Democracy in de facto states
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.
– This has been the case with Nagorno-Karabakh, NUPI researcher Helge Blakkisrud says.
Together with Pål Kolstø at the University of Oslo, he has authored the article "De facto states and democracy: The case of Nagorno-Karabakh" in the latest issue of Communist and Post-Communist Studies.
Several factors
The article examines the development of democracy in Nagorno-Karabakh against a checklist of factors assumed to be relevant: cultural homogeneity, size, existential threats, role of the diaspora, and the consequences of continued non-recognition.