The Irreversibility of History The Conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia

In 2008, Georgia militarily engaged its breakaway region of South Ossetia, a fact that aggravated bilateral tensions and culminated in Russia's military presence in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia's second breakaway region. This development rekindled conflicts that had been smoldering since the early 1990s and revitalized interest in understanding the causal mechanism. The present historical institutionalist account examines the role of lasting regional political preferences in the context of an ethnicized (Georgian) national identity, comparatively weak economic growth, and unemployment. Russia serves as a contextual factor allowing for the primacy of state-level analysis. The conclusions corroborate the irreversible impact of structural deficiencies