INTRODUCTION
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization
of Bfrozen conflicts^
Michal Smetana1
& Jan Ludvík1,2
Published online: 1 August 2018
# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
Frozen conflicts, situations in which war ended yet stable peace did not materialize,
trouble both Asia and Europe. Despite the clear policy relevance of this problem,
the notion of frozen conflicts remains surprisingly blurred in peace and conflict
studies literature. In this paper, we seek to provide a rigorous conceptualization of
frozen conflicts. We situate frozen conflicts into a broader debate about enduring
rivalries in international politics and demonstrate the theoretical relevance of the
term vis-à-vis existing concepts. Furthermore, we outline a theoretical model of
frozen conflict dynamics, which portrays frozen conflicts as dynamic configurations
undergoing a periodical Bthawing^ in relations between the opposing sides:
either toward diplomatic negotiations (Bpeaceful thawing^) or re-escalation toward
use of armed force (Bviolent thawing^). We illustrate the usefulness of our model
with empirical observations from other articles in this special issue and conclude
with possible avenues for further research.
Introduction
In the 1990s, the term Bfrozen conflict^ entered the vocabulary of international politics.
The label Bfrozen^ was supposed to highlight the fact that although the full-scale
fighting had already stopped in the particular case, the conflict was not fully resolved,
and the situation could easily slip back into violence. Today, both Asia and Europe are
troubled with such spots that stand in between peace and war, from the Korean
peninsula to the Indian subcontinent to the South Caucasus to Ukraine.
The danger of violent re-escalation has been a permanent feature of life in frozen
conflict territories, with potential consequences that transcend regional boundaries.
Asia Europe Journal (2019) 17:1–14
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-018-0521-x
* Michal Smetana
michal.smetana@fsv.cuni.cz
1
Center for Security Policy / Peace Research Center Prague, Charles University, Prague,
Czech Republic
2
Department of Security Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Whereas policy makers seem to be increasingly interested in this particular problem,
academic research into frozen conflicts appears to be Bfrozen^ itself—struggling to
even agree on what frozen conflicts are and what distinguishes them from other types
of conflictual situations in international politics.
To address this gap in scholarly literature, this special issue of the Asia Europe
Journal unpacks the notion of frozen conflict and situates the concept into the broader
research agenda of peace and conflict studies. We move beyond the widespread
understanding of frozen conflicts as a strictly post-Soviet phenomenon and provide a
new rigorous conceptualization that is neither spatially nor temporally specific. Furthermore,
while the notion of Bfrozenness^ may imply that the conflicts remain static,
our conceptual delimitation highlights the dynamic nature of frozen conflicts, oscillating
between attempts to negotiate a stable peace and escalation toward renewed
violence.
In this article, our aim is to conceptually unpack the notion of frozen conflict as a
protracted, post-war conflict process, characterized by the absence of stable peace
between the opposing sides. We also develop an analytical framework for a more
systematic study of frozen conflicts. The remaining articles in this special issue then
draw on this framework to study the dynamics of several frozen conflicts in Europe and
Asia. The individual empirical case studies are on East European Bde facto states^
(Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Chechnya), as well as
on the Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina), South Asia (India and Pakistan), and East
Asia (the Korean peninsula).
In the article, we proceed as follows. First, we critically review some of the existing
pools of academic literature on frozen conflicts. Second, we propose a new definition
and (re-)conceptualization of the phenomenon of frozen conflicts. Third, we situate the
concept of frozen conflicts in the wider discipline of peace and conflict studies. Fourth,
we introduce a typology distinguishing among three logics of frozen conflict dynamics:
peaceful thawing, violent thawing, and withering. Fifth, we discuss some empirical
findings from individual case studies with respect to our dynamic reconceptualization
of frozen conflict. In conclusion, we summarize our findings and suggest avenues for
further research in this field.
