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Georgia’s frosts: ethnopolitical conflict as assemblage

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Abstract

This article is a reinterpretation of ‘frozen conflicts’ as assemblages binding together and strategically orienting a variety of components from both human and nonhuman estates at various scales in order to make a move toward ‘unfreezing’ their research. It then demonstrates how this perspective may be employed in the case of the ethnopolitical conflict in Georgia. The resulting analysis points to several important processes that animate the constant pulsation of the conflict field even when arms are calm and contribute to the dynamic and becoming nature of the conflict and its dynamic (re-)assembling. It illuminates how the visibility function of the assemblage operates and endows with meaning the structure of relations in the conflict field. It traces how the bricolage of Georgian social association transformed over time, notably under Saakashvili, and how it has also been a key element of statebuilding practice in the separatist entities. The analysis moreover demonstrates how the actual instantiations of collective violence form but a fraction of that which takes place in the conflict field, from other forms of political and criminal violence to regime change, state (un-)making through processes of contraction or extension of heterogenous, ‘hybrid’ governscapes including some distinctly virtual ones but betraying real political effects. Finally, it expounds how the ethnopolitical conflict assemblage affixes together a variety of agency from human agents to institutions from local to state governments or the international conflict resolution apparatus in addition to the material (nonhuman) actants enrolled in the translation networks populating the conflict field.

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Notes

  1. According to Caspersen and Stansfield (2010), the total of 21 such states have emerged since the WWII. However, more than 1/2 have been recaptured by their ‘parent states’.

  2. For instance, in Apr. 1990, Moscow reinforced the autonomies to restrain their emancipatory efforts, yet not only this did not have the desired effect, but also contributed to the mobilisation in Georgia’s society that perceived it as employment of the strategy of divide et impera.

  3. According to the last Soviet census (1989), the Abkhaz represented only 17.8% of population in the autonomy, compared to declared ethnic Georgians’ 45.7% (Souleimanov 2013, p. 128).

  4. The author of the observation is Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (Gurwood 1842, p. 887).

  5. The Tagliavini report commissioned by the European Union offers a balanced account of these events in contrast to more impassioned narratives (cf. Asmus 2010).

  6. Here, a minor but significant escalation was recorded also previously, in the Gali region (1998), leading to renewed displacement of thousands of local Georgians (Mingrelians).

  7. These figures are drawn from de Waal (2010, p. 134) and Tsikhelashvili et al. (2012).

  8. Mikheil Saakashvili, speech at the Munich Security Conference (Feb. 2006).

  9. The chance interfered too. Had Georgians managed to destroy the Gupta bridge north of Tskhinvali that would later become a powerful material actant enabling the thrust of Russia’s armour, Tbilisi’s fortunes could have been different.

  10. Abkhazia imports ca. 80% of goods from Russia (Turkey is the second most important importer), which is also the main destination of its exports, which however is estimated at only 1/11 of the imported goods value. The trade dependence is even higher in case of South Ossetia which imports almost entirely from Russia and its (legal) export is insignificant (Gogua 2012, cited in Gerrits and Bader 2016).

  11. The policy facilitated framing Russia’s military intervention in 2008 as not only following the R2P doctrine but also its stated principle of protecting nationals abroad.

  12. The figures are provided in International Crisis Group (2013, p. 3).

  13. Ibid. These numbers moreover do not cover pensions or social welfare benefits for Russia’s passport holders (Gerrits and Bader 2016).

  14. In South Ossetia, Alla Dzhiyoeva won the presidential election against the candidate backed by Moscow, Anatoly Bibilov, in 2011. However, in the protracted political crisis that followed, Moscow was able to ensure that Leonid Tibilov, another member of the establishment who however had distanced himself from the previous president Eduard Kokoity, was elected (2012). In Abkhazia, the chosen successor to President Ardzimba, Raul Khajimba, also strongly supported by Russia, lost the election in 2004 to the opposition candidate Sergei Bagapsh. Again, a political crisis followed that ended in a forced compromise—Bagapsh co-opting Khajimba in his presidential ticket, successful in the new election (2005), as a vice-presidential candidate.

  15. The attempt to dismantle the organised crime structures by the Saakashvili government may then be seen both as a part of the more general state building project, but also a part of the attempt to disrupt the balance in the conflict assemblage.

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Funding

I acknowledge funding by the Charles University Research Program PROGRESS Q18 Social Sciences: From Multidisciplinarity to Interdisciplinarity.

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  1. D.CENT Karl Deutsch Centre for International Political and Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, U krize 8, 15800, Prague, Czech Republic

    Ondrej Ditrych

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Ditrych, O. Georgia’s frosts: ethnopolitical conflict as assemblage. Asia Eur J 17, 47–67 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-018-0524-7

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