitical measurement of national security calls for scientific-applied approbation. A comparative analysis of all the states in the region is of obvious importance, however I shall limit myself here to the mean values of factors and threats related to one of the Central Caucasian states, namely, Azerbaijan.
Key Factors of Ethnopolitical Security of the Azerbaijan Republic
The definition of ethnopolitical security offered above suggests that we should identify the systemic blocks that make it possible as its structural foundation to group within them the most important indices for assessing the state of ethnopolitical security. The ethnopolitical security factors can be described as one of the most important systemic blocks for a country’s destiny.16
Sampling is not easy because these factors should:
■ First, be correlated with the urgency of ethnopolitical problems;
■ Second, one and the same factor should have a wide range of interpretations—from obviously positive to obviously negative.
It is common knowledge that the ratings based on expert assessments are always subjective. Their immanent subjectivity is exacerbated by the way the questions are formulated.17
15 The system of structures, forces, and assets of various organizations and legal acts designed to ensure security and protect the vitally important interests of the state and society from external and internal threats is normally described as the system of ensuring national security.
16 For more detail, see: K. Allakhverdiev, “National Development Strategy and Ethnopolitical Security in the Age of Globalization."
17 See: M.G. Mironiuk, I.N. Timofeev, Ia.I. Vaslavskiy, “Universalnye sravnenia s ispolzovaniem kolichestven-nykh metodov analiza (obzor pretsedentov),” Polis, No. 5, 2006, pp. 39-57.
To upgrade the objectivity and verifiable nature of the study when sampling the ethnopolitical security factors I preferred to use the indices widely accepted by the international academic community. Fifteen of the twenty parameters I have selected as indicative descriptions of the factors of ethnopolitical security of Azerbaijan are international expert indices, while the remaining five are least subjective as belonging to the field of unambiguous positive or negative values. For this reason the table based on the above principles can be on the whole described as scientifically substantiated and reliable (see Table 2).
Table 2
Factors of Azerbaijan’s Ethnopolitical Security
Factors of ethnopolitical security Indices of ethnopolitical security of the Azerbaijan Republic (in conventional points)18
of the Azerbaijan Republic FCLtN FCLtP FCON FCOP FDLtN FDLtP FDON FDOP
1. Globalization index19 3 *
2. Potential international influence index20 1
3. The failed states index21 3
4. Index of state weakness22 3
5. The state’s involvement in military-political blocs, presence of foreign military bases in its territory 1
18 The (*) sign means the absence of data. The figure constitutes the author’s assessment.
19 [http://www.atkearney.com/main]. Azerbaijan is absent from the list of 72 countries of the world which were included in the 2007 study. I believe that the level of globalization in Azerbaijan can be assessed as a dynamic, open, and positive factor.
20 Calculated by Politicheskiy atlas sovremennosti. Azerbaijan is 83rd among 192 states involved in the comparative analysis. This can be described as a latent index and potentially positive for the country.
21 With 64 points Azerbaijan is not on the list of 60 failed states out of 177 countries of the world [the red, critical, level of risks—from 90 to 120 points: Uzbekistan (26th place); Tajikistan (38); Kyrgyzstan (39); Turkmenistan (46), Moldova (49), Belarus (53), Georgia (56)]. Those who compiled the rating placed Azerbaijan in the orange zone (the dangerous level of risks—from 60 to 89.9 points) (see: The Failed States Index 2008, The Fund for Peace & Carnegie Endowment for Peace).
22 Index of State Weakness in the Developing World offered by the Brookings Institute includes 141 developing countries and is based on four basic parameters: economic and political situation, security, and social spheres. Ranking 80th, Azerbaijan was included in the fourth group (out of five groups), the so-called states that demand attention, which also includes Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, etc.) (see: Index of State Weakness in the Developing World 2008, available at [http://www. brookings edu/reports/2008/02_weak_states_index.aspx]).
