Introduction: Regional Diversity, Decentralization, And Conflict In And Around Ukraine

Despite a decreasing number of interstate wars, the contemporary era is marked by the rise in ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and identity conflicts within states, often leading to the establishment of de-facto states. An important feature of such conflicts is a foreign support to one of the conflicting parties. Most commonly, the international community seeks to address conflicts through territorial self-governance (TSG) arrangements (e.g. federalization, decentralization). In this vein, this introductory chapter offers insights into the state of research regarding the application of the TSG as a conflict-mitigation tool, and explains the relevance of the Ukrainian case to the TSG study in the context of intense foreign engagement. It also introduces each chapter of the volume and explains its contribution to the wider literature.