Sons of the Soil or Servants of the Empire? Profiling the Guardians of Separatism in Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Who are the guardians of separatism in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? These de facto states can be seen as self-determination movements or as outgrowths of Russian imperialism. We arbitrate between these competing scripts using a dataset that profiles officials in charge of high politics decision-making inside Georgia’s separatist entities from 1992 through 2020 (N=608). We find that most are sons of the soil, though Abkhazia’s guardians are more multicultural than South Ossetia’s. Russian emissaries seized influential posts inside the self-declared republics after 2003 and, since then, sit in on Security Council meetings, thus rendering them incapable of autonomous decision-making.