Social scientists know that relative levels of voter participation versus voter apathy are reliable indicators of the sense of “ownership” which citizens, including minority groups, feel towards the state in which they live. This is equally true for unrecognized states or partially unrecognized states such as Transdniestria and Kosovo.
So who is on board and supportive […]
As Transdniestria becomes more and more convinced that Kosovo is indeed a precedent, some in Moldovan and their supporters are trying to turn back the tide of history by suggesting that Kosovo’s road to U.S.-recognized independence can only be a precedent if it is studiously carbon-copied millimeter by millimeter. This includes dismantling the otherwise successful […]
Even seven years ago, the PMR was “successfully established and consolidated” according to OSCE’s resident Transdniestria-expert Claus Neukirch:
Since its declaration of independence on 2 September 1990 the ‘Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic’ (‘PMR’) has successfully established and consolidated its own state-like structure. In Transdniestria, alongside a president and a parliament there are, inter alia, a supreme court […]
The Duma Committee for CIS on March 13th, following a hearing on unrecognized republics, recommended an upgrading of relations with Abkhazia, Transdniestria, and South Ossetia including the possibility of recognition.
Other recommendations included or reported are the establishment of diplomatic missions in the regions with the foreign ministry to decide whether they are consulates or another […]
In the words of top analyst Sergey Markedonov:
In Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Transdnestr and Nagorny Karabakh, the Kosovo case is seen as a legal precedent. This means that the elites of states recognized by the UN (Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan) had aimed to “solve the problem of territorial integrity” before Kosovo proclaimed its independence. After Kosovo’s recognition […]
Advice to Moldova: Before you made your self-defeating July 2005 law on PMR’s hoped-for status, you should’ve checked what you already promised the Transdniestrians ten years earlier.
As per this interesting detail from Pål Kolstø:
In 1995, Moldova agreed with Transdniestria that the latter should be granted “a legal status as a state” (in Russian, gosudarstvenno-pravovoi status).
…And, […]
Whether Transdniestria stays ‘de facto’ independent, is granted legal recognition or becomes absorbed into Moldova, one thing is certain: Its flag and other symbols of state will remain.
Even for Moldova, there is nothing uncontroversial in the fact that Transdniestria keeps its own red-and-green flag, a separate coat of arms, anthem, etc. This was actually already […]
Transdniestria wants to put the “black hole” myth behind it once and for all:
In fact, staging the myth of the “black hole” is a well-known phenomenon of the science of deformation of consciousness, called gipostazirovaniem (Greek Hypostasis - the essence, substance). According to the Russian political scientist S. Kara-Murza, this phenomenon is widely used in […]
According to the World Database of Happiness (WDH), Moldova is the least happy country in the world. The Dutch institute that scientifically researches perceptions of happiness in various societies around the world and ranks countries in order of contentment. Their stats show Moldovans to be the world’s unhappiest people.
Eric Weiner, in his latest book, writes […]
For the most extensive information on Transdniestria in the German language, check out the website www.Pridnestrovie.de which was launched the last week of Feb.’08.
A look at its sitemap hints at the depth of detailed PMR information that is available on the site.
Non-German readers can use machine translators available both here and here.
The Cato Institute’s Ted Galen Carpenter has an insightful new article in the latest issue of The National Interest, analyzing de facto independent states / unrecognized countries / “twilight states”:
Sitting at the edge of international attention are states in all but name. Although existing as highly functioning nations, they rest also on the edge of […]
From ‘Foreign Policy’ comes this handy guide to statehood, with both good and bad news for Transdniestria’s strongly independence-minded population. The bad news first: You need powerful friends. The good news: Hang in there, before the longer you’re de-facto independent, the stronger your claim to internationally recognized sovereign statehood will be.
With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence […]