Overview
On March 25 -28, 2004 IREX, in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWC) [14], hosted the 2004 Caucasus Regional Policy Symposium at the Bavarian Inn & Lodge in Shepherdstown, WV. The Symposium, funded by the US Department of State Title VIII Program and The Starr Foundation, provided senior and junior scholars, as well as members from the policy community, with the opportunity to come together to discuss a variety of political, economic, historical, and cultural topics related to the Caucasus and its relationships with neighboring Russia, Turkey, and Iran.
Symposium Summary
Symposium participants included eleven junior scholars, five senior scholars, and members of IREX and WWC staff. Junior scholars were awarded grants to present research papers at this three-day symposium based on their demonstrated commitment to continued study, research, and work on and with the countries of the Caucasus Region. The event provided them with the opportunity receive feedback from participating senior scholars and engage in US policy development discussions.
The three-day event commenced with a dinner at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC on March 25, 2004. Kenneth Roberts, Director of the Office of External Research in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and Joyce Warner, Director of the Education Programs Division at IREX, gave welcoming remarks followed by a keynote address by Ambassador B. Lynn Pascoe, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State. Among those in attendance were Ambassador Arman Kirakossian from the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia and his First Secretary; Fikret Pashayev, Counselor on Economics at the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan; Oleg Novikov, Counselor at the Embassy of the Russian Federation; and David Soumbadze, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Georgia. Following dinner, all scholars were taken by shuttle bus to the Bavarian Inn.
Participants and Presentations
All sessions took place on March 26th and 27th. During this time, junior scholars presented their research in a sequence based on the nature of their topics. Each scholar was also paired up with one of the senior scholars who served as a moderator for discussions following each of the 20 minute presentations. The eleven junior scholars represented a diversity of fields and perspectives, including history, ethnic conflict and separatism, systematic corruption and the building of civil society. Presentations included:
- Making History: How Shaping the Past will Determine the Future in the Caucasus and Beyond;
- Turkey and the Geopolitics of Baku-Ceyhan-Perspectives and Challenges Encountered in Anatolia, the Caucasus and Beyond;
- Ethnic Conflict, Secession, and Political Violence in Tartarstan and Chechnya: The Role of the Russian State;
- Small States in the Post-Soviet Caucasus: The Making of Foreign Policy in Armenia and Georgia;
- Long-Term Stability in the Northwest Caucasus: Prospects and Implications for Regional Development;
- Levels of Ethnic Separatism in Georgia;
- The Criminalization of Conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia;
- Systemic Corruption as an Intervening Variable in Post-Soviet Political and Economic Transitions: Armenia and Georgia in Comparison;
- Civil Society in the Caucasus: The Role of NGOs in the Caucasus;
- Azerbaijani Youth at the End of an Era: Life without a Net?; and
- The Caucasus and the Myth of the Market Economy.
The five senior scholar participants in the symposium were:
- Douglas Blum, Professor of Political Science at Providence College
- Jamsheed Choksy, Professor of History at Indiana University – Bloomington
- [16]Paula Garb, Associate Director of International Studies and Associate Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine
- Gerard Libaridian, Visiting Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor/Historian
- Nayereh Tohidi, Research Associate at UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies and Associate Professor of Women's Studies at California State University, Northridge
- Read the bios of the junior scholar participants [17].
In order to ensure that the countries of the broader Caucasus region were represented at the Symposium, Gerard Libaridian led a discussion on Iran’s influence and impact on the Caucasus.
Over the past few years, the interdisciplinary format of the Symposium has proved to be a very valuable means through which the scholars could network with others doing similar research, receive constructive feedback, and learn new approaches and perspectives with regard to their individual research projects.