Abstract
Despite a decreasing number of interstate wars, the contemporary era is marked by the rise in ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and identity conflicts within states, often leading to the establishment of de-facto states. An important feature of such conflicts is a foreign support to one of the conflicting parties. Most commonly, the international community seeks to address conflicts through territorial self-governance (TSG) arrangements (e.g. federalization, decentralization). In this vein, this introductory chapter offers insights into the state of research regarding the application of the TSG as a conflict-mitigation tool, and explains the relevance of the Ukrainian case to the TSG study in the context of intense foreign engagement. It also introduces each chapter of the volume and explains its contribution to the wider literature.
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Notes
- 1.
Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations sparked by the Ukrainian government’s decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union. They started on November 21, 2013 in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev and eventually led to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.
- 2.
Here and after we use official terminology recognized and used by international organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. See for example: https://www.osce.org/ukrainecrisis.
- 3.
The Steinmeier Formula calls for elections in the separatist-held territories under Ukrainian legislation and the supervision of the OSCE. If the OSCE accepts that balloting was free and fair, then self-governing status for the territories will be introduced. Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, DPR, LPR, and the OSCE signed it on October 1, 2016.
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Rabinovych, M., Shelest, H. (2020). Introduction: Regional Diversity, Decentralization, and Conflict in and around Ukraine. In: Shelest, H., Rabinovych, M. (eds) Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict. Federalism and Internal Conflicts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41765-9_1
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