News article added on Mar 08 2011
CIS has been awarded a grant of €50,000 to examine the persistence and conflict resolution potential of frozen conflicts, employing all four relevant case studies from the post-Soviet sphere. It analyzes the capacity of the OSCE and EU to positively intervene in these conflicts. The project is led by Dr Donnacha O Beachain and the team includes Dr John Doyle, Dr Dr Apostolos Agnanopoulos and Dr Karen Devine.
The OSCE and EU are well positioned to positively impact on frozen conflict situations. However, there currently exists a dearth of both theoretical and empirical research on frozen conflicts and on the place of the OSCE and EU as actors in these conflicts. This project addresses the existing lacunae by firstly undertaking stock-taking reviews of the extant literature and policy documentation, and secondly undertaking semi-structured interviews with key personnel involved in the de facto states and in OSCE / EU activity in the case study states. The project will produce in-depth analyses of priori intervention involving the OSCE and EU in four case studies, namely Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria.
Findings from this project will strengthen our understanding of the OSCE and EU’s role as actors in ameliorating the ramifications arising from frozen conflicts and offer proposals of how both organisations might optimise their interventions.
The research team will actively engage with those preparing for Ireland’s chairmanship of the OSCE and with international NGOs active on these conflicts (such as International Alert) to ensure the most useful dissemination of research conclusions.