Abstract
Autore:
Verda Matteo
Titolo:
"Risorse naturali, minoranze etniche e stabilità regionale nel Caucaso post-sovietico"
The end of the bipolar confrontation entailed a growing importance of the internal dimension in order to explain regional stability. The emergence of instability within the political units (civil war) appears to be connected with the presence of natural resources and ethnic minorities. A growing literature has existed on this relationship since the beginning of 2000s (“greed and grievance” debate), mainly based on statistical evidence and on the creation of rational models. In particular, Morelli-Rohner’s model offers the possibility of dealing with complex cases, due to the flexibility and the soundness of its structure. Indeed, the model reconstructs the incentives experienced by the élites of two ethnic groups, competing for the rents deriving from the exploitation of a natural resource within the same political unit. The main factors influencing those incentives are the probability of victory in the case of military confrontation, the potential war damages, the price and the quantity of the resource, and the rent sharing between the groups.
Morelli-Rohner’s model is tested here in order assess its ability to provide an effective tool in order to investigate empirical cases. In fact, the model is successfully used to reconstruct three conflicts which broke out in the Caucasus during the first part of the 1990s: Chechnya, Abkhasia, and South Ossetia. Moreover, the absence of at least one of the constitutive elements of the model can be used to explain why the conflict never broke out in other four cases: Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Daghestan, and Adjaria. In conclusion, the model needs a further improvement and more empirical testing, but it gives an effective contribution to the reconstruction of the emergence of political instability.
