Anja Mihr Editor Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Studies on Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Anja Mihr Editor Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Studies on Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region Editor Anja Mihr OSCE Academy in Bishkek Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan ISBN 978-3-030-77488-2 ISBN 978-3-030-77489-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77489-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribu- tion and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copy Editor: Alina Alymkulova and Language Editor: Christian Bleuer This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Foreword ‘Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West’ is the title of the second edition of the OSCE Academy’s edited compilation of the discussion of events and developments in the remarkable years 2020–21. In the light of the global pandemic and dramatic political shifts, from North America all the way across the Organiza- tion for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) region to Central Asia, this compilation has gathered a number of timely contributions describing and analyzing paradigm shifts in the struggles for power and conflict resolution during the global lockdown. The dramatic halt of migration and remittances, the increase in rates of poverty and unemployment, and the despair in coping with mounting challenges in everyday life have turned silent hostilities into protracted violence and war in some regions of the OSCE and triggered the rise of populist movements in others. The wars and border disputes in the Caucasus and Eastern Ukraine and between former neighboring states in Central Asia re-emerged or were exacerbated over the course of the past year. Continuous threats to weakly established border regimes in some regions, the full closure of borders in others, and the constant stress put on general state capacity to manage the pandemic and its multidimensional fallout have put the OSCE’s key policies and efforts for conflict resolution, the promotion of democracy and human rights, and media freedom to a test—not least in a ‘remote’ phase. In this volume, scholars, academics, and independent researchers sum up some of the most far-reaching developments of transition and transformation over the past years, many of them cumulating or breaking out during the year of the pandemic. In their chapters on Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, Gawrich and Oberson highlight how the OSCE Minsk agreements and missions and allied states aim to keep peace and promote dialogue between hostile parties, seemingly against all odds and despite numerous infringements and lockdowns. A closer look reveals the complexity of the challenges ahead: some of the violent conflicts in the OSCE region are between different state and non-state parties or between paramilitaries and faith-based or nationalistic groups. Financing peacebuilding and finding states to take a lead in v vi Foreword peacebuilding becomes a daily challenge for the OSCE. The pathway to peace is often the lack of political will of key stakeholders among the participating States, as Vieira points out in his chapter. But the OSCE region is also a geographic bridge and land link between China and Europe. Many of its 57 participating States are host to China’s Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI) infrastructural projects. China’s influence and its penetration of the OSCE region, especially Central Asia, have consistently increased over the past years. The BRI today matters for policy-making in many participating States and hence shapes OSCE policy debates. Murat, Muhamedov, Marat, and Pomfret highlight the political and economic changes this holds for the region as a land linkage between East and West and the challenges the BRI poses for upholding human rights and democratic standards among the participating States, in particular in the wider region of Eurasia. The dramatic events around the October 2020 parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan illustrate the consequences that can follow from COVID-19 and its subsequent lockdowns, the halt of migration, and the closure of borders. In their contributions on developments in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Stimac and Aslanova, Bakiev, Doolotkeldieva, and Aleef study the effects of religious movements and the adoption of anti-terrorist laws and inquire about the conditions for the rapid rise of populist leaders to power and the role of organized crime in changing and shaping political regimes over the past years. The rise of civil society and the growth of a mobile, cosmopolitan young elite and their striving for more transparency and accountability across the region point toward opposite trends and developments in the OSCE region. Albania’s efforts to finally hold perpetrators to account for past wrongdoings is described by Stasa, and the rising sensitivity to gender gaps in education in Mongolia as shown by Khajikhan give reason to believe that civil society, victims, and gender-bias affected groups are striving for more equality, human rights, and freedom. The effects that COVID- 19 had on international collaboration in conflict zones in Georgia, as shown by Javakhishvili, and how the pandemic changed the paradigms of international relations and regionalism in Central Asia, discussed by Dzhuraev, formulate a demand for more research in the region. This is further highlighted by Mihr’s study on how global politics and norms impact local actions, adding further complexity to rising ‘glocal governance’. Lambert, in the end, shows that a look back into the past can offer advice for the way forward in his discussion of US classified documents from the early 1990s that already back then outlined a possible roadmap between peace and conflict for the Caucasus. With this second edition, the OSCE Academy in Bishkek aims to highlight some of the recent research and scholarly work conducted over the course of the years before and during the pandemic. The OSCE region is a ‘regional laboratory’ for global trends of political and societal transformation and development. The rise of civil Foreword vii society and of protest movements is confronting the (short term) manifestation of autocratic and populist leaders in an era of lockdowns and closed borders. It remains to be seen how the medium and long-term impact of the pandemic will change once more the transformation processes in the OSCE region over the next years. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Anja Mihr April 2021 Editor in Chief for the OSCE Academy Book Series: Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region, and DAAD Visiting Professor at the OSCE Academy OSCE Academy in Bishkek [email protected] Alexander Wolters Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek [email protected] Contents Part I From Conflict to Peace in East and West 1 Conflict Management, International Parliamentary Assemblies and Small States: The Cases of Georgia and Moldova .................................................. 3 Andrea Gawrich 2 Peacebuilding in the OSCE Region—An Analysis of the Juxtaposition Between the Conflict Prevention Center with the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund ..................... 23 Maurício Vieira 3 OSCE Special Monitoring in Ukraine ........................... 47 Frederic Oberson 4 China and The OSCE’s Security Identity Crisis .................. 77 Assel Murat and Rustam Muhamedov 5 China’s Emerging Political and Economic Dominance in the OSCE Region ........................................... 95 Uraimov Marat 6 The Role of Securitization in the Relationship Between State and Religion—The Example of the Kyrgyz Republic .............. 117 Zrinka Štimac and Indira Aslanova 7 The Power Shift from Government to Organized Crime in Kyrgyzstan ................................................. 139 Erlan Bakiev 8 The 2020 Violent Change in Government in Kyrgyzstan Amid the