Understanding the Region: The Caucasus and Beyond
Understanding the Region: The Caucasus and Beyond is a ten-part series of special reports that will provide credible, fact-based information and awareness about a wide range of regional topics and issues impacting the South Caucasus. The purpose of this series is to provide clarity and understanding of regional dynamics and interrelations.
The South Caucasus is a region with three unresolved armed conflicts that began in the 1990s: Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). What is the state of democracy in these three statelets?
Once-integrated energy channels were disrupted with the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia began rebuilding their impaired energy infrastructures. How have these countries with different degrees of European and Russian influence and different energy needs and natural oil and gas reserves fared so far and what do they have in common?
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the three countries of the South Caucasus declared independence in 1991. This new instalment of “Understanding the Region” looks at the democratic trajectories of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Part II will look at the state of democracy in the statelets of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), South Ossetia and Abkhazia.