ABSTRACT
Russia’s renewed military campaign in Chechnya accentuates the federal leadership’s persistent failure to normalise its relations with the separatist republic or formulate a concrete, proactive policy with regard to the entire North Caucasus region. Moreover, the new round of fighting illustrates the extent to which the motives for the 1994-96 war reflect wider, more enduring systemic factors that are deeply embedded in the Russian state-building project. Despite a period of several years in which to establish vital institutional mechanisms for the regulation of centre-periphery relations, there has been little tangible change, thereby precipitating a new round of violent conflict in Russian-Chechen relations.
