CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 98

TERRITORIAL AUTONOMY AND SECESSION AS STRATEGIES OF CONFLICT …
possibility of solving their problems, the conflict gains the potential to
radicalize and turn into a secessionist war 44 . In a similar vein, Gokcek argues
that when the host state seeks to maintain its territorial integrity, it raises the
stakes, resulting in hostility and, in case of irredentism, potentially an
interstate war. 45 If such processes unfold along ethnic lines, then “the
number of alternatives for conflict resolution becomes even more limited”. 46
John Coakley identifies four categories of progressively intensifying
demands of ethnic minorities addressed to the host state – equality of
citizenship, cultural rights, institutional political recognition and, ultimately,
secession. 47 Formally, the NKAO has delivered on the first three demands,
falling short of secession. However, as has been demonstrated in the
previous section, the realization of the formally assumed obligations left
much to be desired. In this regard, having artificial territorial autonomy,
Armenians in the NKAO and in the Armenian SSR simultaneously had
demanded genuine autonomy and recognition during the Soviet era, even
though Karabakh formally had them.
Armenian-Azerbaijani relations regarding the NKAO, particularly the
Armenian demands to Azerbaijani and Soviet central authorities, resemble
Coakley’s pattern of escalation into secessionist demands 48 as an end goal
based on the principle of self-determination that would have “allow[ed] the
minority to be incorporated in a neighbouring state”. 49 This trend is
demonstrated in the demands to the Armenian SSR leadership (1926-
1927) 50 , in the demands from Yerevan to unite the NKAO with the
Armenian SSR (1945, 1949), several petitions for unification (mid-1960s)
and other appeals (1967, 1977). 51 The repeated failure of Soviet authorities
to address these demands 52 contributed to the toxification of the conflict,
leading to the clashes in the late 1980s’. The appeals intensified with the
introduction of Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika that gave the
nationalities wider grounds to articulate their demands that had already
started to surface in the Khrushchev era. Relative tolerance for exercising
44
Anderson, “The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics”. 3.
Gigi Gokcek, “Irredentism versus Secessionism: The Potential for International Conflict”,
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 17:3, (2011): 280.
46
Pokalova, “Conflict Resolution in Frozen Conflicts: Timing in Nagorno-Karabakh”.
47
John Coakley, “The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict”, Special Issue of Regional
Politics and Policy Vol. 3, No. 1, (1993): 4-7.
48
Coakley assigns demands for irredentism to the spectrum of degrees of secessionism. Our
preference for term “secession” instead of “irredentism” derives from this logic, and does not
attempt to underestimate the role of Armenian SSR and its successor.
49
Coakley, “The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict”, 7.
50
Libaridian ed., “An eyewitness account of events in 1920’s by a refugee from Mountainous
Karabakh to Iran” in The Karabakh File, 40.
51
Libaridian ed., The Karabakh File, 42-48.
52
Elizabeth Fuller, “Moscow Rejects Armenian Demands for Return of Nagorno Karabakh,”
Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, 91/88 (February 29, 1988): 2. apud Stuart J. Kaufman,
Ethnic Fears and Ethnic War in Karabakh, (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1998), 21.
45
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