Federalism, National Identity and Overcoming Frozen Conflicts: Moldova’s Experience

Abstract

In the Republic of Moldova struggles for independence and over national identity in the late 1980s and the early 1990s resulted in two conflicts with the Gagauz minority and separatists in the region of Transnistria. In this paper we compare and contextualize the settlement processes and pay specific attention to Chisinau's perceptions of the two conflicts. Our analysis highlights how Gagauz autonomy and Transnistrian separatism are situated in the complex relationship between geopolitics and domestic identity politics that reproduces cleavages among Moldova's political stakeholders. This is a major obstacle to a coherent position of Chisinau and the implementation of autonomy arrangements in both cases.