State of the art
The emergence of the notion of frozen conflict is closely related to the dissolution of the
Soviet Union and the birth of several successive states in Eastern Europe in the early
1990s. Since then, frozen conflicts have been regularly referred to by decision-makers
and policy professionals (Ferrero-Waldner 2006; Kerry 2013; Obama 2016), as well as
the media (The New York Times 2012; CNN 2014; BBC 2014; The Economist 2016;
The Japan Times 2017; The Moscow Times 2017). In most of these accounts, the
notion of frozen conflict is used directly in connection with protracted ethno-political
conflicts in the post-Soviet space, in particular the ones in Nagorno-Karabakh,
Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia—and recently also eastern Ukraine
(Burridge 2016; Blank 2016).
Among scholars interested in international politics, the term frozen conflict(s) is also
regularly invoked to address the aforementioned Bno war, no peace^ situations (Lynch
2 M. Smetana, J. Ludvík
2004; Blank 2008; Wolff 2011; Broers 2015; Tudoroiu 2016; Cornell 2017b). Despite
its relatively common usage, however, the notion of frozen conflict itself remains
surprisingly blurred in academic literature. Most scholars uncritically accept the policy
makers’ understanding of the term and do not conceptualize frozen conflicts as a
specific subset of international conflicts. In the existing accounts, it is seldom clear
on what ground should the given conflict be labeled Bfrozen^—particular conflicts are
mostly referred to this category for historical reasons rather than because they have
explicit common features.
One of the rare attempts to draw a general definition of frozen conflicts was put
forward by Perry (2009), who characterized them as situations in which Bthe violence
stopped, but the underlying interests of the formerly warring parties have neither been
abated nor addressed.^ As such, in frozen conflicts, Bthe war, without a military victor
or vanquished, continues to play out in peacetime politics^ (Perry 2009; Aggestam and
Björkdahl 2011). Such explicit definitions are, however, scarce, and they are not widely
shared among scholars interested in exploration of these conflicts.
Arguably, this lack of attempts to delimit and properly conceptualize frozen conflicts
often contributes to the occasional semantic critique of the adjective Bfrozen.^ Lynch
(2005), for example, argues that Bthe metaphor is misleading — the conflicts are not
frozen… events have developed dynamically, and the situation on the ground today is
very different from the context that gave rise to these conflicts in the late 1980s^
(Lynch 2005, 192). Morar (2010) notes in a similar fashion that Bthe term frozen
conflicts is deceiving; it erroneously suggests that a conflict could be put on hold^
(Morar 2010, 11). Elsewhere, Cornell (2017a) claims that Bthe concept of frozenness
falsely connotes a lack of dynamism, as if the politics of the conflict are frozen in time
and space^ (Cornell 2017a, 2). According to Broers (2015), the description of conflicts
as frozen and therefore static, shared by academics and policy makers alike, leads to a
(politically) convenient perception that they are de facto stable and therefore essentially
irrelevant. While this critique is intuitively sound, we argue in the next sections that it is
rather unwarranted and present a conceptualization that accounts for the dynamics
inherent in the continuous existence of frozen conflicts.
Besides the lack of definitions and delimitations of the frozen conflict concept, the
existing body of scholarly literature also exhibits certain analytical biases. Most
importantly, the label frozen conflict has been applied almost exclusively to a limited
number of conflicts in contemporary post-Soviet space. Only a handful of scholars use
this notion for structurally comparable conflicts in Africa (Fregoso and Zivkovic 2012),
Asia (Felician 2011), the Middle East (Aggestam and Björkdahl 2011), or the Balkans
(Perry 2009). This bias in temporality and regional outreach prevents scholars from
drawing adequate lessons from the dynamics of comparable frozen conflicts in other
historical periods and/or other parts of the globe.1
Finally, the existing body of literature on frozen conflicts is generally biased toward
the (otherwise noble) goal of contributing to peaceful (diplomatic) conflict resolution,
from a position of a deeper empirical understanding of unique features of a singular
conflict (Welt 2010; Fregoso and Zivkovic 2012; Broers 2015). As we argue in this
1
Notably, Dembinska and Campana (2017) employ a theoretical perspective grounded in political sociology
to examine internal processes of frozen conflicts in the context of Bde facto states,^ mentioning a number of
empirical examples that spatially extend beyond the post-Soviet space.
