Experience of Mediation of the European Union in the Russian-Georgian war of 2008

Abstract

The article is devoted to defining evaluation criteria and explaining the reasons for the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of European Union mediation in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The analysis of the effectiveness of EU intervention in conflicts as a mediator is almost unexplored in Ukraine: Ukrainian scientists consider EU peacekeeping in a broad sense, but does not specifically focus on mediation. This article is an attempt to scientifically assess the effectiveness of the EU as a mediator in the Russian-Georgian war on the basis of developed criteria. The work is written within the general framework of the conflict resolution paradigm, and elements of the constructivist paradigm are also used to explain the meta-conflict present in the conflict system - the difference in narratives of the conflicting parties, which reduced the possibility of successful mediation. The context and process of European mediation were revealed using the case study method. The historical method was used to determine the root causes of the conflict. Using the method of discourse analysis, the features of the conflict system were determined. The paper identifies theoretical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of intervention, describes the features of the conflict system of the Russian-Georgian war, describes the process of European Union intervention in the conflict. The effectiveness of mediation in two stages is analyzed - mediation in the "hot phase" of the conflict and mediation in the Geneva negotiations. The effectiveness at each stage was evaluated according to the criteria formed on the basis of the above theoretical approaches. Contextual (motivation of the parties, levers of influence of the mediator) and procedural (strategy of the mediator) independent variables were analyzed. It was concluded that the degree of effectiveness of the intervention was determined by the interaction of these factors at each stage, but not one of them. The approach used in this study can be applied to assessing the effectiveness of mediation by both the EU and any other actor in resolving post-Soviet conflicts, particularly in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which remained outside the scope of the study.