AbstractsPolitical Science

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is between the stakeholders of Armenia and Azerbaijan with the Karabakh Armenians in the middle. Nagorno-Karabakh is an Armenian de facto state but a de jure state under the Azerbaijani rule, and the conflict over this territory has left thousands of lives. It is more than two decades ago since the armed conflict ended but there has barely been an improvement between the two republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we wanted to use the concept politics of place as our conceptual framework to find out why the conflict is still unresolved by looking at, for example, their historical claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore our research question for this project is: How did the politics of place play out in the Armenian right for self-determination and the Azeri right for territorial integrity, and how did it affect the peace negotiations in the unresolved conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh? Our conclusion is that this is a ‘frozen’ conflict where there is now peace, in terms of human lives, however, the conflict is currently ongoing. We concluded that the reason why this conflict is still unresolved are, that there is two opposing principles, self-determination and territorial integrity which stems from the fact that they both have a different sense of place of Nagorno-Karabakh, and that there has been a lack of international mediation. Furthermore, the conflict is still unresolved because there has been a lack of compromises between the involved parties, and lastly, that the involved parties are benefitting from the status quo, hence, they do not wish to compromise or agree. Advisors/Committee Members: Schouenborg, Laust (advisor).