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization of “frozen... 3
article, the dynamics of frozen conflicts usually oscillates between attempts to negotiate
stable peace and escalation of the conflict toward renewed violence. However, analyses
of the escalation of frozen conflicts are comparably much rarer and often oriented
strictly toward an idiosyncratic study of individual cases (Welt 2010). Arguably, more
complex accounts of frozen conflicts as a general phenomenon in international politics
are still a blind spot in contemporary scholarly literature.
(Re-)conceptualizing frozen conflicts
As noted in the introduction, we aspire to overcome the prevalent understanding of
frozen conflicts as a contemporary phenomenon in the post-Soviet space. As such, we
aim to develop a broader concept that is neither regional nor temporal specific. We
introduce frozen conflicts as a specific subtype of international conflicts. We believe
frozen conflicts bear certain unique characteristics which set them apart from other
international conflicts. We define frozen conflict as a protracted, post-war conflict
process, characterized by the absence of stable peace between the opposing sides. In
frozen conflicts, core issues between the opposing sides remain unresolved, the dispute
is in the forefront of mutual relations, and there is a looming threat of the renewal of
violence. The conflict also remains highly salient in the domestic discourses of both
policy makers and the general population. Systemizing this depiction of frozen conflicts
brings with it four criteria that any frozen conflict must meet: it must be (a) international
and (b) protracted post-war, it must have (c) core unresolved issues, and it (d) lacks
stable peace. Several of these criteria deserve further elaboration.
First, in our scope, frozen conflicts are a subset of international conflicts. Consequently,
the opposing sides in frozen conflicts are states or state-like entities. Two
important reasons call for treating state-like entities like states, and thereby relevant
actors in international frozen conflicts. First, deductively, de facto states resemble states
much more than anything else. De facto states behave like internationally recognized
states and not like non-state actors. They maintain state-like bureaucratic structures and
conventional armed forces, bearing an ability to restart a war which was at the origin of
the frozen conflict. Second, inductively, most Bprototypical^ frozen conflicts in the
political discourse and scholarly literature like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and Transnistria cannot be explained without considering
the independent agency of de facto states (Dembinska and Campana 2017).
Second, frozen conflicts are protracted and post-war. In fact, a more precise term for
the phenomenon under study would probably be Bfrozen violent conflict.^ Our conceptualization
requires, in accordance with the prevalent understanding of frozen
conflicts, that a frozen conflict starts with a war.2
The formative experience of war
sets frozen conflicts apart from other protracted conflicts. While the major violence had
eventually stopped, the conflict did not undergo a proper transformation. Instead, the
conflict became frozen as a situation somewhere between war and peace, with its own
dynamics and potential for renewed escalation toward the use of armed force. As such,
2
In our own dataset (forthcoming), we operationalize this frozen conflict starting point using the Correlates of
War (COW) threshold of 1000 battle-related deaths per 12 months.
4 M. Smetana, J. Ludvík
frozen conflicts represent a specific category of international protracted conflicts, i.e.,
Bhostile interactions which extend over long periods of time with sporadic outbreaks of
open warfare fluctuating in frequency and intensity^ (Azar et al. 1978, 50; cf. Azar
1985).
Third, as long as the particular rivalry deserves the designation of frozen conflict, the
core issues between the opposing sides should remain unresolved. Typically, disagreements
over territorial issues, minority rights, and the autonomy/independence of ethnic
groups constitute the core issues. These issues continue to be salient in domestic
discourses and are frequently referred to by the media, as well as by ordinary people,
as commonplace topics. The identity of one party in the conflict is often constructed in
relation to differences with the other party, which plays the role of the Bother.^ The
depiction of the opposing side in national discourses frequently uses strongly negative
images and stereotypes. New issues that arise between the opposing sides regularly
undergo securitization dynamics and become entangled in the web of outstanding
problems that hinder a just and peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Fourth, frozen conflicts lack stable peace. The notion of stable peace goes far
beyond the common perception of peace as the absence of war. Boulding (1978)
suggests that in stable peace, Bthe probability of war is so small that it does not really
enter into the calculations of any of the people involved^ (Boulding 1978, 13; cf.