Table 2 (continued)
Factors of ethnopolitical security Indices of ethnopolitical security of the Azerbaijan Republic (in conventional points)
of the Azerbaijan Republic FCLtN FCLtP FCON FCOP FDLtN FDLtP FDON FDOP
6. Political risks index23 9
7. The statehood index24 3
8. The index of domestic and external threats25 6
9. State transformation index26 3
10. The state status index27 3
11. Global competitiveness index28 1
12. Economic freedom index29 3
13. Index of human development30 1
14. Presence of ethnic areas on the country's territory 18
23 On the global map of political risks compiled by Maplecroft, a research and consultative company (which covers 207 states), Azerbaijan holds 43rd place and is found in the high risk zone (see: Global Map of Political Risks 2006-2008, available at [http://www.maplecroft.com]).
24 Calculated by Politicheskiy atlas sovremennosti. Azerbaijan is 141st among 192 states.
25 Calculated by Politicheskiy atlas sovremennosti. Azerbaijan is 24th among 192 states which means that it is one of the countries affected by serious threats.
26 The transformation index of Bertelsmann compares the development level of democracy and market economy and the political governance quality in 119 countries, available at [http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de].
27 Ibidem. Azerbaijan in 87th among 125 states.
28 According to the 2007-2008 report Azerbaijan is 66th among 131 economics (see: The Global Competitiveness Report, available at [http://www.gcr.weforum.org]).
29 Azerbaijan is 107th among 157 countries (see: Index of Economic Freedom 2008, The Heritage Foundation, available at [www.heritage.org]).
30 Azerbaijan is 98th on the list, which can be interpreted as a latently positive factor (see: [http://hdrstats.undp.org/ countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_AZE.html]).
Table 2 (continued)
Factors of ethnopolitical security Indices of ethnopolitical security of the Azerbaijan Republic (in conventional points)
of the Azerbaijan Republic FCLtN FCLtP FCON FCOP FDLtN FDLtP FDON FDOP
15. Share of ethnic minorities in the population31 1
16. External status of ethnic minorities 6
17. Index of ethnopolitical activity 3
18. Conflict and political violence risks32 9
19. Index of ethnoconfessional tolerance 6
20. Index of separatism 18
T o t a l: 73 12 0 36 6 21 5 18 3
Table 2 shows that the largest number of indicators (8 out of 20) related to the factors of ethno-political security of the Azerbaijan Republic are found in the segment of differential latent negative factors; the smallest number is found in the segment of constant latent negative factors. Significantly, ethnopolitical factors per se are in the majority among the factors of high conflictogenic potential. It should be taken into account that the positive factors (5 indicators) partially balanced out the negative manifestations in the sphere of ethnopolitical security. The resultant picture of the ethnopolitical security factors of Azerbaijan is the following:
EtnpS Factors negative EtnpS Factors positive _ EtnpS Factors
(87 conventional points) (14 conventional points) (73 conventional points).
This index when correlated with the maximum possible value (360 points) is about 20 percent, which means that the negative factors play an important role in the assessments of the current state of the country’s ethnopolitical security.
The scope of the article does not allow me to offer an extensive description of each of the factors, therefore I shall limit myself to general comments. Some of the above factors of Azerbaijan’s
31 In the total population of the Azerbaijan Republic (8,120,247 by July 2007) the share of ethnic minorities was about 10 percent: Daghestanis accounted for 2.2 percent; Russians for 1.8 percent; Armenians for 1.5 percent; others for 3.9 percent (see: [http://www.maplecroft.com]).
32 On the world map of conflicts and political violence compiled by Maplecroft that covers 207 states Azerbaijan belongs to the high risk zone (see: Conflict and Political Violence Risk 2006-2008, available at [http:// www.maplecroft.com]).
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ethnopolitical security can be described as background ones (the globalization factor is one of them); others can be described as indirect (the economic factors); the remaining can be described as direct stimulators (whether positive or negative) that affect the state of ethnopolitical security (for example, membership in military-political alliances, status indicators, and the block of ethnopolitical factors).
