Georgia: Examining Possible Sovereign Futures and the Internationalization Option
At a recent special panel on the Georgian crisis convened at the Bled Strategic Forum, European foreign ministers and representatives of international organizations lamented that they had failed to adequately engage Georgia's unresolved or "frozen conflicts." Since the early 1990s, the international community effectively ignored the disputes between Tbilisi and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, allowing tensions to fester until in early August the disputes escalated into a six-day war between Georgia and Russia. Russia's subsequent recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence has legally challenged Georgia's very territorial integrity and sovereign boundaries.
This chapter looks at recent trends in the historiography of state-formation since the appearance of Charles Tilly's Coercion and Capital and European States, AD 990-1990. The impact of globalization upon scholarship is analyzed, with increasing attention to comparative studies on China and the Ottoman Empire. Another emphasis has been the study of institutions in relationship with economic growth, among others through state finances and state loans.