Kacowicz et al. 2000, 22; Müller 2005). Such situation requires a political learning
process and an eventual development of compatible self-images among the actors
involved (Boulding 1991). In contrast to stable peace, the prevailing absence of
full-scale war in many frozen conflicts mostly corresponds to the notion of
Bprecarious peace^ (George 2006, 54), in which both general and immediate
deterrence play a key role in preventing the actual use of armed force (see
Morgan 1977 for the distinction between the two). While possibly no incidents
of violence occur for relatively long periods, both sides consider war a possibility. The
armed forces of both sides typically train and equip themselves for a war with the other
side and have contingency plans for such war.
Frozen conflicts meet peace and conflict studies
The academic discipline of peace and conflict studies has, at least from the 1990s,
consciously studied several phenomena similar to our understanding of frozen conflicts.
Three distinct concepts have been important in particular: (enduring) rivalries, strategic
rivalries, and protracted conflicts. These concepts have largely evolved from impressive
empirical work on three different conflict datasets. All three of them describe conflicting
environments, where conflicts are linked and spatially consistent. Yet, whereas
spatial consistency and conflict linkage is compatible with our understanding of frozen
conflicts, in important nuances, enduring rivalries, strategic rivalries, and protracted
conflicts differ from our conceptualization.
Diehl and Goertz (2000) used Correlates of War data to develop and subsequently
refine a dataset of rivalries—dyads between states which are characterized by
militarized competition over a common issue with a certain time density. Diehl and Goertz
originally distinguished among three types of conflicts: isolated conflicts, proto-rivalries,
and enduring rivalries; the latter type (and the one most similar to frozen conflicts) refers to
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization of “frozen... 5
Bsevere and repeated conflicts between the same states over an extended period of time^
(Diehl and Goertz 2000). Diehl and Goertz identified enduring rivalries assuming that Ban
enduring rivalry is defined as a competition between states that involves six or more
militarized disputes between the same two states over a period of 20 years^ (Hensel et al.
2000, 1177). In later work, they abandoned the concepts of proto-rivalry and enduring
rivalry. Thus, their new dataset distinguishes only between rivalries and isolated conflicts
and uses a more qualitative approach to identify whether a series of militarized interstate
disputes between the same states can be labeled as a rivalry (Klein et al. 2006). The
original concept of enduring rivalry, however, remains salient in peace and conflict studies
literature.
Another common concept which needs to be distinguished from frozen conflicts is
strategic rivalry. A strategic rivalry is comprised of two states which Bmust regard each
other as (a) competitors, (b) the source of actual or latent threats that pose some
possibility of becoming militarized, (c) enemies^ (Thompson 2001). Two differences
set strategic and enduring rivalries apart. Since Thompson identifies strategic rivalries
from mutual perceptions rather than from the actual number of military clashes,
strategic rivalries might include dyads that have not experienced violence. Furthermore,
Thompson’s strategic rivalries indicate severe competition, while enduring rivalries can
be equally long in duration, but over much lesser issues (Klein et al. 2006).
Third, a concept similar to yet distinct from frozen conflicts is protracted conflict.
The notion of protracted conflict is profoundly connected with the International Crisis
Behavior (ICB) Project. The ICB’s protracted conflicts are long lasting, experience
sporadic outbreaks of violence, are over high-stake issues, involve whole societies, and
have no distinguishable point of termination (Brecher 1993, 5). The dataset of
protracted conflicts includes both state-to-state dyads and multiple-state conundrums.
Protracted conflicts differ from enduring rivalries by the requirement of high-stake
issues and from strategic rivalries by the requirement of experienced outbreaks of open
warfare (Colaresi and Thompson 2002).