One of the most frequently discussed questions in Azerbaijan of whether the country should join one of the military-political security systems—NATO or CSTO—is extremely important for the country and its ethnopolitical security. During the course of the polemics in the press politicians and the public express different and often clashing opinions, however one conclusion is clear. While the political elites and public opinion of Armenia and Georgia do not trade their corresponding ethnopolitical issues for geopolitical alliances (their orientation toward Russia in the case of Armenia and the West in the case of Georgia are stable enough), Azerbaijan’s position is multi-variant. In the final analysis Azerbaijan’s military-political and on the whole geopolitical choice as part of the balanced multi-vector foreign policy charted by the late President Heydar Aliev will be determined by the real contribution of the main world actors to the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, that is, by ethnopolitical considerations.
One more factor that belongs to the integral index of domestic and internal threats is also assessed in the ethnopolitical context: since the fall of 2008 the world and regional powers have been stepping up their efforts to come to the fore in settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “Today Russia, the United States, and the European Union are engaged in independent political and diplomatic moves; they do not bother to pretend that their actions are coordinated. This means that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unlikely to be settled soon.”33 In fact, attempts to elbow any of the centers of power out of the conflict settlement process intensify the fears that the region might develop into an arena of clashes in their interests. In the case of Azerbaijan there will be a higher likelihood of the use of force and color revolutions while the range of domestic and external threats will widen both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Among the seven indicators of Azerbaijan’s ethnopolitical security factor (from 14 to 20) four have negative values (including the two that are related to the presence of ethnic areas in the country and separatism with maximally high values) while the other three—ethnic diversity, the risk of political conflict, and ethnoconfessional tolerance—demonstrate positive trends. This is because during the last fifteen years the ruling elite has largely been relieving the ethnopolitical tension in the country compared with the early 1990s when the level of ethnopolitical mobilization was high enough. The traditional eth-noconfessional tolerance of the Azeris developed into the normative-axiological official ideological system of “Azerbaijan-ism.” It brought together the socially important ethnic and spiritual interests of the country’s multinational population. The stronger institutions of national statehood, high rates of economic development, and implementation of the State Program of Socioeconomic Development of the Regions of the Azerbaijan Republic (2004-2008) could localize and neutralize potential flare-ups of separatism in the ethnic areas. These indices, however, will remain fairly high as long as the Armenian-Azeri conflict is going on and the threat of its extrapolation to other areas survives.
It should be said here that any combination of ethnopolitical security factors (other research paradigms may offer different combinations) merely accumulates the potential of the ethnopolitical processes, the negative scenarios of which manifest themselves in the form of threats of different types and intensity.
Threats to the Ethnopolitical Security of the Azerbaijan Republic
The threat to ethnopolitical security can be described either as isolated actions or their combinations, which, if they follow one after another in a certain sequence, might undermine the domestic and
33 E. Veliev, “Protivostoianie mezhdu Rossiey i SShA v voprose uregulirovania nagorno-karabakhskoy problemy stanovitsia vse bolee iavnym,” Zerkalo, 1 November, 2998.
external legitimacy of power and the state and negatively affect sovereignty, territorial integrity, and constitutional order. Since threats to ethnopolitical security can be born both inside the ethnopolitical sphere and outside it, in other segments of public life, it seems advisable to concentrate on the former. Table 3 shows the most important and direct ethnopolitical threats to the Azerbaijan Republic.
Table 3
Ethnopolitical Threats to Azerbaijan
Threats to the ethnopolitical security Indices of ethnopolitical threats to the Azerbaijan Republic (in conventional points)34
