VAIN WARS: CAN THE TILLY’S MODEL EXPLAIN TRANSFORMATIONS ON THE POST-SOVIET SPACE?

Abstract

The influential theory of Charles Tilly explaining the relationship between military activity and state building in early modern Europe has been often used to analyze the development of statehood outside Europe and North America. However, in Post-Soviet space it was referred to only a limited extent – mainly operationalising the struggle and bargaining between the state and society over the extraction of resources in favor of the state - for the analysis of post-communist transformations. Meanwhile, the post- Soviet space with its unresolved conflicts provides a reach material for checking the “military” component of this theory. Most authors agree that the international order established after the World War II does not allow the clear replication of the scheme elaborated by Tilly. This article is aiming to show that, although post-Soviet conflicts are of great symbolic importance for post-Soviet states, their material impact on the dynamics of state revenues and on the strengthening of state institutions is minimal. This paradox may be explained by the international geopolitical context around the conflicts where the buildup of military power of a state involved in the conflict cannot serve as a sufficient condition for resolving the conflict in favor of the state.