State building in the middle of a geopolitical struggle: The cases of Ukraine, Moldova and Transnistria.

This research intends to know if it is possible for Ukraine, Moldova and Pridnestrovia to build a sovereign state in the current global context, while in the middle of a geopolitical struggle. For the theoretical part, it considers Schmitt notions of sovereignty and portrays some of the main geopolitical schools of thought in the US and Russia to understand each of the dominant geopolitical projects in the area. It analyses the state of the relation between Russia and the West (including the US, the EU and its members) from a geopolitical perspective and the way it has influenced the political events in the area. Afterwards, it examines the historical and political developments mostly from the fall of the Soviet Union until the first quarter of 2016. This investigation also took into account the complex multi-ethnic and multilingual tissue in the area and the development of diverse electoral processes in the region. It underlined the role played by the Ukrainian oligarchs in the local political life and the effects it has brought in the same state-building process. It gives special attention to the events surrounding the Ukrainian crisis in 2013-14. To conclude, it intends to glimpse, in which direction are evolving each of the studied polities and if they could eventually develop into sovereign states or instead they risk of becoming failed states.