The differences between frozen conflicts on one side and (enduring) rivalries,
strategic rivalries, and protracted conflicts on the other are operational and, even more
importantly, conceptual. Conceptually, we see frozen conflicts as specific post-war
situations. A frozen conflict starts with a war. In contrast, strategic rivalries need not
experience any direct warfare throughout the lifespan of a rivalry. Both (enduring)
rivalries and protracted conflicts expect some experience with warfare during the
lifespan of the conflict, but warfare need not happen at the outset of a rivalry and can
be limited to a lesser incident. War can, of course, happen in any of the three alternative
types of conflicts. In this respect, frozen conflicts would overlap in a larger population
of strategic rivalries, enduring rivalries, or protracted conflicts.
At least in one important aspect, however, frozen conflicts comprise a category
broader than strategic rivalries, enduring rivalries, and protracted conflicts. Operationally,
all three alternative categories work with internationally recognized states as actors
in conflicts. This is heuristically unsuitable for the study of frozen conflicts, where
an influential role is often played by de facto states such as South Ossetia,
Abkhazia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, or the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus. While these de facto states often depend on their patrons (see Kolsto 2006,
733–734; Caspersen 2009, 47–53), we believe it is desirable to account for the
independent agency of de facto states. As Dembinska and Campana (2017) argue,
6 M. Smetana, J. Ludvík
de facto states are autonomous political entities that have acquired a certain
sovereignty, however imperfect and constrained it might be.
The conceptual and operational differences between frozen conflicts, (enduring)
rivalries, strategic rivalries, and protracted conflicts are reflected in respective empirical
datasets. Differences in the respective coding of three prototypical frozen conflicts
Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia-South Ossetia, and Transnistria are illustrative enough.
Thompson’s dataset of strategic rivalries lists the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as an
Armenia-Azerbaijan rivalry, but mentions neither the conflicts in Abkhazia-South
Ossetia nor Transnistria (Thompson 2001). The ICB database recognizes protracted
conflicts between Russia and Georgia. On the other hand, the ICB considers the crisis
over Nagorno-Karabakh not to be a part of any protracted conflict. Furthermore, the
ICB does not list any crisis involving Transnistria. Klein, Goertz, and Diehl’s (Klein
et al. 2006) rivalry dataset lists the three aforementioned prototypical frozen conflicts as
an Armenia-Azerbaijan rivalry, a Russia-Georgia rivalry, and a Russia-Moldova rivalry.
Yet, the early 1990s breakaway wars, which were formative for these conflicts, are not
included as a part of respective rivalry, since they are considered intra-state wars.
Hence, while sharing many characteristics with the existing concepts, frozen conflicts
cannot be simply subsumed under one of the alternative concepts (see Table 1).
Instead, it is valuable to study frozen conflicts as an independent category with possibly
unique internal logic established by a formative experience of war and specific
domestic politics especially when de facto states play a role.
Unpacking the dynamics of frozen conflicts
Concerning the occasional scholarly critique of stasis that is implied by the label
Bfrozen,^ it is important to note that hardly any academic account of any frozen conflict
treats the situation on the ground as static. Instead, most scholars explicitly or implicitly
assume that the development within the conflict is dynamic and constantly shifting.