of the Azerbaijan Republic TCLtH TCLtL TCOH TCLH TDLtH TDLtL TDOH TDOL
1. Decrease in the per capita GDP of ethnic groups (in ethnic areas) compared with the average for the country 1*
2. Obviously ethnic forms of migration (in ethnic areas and across the country) 1
3. Changes in the ethnic composition of the population (in ethnic areas and across the country) 9
4. Ethnic diversity of the country's population 3
5. Ethnic depopulation (titular nation, ethnic minorities) 1
6. Ethnically marked politics and state power 1
7. Civil and state nationalism 1
34 See Footnote 18.
Table 3 (continued)
Threats to the ethnopolitical security Indices of ethnopolitical threats to the Azerbaijan Republic (in conventional points)
of the Azerbaijan Republic TCLtH TCLtL TCOH TCLH TDLtH TDLtL TDOH TDOL
8. Type of ethnopolitical stability 1
9. Non-constitutional regime changes and coups 3
10. The country's ethnogeopolitical configuration 6
11. Illegal separatist and anti-government movements 6
12. Legal separatist movements 0
13. Ethnopolitical mobilization in the country (ethnic areas) 3
14. Terrorism based on ethnopolitical considerations 3
15. Civil wars (domestic conflicts) waged for ethnopolitical reasons 18
16. Ethnoconfessional aggression 18
17. Territorial claims of other countries 18
18. Foreign armed aggression 18
19. Internationalization of ethnopolitical conflicts 6
20. Loss of national statehood 1
T o t a l: 130 12 0 90 0 6 7 9 6
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The above has amply demonstrated that most ethnopolitical threats are of an intentional nature stimulated by the targeted activities of certain actors inside the country; a very small number of such threats can be described as structural threats stimulated by the structure of interstate relations. By the latter I mean that there are ethnic areas close to Azerbaijan’s borders that, under certain conditions, might stir up ethnic and territorial irredentism, territorial claims of other countries, and aggression in various forms; ethnopolitical conflicts may also become international. It should be said that the illegal separatist movements (Nagorno-Karabakh) can be described as an ethnopolitical threat of the exterior type because of their obvious foreign policy bias. This means that the larger part of Azerbaijan’s conflict potential—84 (or about 64 percent) of 130 conventional points—can be described as structural (exterior) ethnopolitical threats.
This suggests several conclusions.
■ First, the fact that external ethnopolitical threats dominate over domestic ones determines the means and methods for neutralizing them: military-political, legal international, diplomatic, etc. No wonder it is often said that the keys to them are found in Moscow, Washington, and Ankara, which means that ethnopolitical threats are mostly stimulated from abroad.
■ Second, half (7 out of 14) of the ethnopolitical domestic threats can be currently described as latent and low, which gives the national security structures time to carry out the preventive measures needed to subsequently neutralize them. The range of such measures is fairly wide; all of them should be implemented in order to build a civil society united on the platform of national and confessional consensus.
■ Third, the fairly high index of some of the ethnopolitical threats is of a retrospective nature; it is related to the fact that in the recent past the institutions of political power in Azerbaijan were weak. The frequent changes of power in the republic that took place in the early 1990s caused waves of migration which altered the country’s ethnic composition. On the other hand, inefficiency in dealing with social problems and the mounting ethnic mobilization of the titular nations and ethnic minorities heated up ethnopolitical conflicts and terrorism.
Five of the ethnopolitical threats to Azerbaijan’s national security—separatism, domestic ethnopolitical conflicts, ethnoconfessional aggression, the territorial claims of other countries, and armed aggression from abroad—can be assessed in keeping with the highest values. As “frozen conflicts” they cannot be described as latent. Another two indicators relating to the status of ethnic minorities and the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can still be assessed by average values (6 points). The August 2008 events in Georgia demonstrated that under certain conditions they might move to the critical point pretty fast.
This means that the configuration and qualitative parameters of ethnopolitical threats to Azerbaijan’s national security reflect direct internal correlations between their types, on the one hand, and indirect determination of the set of latent and open negative factors in the security sphere, on the other.
The State of Ethnopolitical Security in the Azerbaijan Republic
The very logic of my research and its results suggest integral assessments of the state of Azerbaijan’s ethnopolitical security, and the factors and threats described above serve as the coordinate axes.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
According to the above formula the average index of ethnopolitical danger is
Etnpdang/mid = [(73 + 130): 2] : 360 = °.28.
From this follows the ethnopolitical security index
EtnpS = 1 - 0.2В = 0.72.
An analysis of internal (factor-factor; threat-threat) and external (factor-threat) correlations is the hardest task when it comes to identification, not to mention systemic management, of the ethno-political security index. This is a multi-dimensional task with respect to its content and extremely vast as far as its volume is concerned. This means that it should become a subject of special investigation. Certain general observations, however, can be offered here.
