Exploring Post-Liberal Approaches to Peace in the South Caucasus

EXPLORING POST-LIBERAL APPROACHES TO PEACE IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS Editors: Philip Gamaghelyan, Sergey Rumyansev, Pinar Sayan, Sona Dilanyan Tbilisi 2019 © Caucasus Edition: Journal of Conflict Transformation ISSN 2155-5478 The collaboration of analysts from the South Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine and the UK that resulted in this publication has been implemented by the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden. The Imagine Center is an independent, non-political organization that is dedicated to positively transforming relations and laying foundations for lasting and sustainable peace in conflict-torn societies. www.imaginedialogue.com [email protected] In This Issue From the Editorial Team 1 Stuck in Post-Liberal Limbo? Conflict Resolution in the South Caucasus Laurence Broers 4 Conflicts and Militarization of Education: Totalitarian Institutions in Secondary Schools and in the System of Extracurricular Education in Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ukraine, and Russia Sevil Huseynova, Jafar Akhundov, Eviya Hovhannisyan, Ksenia Babich, Katya Myachina 18 Beyond the Abstract Political: Peace as Intimate and Relational Milena Abrahamyan, Vahid Aliyev, Sophio Tskhvariashvili 83 Opportunities for Fragmented Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Process: Intercommunity Dialogue and Safety of Borderlands Vadim Romashov 107 Reflections on Scenarios on the Peaceful Resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan Lala Jumayeva, Hayk Smbatyan, Nuriyya Hasanova, Elen Grigoryan 122 Communities of Practices: Prospects for the Armenian-Azerbaijani Everyday Engagement across the Conflict Divide Vadim Romashov, Marina Danoyan, Hamida Giyasbayli 152 Authors 182 Editors 185 From the Editorial Team A year has passed since that day in December 2018 when the My Step Alliance, led by Nikol Pashinyan, won a decisive victory in Armenia’s parliamentary elections, thereby concluding the “Velvet Revolution” that deposed Serzh Sarkissian and his Republican party earlier in the year. The change had an immediate positive effect on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process as the commitment to maintaining the ceasefire reached between Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev still largely holds. The hopes of a further breakthrough, however, were short-lived and the negotiations today are deadlocked both on practical and conceptual level. The peace processes in the other part of the former Soviet Union have also been stagnant. With the liberal paradigm of peace suffering visible retreat in the international arena and no alternative clearly articulated, these conflicts have been effectively stuck in the “post-liberal limbo” which, not incidentally, is the title of the opening article of the issue authored by Laurence Broers. Sevil Huseynova, Jafar Akhundov, Eviya Hovhannisyan, Katya Myachina, and Ksenia Babich follow with a critical analysis of the increased intensity in military-patriotic education. They argue that the influence of the army has been increasing rapidly in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, and Ukraine. A wide variety of youth associations related to this total institution, militaristic volunteer organizations, and groups of nationalists that propagate far-right ideals become more and more vocal. Militaristic institutes, discourses, practices, and rituals gain momentum and become increasingly more visible in the public spaces. One of the reasons behind these developments are the armed conflicts lingering for years and decades. The institutes of secondary education that are under near complete control of the political regimes in all the four countries are an ideal channel for dissemination of militaristic practices, military- patriotic discourses, and rituals. 1 The authors focus both on differences and similarities of the militarization of the societies in these countries. Exploring alternative to militarization and the deadlocked conceptions of liberal peace, a trio of authors from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia— Milena Abrahamyan, Vahid Aliyev, and Sophio Tskvariashvili, respectively—propose a discussion of “feminist approaches to peace in South Caucasus.” The section that concludes the issue is composed of three articles and is focused on the developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It opens with Vadim Romashov’s analysis of recent official statements and media reports, focusing on two significant trends within the current peace process—(re)establishing dialogue between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis of Nagorno-Karabakh and improving security along the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In his “Opportunities for Fragmented Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Process: Intercommunity Dialogue and Safety of Borderlands,” Romashov argues for disconnecting the two trends from the overall political negotiations and asserts that the “fragmentation” of the privatized official peace process could better contribute to the transformation of the conflict. The article is followed by the “Reflections on Scenarios on the Peaceful Resolution of the Nagorno- Karabakh Conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan,” co-authored by Lala Jumayeva, Hayk Smbatyan, Nuriyya Hasanova, and Elen Grigoryan. The co-authors present the findings from their qualitative research conducted in the summer of 2019 exploring the opinions of ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis about the possible scenarios of a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The final article by Vadim Romashov, Marina Danoyan, and Hamida Giyasbayli develops an alternative approach for supporting local intercommunity peace processes within the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict setting, based on Etienne Wenger’s concept of community of practice. In this issue of the Journal of Conflict Transformation: Caucasus Edition, experts and analysts from the countries of the South Caucasus, Russia, and Ukraine analyze the violent conflicts in the region and propose 2 recommendations for various actors aiming to impact the conflict contexts. The editorial team expresses its gratitude to the Foreign Ministry of Sweden for their support and to the fifteen authors who tirelessly collaborated throughout the entire 2019 to bring to you this issue of the journal. Editorial Team: Philip Gamaghelyan, Pinar Sayan, Sergey Rumyansev, Sona Dilanyan. 3 Stuck in Post-Liberal Limbo? Conflict Resolution in the South Caucasus Laurence Broers1 Introduction For 25 years resistance to conflict resolution has been a defining trait of the South Caucasus, despite peace processes running continuously since the early 1990s. The Geneva International Discussions provide a platform for very limited, tactical cooperation and information exchange among Georgians, Abkhaz, South Ossetians, Russians, and other international interlocutors. Yet there is no strategic vision of what a resolved conflict might look like in Abkhazia or South Ossetia. The negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan mediated by the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have, in a way, the opposite problem. A strategic vision for peace exists in the form of the Basic Principles, yet there are no tactical levers or meaningful interactions to get there. A quarter-century of negotiations has brought none of the parties closer to a negotiated agreement, begging the question: what does conflict resolution mean in the South Caucasus today? It is important first to acknowledge that conflict resolution is itself a contested concept and not a consensual goal in the region. The baseline political positions in the region’s conflicts have not changed in 30 years. Consequently, for many who are on the winning sides of ethno-territorial conflicts of the 1990s, the status quo is conflict resolution, and the world 1 The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Chatham House or the Conciliation Resources. 4 Stuck in Post-Liberal Limbo? Conflict Resolution in the South Caucasus simply needs to catch up with this reality. That view has been repeatedly shaken up by resumptions of large-scale violence, notably violence between Georgia and Russia in South Ossetia in 2008 and escalation between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in April 2016. Yet, the short duration of these five- and four-day “wars” indicates that a balance of forces exists in the region. However normatively irregular, and for large numbers of people morally inacceptable, the status quo is in South Caucasus conflicts—strategically speaking—is sustainable. The sustainability of intractable conflicts is reinforced by the South Caucasus’ positioning within the wider, contested geopolitical field of the post-Soviet space. The region briefly became the focal point of competition between Russia and Euro-Atlantic powers in 2008, but has since ceded this role to Ukraine. This raises the further question of whether it is possible to think about conflict resolution in this region for as long as the conflict in Ukraine continues. For as long as it does, external attention to conflicts in the South Caucasus will remain diminished and the region’s normative trajectory indeterminate. The Ukrainian crisis also reinforces a powerful tendency to see external actors as primary in both the causality and resolution of conflict. Those who see interfering geopolitical forces as the sole cause of South Caucasian problems see this analysis confirmed in Ukraine, challenging the argument that local will, agency, and capacities matter. A more nuanced view is to see the South Caucasus

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