Equality Guaranteed: Conflict and Commitment in the South Caucasus.

This paper investigates why autonomy is not always an effective tool of conflict resolution. While some scholars argue that autonomy impairs stability by creating further incentives for separatist mobilization, it can also impair stability by not reducing existing incentives for state centralization. Autonomous institutions--by preserving a center-periphery hierarchy--simply do not serve as an adequate guarantee that states will refrain from seeking to centralize power. Where regional-based groups have entered into conflict precisely in order to prevent this centralization of power, attempts to impose autonomy are likely to fail. In such cases, models of state building that institutionalize the equality of political units, rather than restore the center-periphery status quo, offer improved prospects for lasting peace. On this basis, the paper offers proposals for resolving existing conflicts in the Caucasus (Georgia/Abkhazia/South Ossetia, Azerbaijan/Mountainous Karabagh). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]