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The Color Revolutions Betrayed

The color revolutions of Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) promised these countries substantive democratization, which was supposed to end the immoral practices of post-Soviet imitation democracies, foster market-driven…

Russia, Chechnya, and the Sovereign Kadyrov

Moscow has effectively granted sovereignty over the Republic of Chechnya to its appointed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. Despite frequent claims in some media sources that Kadyrov’s days are numbered, and despite…

Averting Central Asian Rwandas

With the May 2010 pogroms in southern Kyrgyzstan, the semi-forgotten specter of ethnic violence and state disintegration has returned to Central Asia with a vengeance. In the two decades since…

Georgian Perceptions of the North Caucasus and of U.S.-Russian Relations

Georgian-Russian relations have been frozen since the August 2008 war. This “freeze” resembles the situation of other “frozen” conflicts that have existed in the Caucasus since the 1990s. Indeed, the…

The Dual Spiral of Ukrainian Politics After 2010

The victory of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine’s February 2010 presidential election launched a new cycle of regime change in Ukraine, marked by movement from a premier-presidential regime system with “dual…

The Stagnation of the SCO: Competing Agendas and Divergent Interests in Central Asia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), comprising China, Russia, and four of the five Central Asian states (excluding Turkmenistan), continues to be a source of fascination and speculation. Western commentators remain…

What’s In Store For Color Revolutions? Managing a New Rise of Discontent in a Time of Crisis

The angry and hopeless demonstrations in the streets of Tehran last June did not resemble the enthusiastic “happenings” on Kyiv’s maidan (main square) in November 2004. However, successive eruptions of…

The Evolution of Siloviki Elites Federal ‘Generals’ in Russian Regions

Political and administrative elites in Russia’s regions have changed drastically in recent years. Specifically, Moscow’s management of regional (effectively “federal-regional”) positions has expanded. With fifty to seventy branches of different…

A Return to Tradition? Aspects of Postwar Political Culture in Nagorno-Karabakh

In the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev’s promotion of democratic liberties and values, including freedom of speech and pluralism of opinion, provided a basis for the development of a number of…

We Need Wonders at a Reasonable Price: How Sound is Russia’s Current Military-Industrial Policy?

Russia’s defense-industrial policy (OPK) has recently been brought back into focus by the announcement of a new stage of army reform, which has the objective of raising the level of…

What Hinders Reform in Ukraine?

Twenty years after gaining independence, Ukraine has a poor record in adopting and implementing political and economic reform. Ukraine has changed its political institutions several times but has yet to…

Breaking the Nation’s Taboo: Meds Yeghern and Turkish Intellectuals

On December 12, 2008, a group of Turkish intellectuals launched an internet campaign to apologize for the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians in Turkey. Significantly, the “apology campaign” did…

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