Le mouvement d’étatisation promu par la minorité arménienne du Haut-Karabagh : la souveraineté imparfaite comme instrument politique de "dégel" du conflit

Abstract

The empirical study of the construction of an autonomous structure of governance by the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan enables to bypass several conventional arguments. Beyond a “frozen” diplomatic conflict, the state-building dynamic of the Nagorno-Karabakh transforms internal equilibriums, which contributes to modify the conditions of conflict resolution. The continuity of the diplomatic status quo leads to widen the gap between the political agreements negotiated by the protagonists and the actual capacity to implement them on the ground, which opens a favourable structure of opportunity to the emergence of a de facto state. The aim of the autonomous political entity is not to negotiate the division of state powers within the Azerbaijani state, but to exit this state. Conflict resolution does not only depend on external factors, which are combined with internal issues and reinforce the prevalence of the status quo. Thus, the conflict is not “frozen,” the situation on the ground being quite different today from that of the 1994 ceasefire. The force of inertia is first and foremost a political strategy aimed at favouring in practice a policy of the accomplished fact though diplomatically unacceptable, and imposing de jure a sovereignty de facto imperfect.