Etienne Forestier-Peyrat writes that study of the Transcaucasian Federation, which united Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the early era of the Soviet Union, offers a new path for a reconsideration of the political uses of federalism in authoritarian regimes. Forestier-Peyrat asserts that the Federation was not merely a “Potemkin village” camouflaging an exceedingly centralized state, but rather that federalism there was taken seriously because it allowed Soviet officials to better manage multinational societies and multilevel conflicts. Read more here.
