Category Archives: Current affairs

Airspace in De Facto States: Remarks on Ukraine Crisis at the New School, 3 October 2014

Posted on November 18, 2014 by

Given the recent helicopter shoot down in Nagorno Karabakh, and the ongoing fighting over Donetsk airport, I’m posting below some remarks I made at the New School conference last month on the Ukrainian crisis. Point 2 addresses airspace. On Overlapping … Continue reading →

Posted in Current affairs | 2 Comments

Social Survey Research in De Facto States After Crimea

Posted on June 17, 2014 by

I’m very happy to announce that I’ve a new home office, as a year long house extension project has come to an end. I will seek to renew my writing for this site, though I’m conscious that time spent writing here and … Continue reading →

Posted in Abkhazia, Caucasus conflict, Congress, Current affairs, De Facto States, Democracy, Geography, Political Borders, Political Geography, Putin, South Ossetia, World political map | Leave a comment

The Crimea Precedent & the Post-Soviet De Facto States

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

The well-known Political Science blog The Monkey Cage, now owned by the Washington Post (now owned by Jeff Bezos; we all work for Amazon now) posted earlier today a concise 3 graph summary of what our De Facto State Research Survey reveals … Continue reading →

Posted in Abkhazia, Armenia, August War, Caucasus conflict, Current affairs, De Facto States, ethnic cleansing, Five Day War, forced displacement, Geography, Nagorny Karabakh, Putin, Russia, Saakashvili, World political map | Tagged | 1 Comment

Bosnia by the Black Sea? Could Crimea be another BiH?

Posted on March 14, 2014 by

I have an op ed on this topic on the Open Democracy Russia website under the title “Could Crimea Be Another Bosnia?” http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/gerard-toal/could-crimea-be-another-bosnia-republika-srpska-krajina For Bosnia specialists, below is the source I used for the opening quote. Specialists will know I … Continue reading →

Posted in Bosnia, Bosnian war, Current affairs, De Facto States, Political Borders, Political Geography, Putin, Radovan Karadzic, referendum, Rhetoric, unilateral declaration of independence | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Birth of a Nation: Radovan Karadžić and the Ethnopoliticization of Bosnia in 1990

Posted on December 20, 2013 by

By the time he strode to the podium in Skenderija Hall, Sarajevo, on 12 July 1990 to speak, the journey of Dr Radovan Karadžić from obscure psychiatrist to politician, wartime leader, and later accused war criminal had begun. Karadžić had been working for months … Continue reading →

Posted in Affect, Bosnia, Bosnian war, Current affairs, Democracy, ethnic cleansing, genocide, political system, Radovan Karadzic, Rhetoric, war crimes, World political map | Tagged | 2 Comments

Internal Legitimacy in De Facto States

Posted on December 17, 2013 by

The question of legitimacy is, of course, a central one in the study of de facto states. Unrecognized states don’t have it from the international community (or from only a few as in the case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia), … Continue reading →

Posted in Abkhazia, Caucasus conflict, Current affairs, ethnic cleansing, Five Day War, genocide, Geography, Geopolitics, Georgia, legitimacy, Russia, Saakashvili, South Ossetia, World political map | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Joe Sacco and the Great War

Posted on November 21, 2013 by

I had the pleasure of meeting Joe Sacco last night at Politics and Prose where he presented his latest work, The Great War. July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme. An Illustrated Panorama. First conceived over 15 years … Continue reading →

Posted in Bosnia, Bosnian war, Caucasus conflict, Chechnya, Current affairs, Geopolitics, Popular Geopolitics, Radovan Karadzic, Washington D.C. | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment