The irreversibility of history: the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Abstract

In 2008, Georgia engaged militarily its breakaway region of South Ossetia, a fact which aggravated the bilateral tension and culminated in Russia’s military presence in both S. Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia’s second breakaway region. This development rekindled the two smoldering, since the early 1990s, conflicts, revitalizing also interest in the causal mechanism. Thus, a historical institutionalist account examines lasting regional political preferences, through an ethnicized (Georgian) national identity, comparatively feeble growth, and unemployment. Russia serves as a contextual factor to allow for the primacy of the state-level analysis. The conclusions corroborate the irreversible impact of structural deficiencies.