Fregoso and Zivkovic (2012, 140), for example, propose that the adjective Bfrozen^
does not mean that the conflict is paused, but merely that it does not transform;
movement is inherent in each of these conflicts. Japaridze and Rondeli (2004, 45)
Table 1 Key distinctions between concepts
Enduring rivalries
(Diehl and Goertz 2000)
Strategic rivalries
(Thompson 2001)
Protracted conflicts
(Brecher 1993)
Frozen
conflicts
Actors 2 states 2 states At least 1 state 2 states or de
facto states
Violence in conflict
life span
At least 6 MIDs Not necessary At least sporadic
outbreaks
War as a starting
point
Main issues in
the conflict
Any issues Implicitly severe High stakes and
highly salient
Highly salient
Conflict life span At least 20 years No minimum
duration
Long periods of time No minimum
duration
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization of “frozen... 7
similarly note that these conflicts are Balive^ and Bbrewing.^ Faber provides a teleological
view, arguing that frozen conflicts move through three consecutive periods:
freeze, thaw, and defreeze (Faber 2000).3
Our own conceptualization assumes a cyclical understanding of frozen conflict
dynamics. As a consequence of various internal and external factors, a frozen conflict
undergoes a periodical Bthawing^ in mutual relations between the opposing sides:
either toward diplomatic negotiations (Bpeaceful thawing^) or re-escalation toward
use of armed force (Bviolent thawing^). Typically, peaceful thawing is manifested in
non-violent initiatives that aim to solve the underlying causes of the conflict through
dialogue, often with the involvement of third parties such as regional and global
powers, international organizations, NGOs, and highly respected individuals. Violent
thawing typically takes the form of an armed action that aims to alter the course of the
conflict through the use of force.
In principle, both peaceful and violent thawing have the potential to transform a
frozen conflict toward stable peace (cf. Wallensteen 1991; Rupesinghe 1995).4
In
conflict-resolution literature, peaceful thawing represents the Bbest case scenario^ of
conflict transformation (Wallensteen 2002, 7–8), with diplomatic negotiations successfully
resolving the key conflicting issues by agreeing on a mutually acceptable compromise.
An illustrative example of such development may be the case of the frozen
conflict between Israel and Egypt, periodically slipping into violence since the 1940s
but eventually transformed through diplomatic negotiations in the late 1970s (Cohen
and Azar 1981; Kelman 1985).
Through violent thawing, on the other hand, previously unresolved key issues are
decided militarily to the satisfaction of the victorious party; the other party suffers such
a defeat that it is no longer interested in continuing the conflict and accepts a solution
that brings stability to mutual relations (cf. Luttwak 1999, 36). A case in point may be
the military defeat of Iraq by the USA in 2003, qualitatively transforming the conflictual
relationship between these two countries that had its roots in the 1990–1991 Gulf
War. If any of the aforementioned dynamics are successful, the frozen conflict loses its
definitional attributes and can be considered terminated (see Fig. 1).
However, in the case of frozen conflicts, these thawing dynamics usually stop short
of conflict transformation. Instead, after reaching the peak of the thawing process, the
conflict slips back to Bfrozenness^ (see Fig. 2). Some aspects of the frozen conflict may
be subject to change as in the wake of the thawing process; if we apply the iceberg
metaphor, then the Bice that thaws does not always freeze back in its previous shape^
(Grzelczyk, this issue). Nevertheless, despite particular alterations, the conflict generally
maintains its frozen quality—hence the idea that conflicts can remain frozen
despite the fact that the situation on the ground keeps dynamically shifting over time.
As a consequence, frozen conflicts remain inherently unstable in the long term and
seldom static throughout their day-to-day development.
3
As a part of our research project BEarly Warning Indicators of Escalating Frozen Conflicts,^ we conducted
several interviews with senior-level diplomats between 2015 and 2017. The interviews demonstrated that
policy makers are not only generally interested in these conflicts but also interested in them particularly
because they see them as dynamic, fearing that the development on the ground could eventually lead to the
resurgence of major violence and regional destabilization.
4
For a review of conflict transformation literature and its relationship to the concept of conflict resolution, see,
for example, Botes (2003), Mitchell (2002), or Reimann (2004).
8 M. Smetana, J. Ludvík
Finally, we distinguish a third type of dynamic that takes place in relation to frozen
conflicts: conflict withering. Unlike peaceful and violent thawing that take place
explicitly as a part of the given conflict, conflict withering is, in principle, an external
dynamic that nevertheless changes the importance of the issues at stake. In contrast to
both types of thawing, withering lacks the original intention to transform the conflict;
instead, withering is an unintentional by-product of some other development. As a
consequence of such development, previously salient issues are no longer central to the
mutual relationship. The conflict can wither slowly: for example, ethnic groups can
gradually reconstruct their originally incompatible identities, or previously precious
natural resources become less important or scarce. However, conflict withering can also
happen relatively quickly, as a result of an external shock like systemic wars that alter
the landscape of international politics. A typical example may be the two world wars
that redrew the borders of Europe and made some earlier frozen conflicts over territory
irrelevant.
