ABSTRACT
In the former Soviet space, new conflicts have erupted generating instability and prompting a more active involvement from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The eastwards expansion of the organization to include the former Soviet republics makes the OSCE a fundamental forum to address their problems and work on the management of conflicts in the region. Strengthening the OSCE might equalize to weakening it, if it implies the adding of a bureaucratic component to its functioning or of limitations to its flexible character. The particular third-party role played by the Minsk Group with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict adds to these prerogatives by constituting an innovative way of dealing with a conflict situation. The extent to which the results of its crisis management activities might be improved depends not only on its own resources and participating states' political will, but also on the complex web of relations where the OSCE activities take place.
