In the current crisis in Ukraine, focusing on confidence-building and an interim solution first and then giving considered thought to a long-term settlement is the only way to avoid the instability and volatility that is a hallmark of so many protracted conflicts.
International Conflict Management
Putin calling all the shots in Ukraine: what next for relations between Russia and the West?
Neither Russia nor the West can really afford to let bilateral relations deteriorate to such an extent over the crisis in Ukraine that international diplomacy and crisis management become completely impossible for a prolonged period of time.
Crimea flashpoint raises stakes in Russia’s regional power play
Like the West’s, Russia’s Ukraine policy is part of a larger geopolitical game over influence in a strategic region contested by an emerging great power (the EU) and a rival who has been in decline for two decades and unable to reverse this trend to date.
What does the future hold for Kirkuk?
Three months after parliamentary elections were held in Iraq, a new government has yet to be formed, and it appears that the status of Kirkuk remains one of the stumbling blocks on the way to forming a new coalition.
Idiosyncrasy or Foresight: Pre-1990 Cases of Territorial Autonomy in Europe
Published in Asymmetric Autonomy and the Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts (ed. by Marc Weller and Katherine Nobbs, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), this chapter argues that while territorial autonomy is not automatically linked to forms of democratic governance,...
The European Neighbourhood Policy in Perspective
In implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) the European Union offers a deeper political and economic relationship to its neighbours, but without a promise of EU membership. The ENP is intended to be a strategic approach to the post-enlargement situation...
Building Democratic States after Conflict: Institutional Design Revisited
Few debates have engulfed the literatures of comparative politics and international relations for as long and as intensively as that between advocates of different schools of thought on how to build stable and democratic polities in divided societies. Especially when...
Consociationalism, Power Sharing, and Politics at the Center
Published in The International Studies Encyclopedia in 2010, this chapter outlines the main features of centripetalism, power sharing, and power dividing and of their prescriptions for divided societies. I compare the three schools to one another and showing their...
The EU as a Conflict Manager? The Case of Georgia and Its Implications
Co-authored with Richard G. Whitman and subsequently published in International Affairs, this article offers an analysis of the EU's engagement in Georgia as a standpoint from which to assess the EU's role as a conflict manager. The paper begins with a brief narrative...