Empirical observations
Our reconceptualization of frozen conflicts provides ground for a systematic empirical
inquiry into their dynamics. From our perspective, there are three primary questions
that ought to be addressed in the course of such research. First, what makes frozen
conflicts thaw in the first place? Second, what happens at the critical junction, when the
thawing can potentially lead to conflict transformation but instead the process reaches
its peak and the conflict re-freezes? Third, are there observable dynamics that contribute
to the gradual withering of the conflict?
Empirical accounts of individual frozen conflicts in this special issue provide us with
some intriguing preliminary insights into these matters. A particularly salient theme has
been the involvement of powerful third parties in the dynamics of the conflict, resulting
Frozen Conflict
Conflict Thawing
(Peaceful / Violent)
Conflict
TransformaƟon =>
Stable Peace
Fig. 1 The possibility of frozen conflict transformation
Fig. 2 The cyclical nature of frozen conflict dynamics
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization of “frozen... 9
in the creation of Bmany layers of ice over time^ (Grzelczyk, this issue). Often, the
third-party involvement manifests itself in complex patron-client relations—as the case
of Transnistria demonstrates, external backing and support is sometimes indispensable
to the very survivability of the actors involved (Dembinska and Merand, this issue).
The interests of major third parties are frequently among the key roadblocks preventing
successful transformation of the frozen conflict at hand; for example, Blahova (this
issue) highlights the role of Moscow in the status quo management of the NagornoKarabakh
conflict, preventing both peaceful and violent thawing from proceeding to
the transformation phase. In Georgia, Russia even eventually shifted its position in the
conflict assemblage from a supporting patron to a direct participant in the conflict
(Ditrych, this issue).
Frozen conflicts are also frequently externalized through the practices of an international
conflict resolution apparatus, with local actors being treated as objects of external
intervention (Ditrych, this issue). However, as the cases of South Asia (Ganguly et al.,
this issue) and the South Caucasus (Blahova, this issue) demonstrate, peaceful thawing
spurred by the initiative of third parties often fails to address the interests of local actors
and thereby falls short of achieving a full transformation of the conflict.
As we already discussed in the conceptual section of this article, the (in-)stability of
frozen conflicts is also underpinned by the logic of deterrence and its effect on the
behavior of participating actors. Two cases examined in this special issue—South Asia
and the Korean peninsula—highlight the role of nuclear weapons on frozen conflicts
and the impact of their acquisition on the complexity of deterrence relationships. In the
case of India, the circular logic of violent thawing is further reinforced by the stabilityinstability
paradox, in which nuclear weapons function as a Bgreat stabilizer^ on the
level of all-out war, while simultaneously allowing instability on the lower levels of
violence (see also Ganguly 1995; Mistry 2009; Ganguly and Hagerty 2012; Kapur
2005). In the case of the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s nuclear acquisition arguably
lowers the prospects for a near-term successful transformation of conflict, while at the
same time makes the possibility of individual instances of conflict thawing more
likely—primarily through emboldening the North Korean leadership and putting further
pressure on the USA to act in the face of acute nuclear non-proliferation challenges
(cf. Anderson 2017; Roehrig 2016; Choi and Bae 2016; Davis et al. 2016).
The authors of the articles in this special issue also aimed at opening the Bblack box^
of unitary states and examined the domestic sources of frozen conflict dynamics. For
example, the case of Georgia demonstrates how domestic political changes—in this
case the establishment of the Saakashvili regime after the Revolution of Roses—were
the main drivers behind violent thawing of the conflict. Domestic factors can be also
seen as obstacles to frozen conflict transformation, as seen in the case of NagornoKarabakh,
where the lack of domestic support for any diplomatic concessions makes
the possibility for transformation through peaceful thawing unlikely. Often, there are
multiple domestic actors with parochial economic and political interests in keeping the
conflict frozen, thereby actively participating in the specific Bfrozen conflict
economy^—a development that we can clearly observe in the de facto states of
Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia (King 2001).
