...Sophie Gueudet Drawing on a qualitative analysis of primary sources and interviews with members of representative offices, this article shows how five post-Soviet de facto states—Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (“DPR”), and Luhansk People’s Republic...

... affect elite s per- ceptions of incumbent durability and their corresponding decisions.Privatization and elite defection in de facto states: The case of Transnistria, 1991 2012 Margarita M. Balmaceda School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA a r t...

...Pål Kolstø; Helge Blakkisrud De facto states are often dismissed as ‘failing states’. However, in Freedom House rankings of political rights and civil liberties, they sometimes perform better than their parent states – as has been the case with Nagorno-Karabakh. This article examines...

... in these de facto states, because so far most research has focused on the regional and international dimensions of the now “frozen” secessionist conflicts which brought them into being. The authors of this issue argue that it is high time to have a closer look at the developments inside these de facto states...

...Silvia von Steinsdorff The empirical case studies of this special issue not only provide an illuminating insight into the dynamic of political processes within the post-Soviet de facto states, they also contribute to the discussion of possible links between different strategies of state-building...

...Oleh Protsyk Post-Soviet de facto states are presented in the social science literature, first of all, as a by-product of research on secession, nationalism, and conflict resolution. The paper focuses instead on issues of institution-building and governance in de facto states. It examines...