First, it can be said that the interconnection between the factors of and threats to ethnopolitical security is of a dual nature because the trends of various national security segments are bound by complicated and non-lineal ties:
■ the number of strategic factors and the direct ethnopolitical factors increase or decrease proportionally to the intensification and weakening of the ethnopolitical threats;
■ the economic factors cause inversely proportional effects in the sphere of ethnopolitical threats.
For example, the events of the summer of 200В in Georgia revealed with the maximum clarity that domestic ethnopolitical factors (ethnic areas in the country’s outlaying regions, their external status, and the high level of ethnopolitical mobilization) are directly related to military-strategic factors. On the other hand, the improved economic situation in Azerbaijan35 has already weakened some of the parameters of ethnopolitical tension (ethnopolitical mobilization in the ethnic areas and across the country), reduced ethnic migration, etc.
There is another aspect of the same problem: the factors-threats-state triad of ethnopolitical security is not explicit because there is no mechanism of the triad elements interaction, the points where the ordinates meet. If presented as a systemic process, ethnopolitical security will acquire the following active points: zones of activity of different types of political actors within which the qualities of some of the structural elements develop into others (see Diagram 1).
The chain presented in the Diagram unfolds in the following way:
■ The existing set of factors of ethnopolitical security (which can be much wider than the 20 positions offered here) generates the internally determined chain “ethnopolitical require-ments-interests-aims,” which motivates political actors of the manifest type (ethnic groups and non-institutionalized associations).
■ The mounting ethnopolitical activity, in turn, has very powerfully stimulated the already existing ethnopolitical security factors that are thus transferred from a static to dynamic state. The immanent risks of the ethnopolitical security factors are transformed into a new qualitative state, viz., an ethnopolitical threat to national security.
■ The emergence of such threats, especially threats of an open type, inevitably stirs into action the systemic political actors (state structures, bilateral and supranational actors, “humanitarian interventions,” etc.).
■ The resultant total level of ethnopolitical security suggests that a targeted strategy of national, including ethnopolitical, security should be elaborated and implemented.
■ Its implementation (whether successful or otherwise) will create a new background: the old factors will be transformed while new factors of ethnopolitical security will appear to follow the old cycle with a new configuration “ethnopolitical requirements-interests-aims.”
’ See: Central Eurasia 2005, 2006, 2007. Analytical Yearbooks, CA&SS Press, Sweden, 2006, 2007, 2008.
Diagram 1
How Ethnopolitical Security is Formed
Implementation of the national security strategy
Activities of the manifest political actors
Activities of the systemic political actors
So an efficient strategy of ethnopolitical security and the necessary feedback correlations according to its current state suggest the following conclusions:
(1) Management of the national security ethnopolitical aspects is complicated at all stages of ethnopolitical threats.
(2) Traditional concentration of both attention and efforts on repulsing security threats shows that the system of ensuring national security is traditionally lagging behind, being largely aimed at removing the effects of negative phenomena instead of addressing their causes (factors).
(3) The fact that at the turn of the 21st century a large number of states found themselves face to face with ethnopolitical cataclysms made a change in security philosophy inevitable. This modernization particularly demands that material, human, and other resources should be concentrated at all structural levels to channel the ethnopolitical security factors into the desired directions.
The Moscow Declaration of Political Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict signed on
2 November, 2008 by the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia adds urgency to the last point. The expert community produced a wide range of opinions about the document: from cautiously
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
optimistic to entirely skeptical. Some experts believe: “By raising the problem of the Karabakh settlement Russia intended to demonstrate to the world that it controlled the Caucasian developments... This is a purely political document and nothing else” (Georgian expert on conflict management Paata Zakare-ishvili)36; “The Declaration is another intermediate step on this hard road designed to confirm Russia’s greater role in settling the Caucasian conflicts” (Andrey Areshev)37; while leading Kremlin analyst Sergey Markov, Director of the Institute of Political Studies of Russia, was very categorical: “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will never be settled completely. All forms of settlement will be tempo-rary.”38
These opinions look eclectic because they lump together phenomena that belong to widely different spheres (geopolitical, military-political, and ethnopolitical). This was predetermined to a certain degree by the fact that Moscow succeeded where Key West had failed, on the one hand, while the document’s Point 2 says that the sides “confirm that it is important to follow up the mediation efforts of the co-chairmen of the Minsk OSCE group with due account of their Madrid meeting of November 2007 and later discussions for the sake of arriving at the main principles of a political settlement,” on the other.39 The Madrid meeting of 2007 suggested that two principles of international law—territorial integrity and the right of nations to self-determination—should be applied. This turns the negotiations into an endless “tug of war.”