In practically all of the frozen conflicts examined in this special issue, their persistent
frozenness is sustained and (re-)produced by the discursive practices of othering and
adversarial labeling. In many cases, the discursive dynamics following the use of armed
10 M. Smetana, J. Ludvík
force reaches the level of Bevilization^ (Müller 2014) of the adversary, making violent
thawing the only imaginable option for conflict transformation. The logic of politicized
ethnicity in frozen conflicts is usually reinforced by the elite discourse: the political
leadership, in order to strengthen its grip to power, participates in the (re-)production of
nationalist mobilization narratives that exclude the Bother^ from any meaningful idea of
mutual reconciliation (see Souleimanov 2013, and Ditrych and Blahova in this issue).
The case of Chechnya also highlights the role of emotions and complex in-group/outgroup
dynamics that can potentially contribute to the violent thawing of the frozen
conflict, while making the transformation through peaceful thawing implausible
(Souleimanov, Abbasov, and Siroky, this issue).
Finally, articles in this special issue also examine the potential for conflict withering.
In the case of Transnistria, its logic is based on the Bdual engagement^ of the local elites
with Russia and the EU; as proposed by Dembinska and Mérand (this issue), B[t]ensions
and ‘frozen’ settlement notwithstanding, this pragmatic cooperation and
burgeoning trade with Europe, flanked by continued dependence on Russia, account
for the withering of the Transnistrian conflict.^ Perry (this issue), on the other hand,
highlights demographic change as a potential avenue for conflict withering in Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
Conclusion
The term frozen conflict has a widespread use in the discourse of international politics,
but thus far, it has served more as a catchy label for unresolved conflicts in post-Soviet
space than as a useful analytical category. This article provides a novel conceptual
analysis of Bfrozen conflict.^ It overcomes special and temporal limits of the common
understanding of the term and defines it as a specific subtype of international conflict.
Our conceptual analysis also outlines three general avenues of frozen conflict dynamics
and transformation: peaceful thawing based on diplomatic negotiations between the
conflicting parties, violent thawing based on violent (re-)escalation, and conflict withering,
in which an unintentional development substantively modifies the relative
importance of unresolved issues.
We argue that our conceptual analysis opens up important space for new and more
systematic empirical research of frozen conflicts. If a frozen conflict is understood as a
general phenomenon rather than something limited by a time and a space, there is a
need for a new dataset of historical frozen conflicts. Such dataset would allow a deeper
understanding of frozen conflicts through comparative research and large-N statistical
studies.
Moreover, we highlighted three interesting scholarly avenues based on our understanding
of frozen conflict dynamics. First, what makes frozen conflicts thaw, whether
peacefully or violently? Second, what happens at the point when the thawing can
potentially lead to conflict transformation but instead the process reaches its peak and
the conflict re-freezes? Third, are there observable dynamics that contribute to frozen
conflict withering? Systematic empirical research based on these three questions can
contribute new findings to the discipline of peace and conflict studies and provide
policy makers with much-needed insight into a number of the prominent unresolved
conflicts of our times.
Between war and peace: a dynamic reconceptualization of “frozen... 11
Acknowledgements We would like to thank the reviewers and our colleagues, Harald Müller, Vojtech
Bahensky, Kamil Klosek, Pavlina Blahova, and Marie Nemeckova, for their constructive comments and
recommendations. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 International Studies Association
(ISA) Annual Convention in Baltimore and the 2017 ISSS-ISAC Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. We
are grateful to the chairs, discussants, and participants in individual panel sessions for their insightful remarks
and ideas.
Funding We acknowledge funding by the Charles University Research Centre program UNCE/HUM/028
(Peace Research Center Prague/Faculty of Social Sciences) and by the Ministry of the Interior of the
Czech Republic, grant project VI20152019011.
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