What is important, however, is the fact that the document was the first to register the sides’ intention not to clean up the debris but to address the conflict’s key factors within the legal field. There are four of them: the territory’s status, the people’s security, including the refugees from Karabakh, the occupied territories around Nagorno-Karabakh, and the international-legal guarantees.
The Moscow Declaration, which laid the foundation for dealing with the latter two factors, can be described as important. Point 1 of the Declaration states that the presidents “will contribute to improving the situation in the Southern Caucasus and ensuring stability and security in the region through the conflict’s political settlement on the basis of the principles and regulations of international law and the decisions and documents adopted within them to create favorable conditions for the region’s economic development and comprehensive cooperation.”40 By the decisions and documents adopted “on the basis of the principles and regulations of international law” the sides had in mind Resolution 62/243 of the U.N. General Assembly and Resolution 1614 of PACE which recognized the Azerbaijan Republic’s territorial integrity and called for the Armenian armed forces to unconditionally pull out of the occupied Azeri territories.
Point 3 of the Declaration says that “peaceful settlement should be accompanied by legally binding international guarantees of all its aspects and stages.”41 The outlines and content of these international guarantees are fairly vague and so far boil down to rumors that Russian troops would be deployed in the conflict zone. Nevertheless the fact that the question of the format of peace guarantees was raised should be hailed. The refugee issue actively discussed by the media yet absent from the Declaration is one of the key points: there will be no “people of Karabakh” if the refugees do not return to their old homes.
Two out of four pillars of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict seem to have been addressed by political and diplomatic means. It should be said, however, that the de facto defrosting of the conflict that took place during the present stage of the negotiations has started a countdown that
36 [http://www.day.az/news/armenia/135380.html], 3 November, 2008.
37 [http://www.day.az/news/politics/135324.html], 3 November, 2008.
38 [http://www.day.az/news/politics/135724.html], 6 November, 2008.
39 “Ilham Aliev, Serzh Sarkisian i Dmitry Medvedev podpisali deklaratsiu po Nagornomu Karabakhu,” available at
[http://www. day.az/news/politics/135324.html].
40 Ibidem.
41 Ibidem.
might push the sides toward military confrontation if they are not offered any dynamic and balanced programs.
C o n c l u s i o n
The above analysis of the ethnopolitical dimension of national security of the Azerbaijan Republic, one of the leaders of the Central Caucasian region, makes it possible (in the theoretical-practical respect) to perform a test-diagnosis of its key parameters. The multi-component conceptual model was used to identify the level of influence of ethnopolitical factors and threats, as well as their internal disposition. This, in turn, can serve as a basis for later theoretical discussion of the problem’s empirical foundation. However, a separate analysis should be conducted of the internal correlations among the groups of components, the regulatory potential, and the limits of the national security system’s managerial impact on them.
Joni KHETSURIANI
D.Sc. (Law), professor, Corresponding Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, judge at the Constitutional Court of Georgia
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
RUSSIA’S RECOGNITION OF ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH OSSETIA AS INDEPENDENT STATES IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: VIEW FROM GEORGIA
Abstract
This article looks at the legal aspects of the Russian presidential decrees of 26 August, 2008 that recognized the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions—Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The
author concludes that these legal acts contradict not only the generally accepted regulations and principles of international law, but also Russia’s own constitutional legislation.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Russia’s large-scale military action in Georgia has ended. Now Russia is trying to legally enforce the results of this “victorious war.” On 26 August, 2008, Russian Federation President Dmitry
