The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists: Why Ex-Militants Choose to Abandon Violence in the North Caucasus

113 Pages·2014·2.14 MB·English

by  Emil Souleimanov

The Individual Disengagement of Avengers,
Nationalists, and Jihadists
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0001
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0001
The Individual
Disengagement of
Avengers, Nationalists,
and Jihadists: Why
Ex-Militants Choose
to Abandon Violence
in the North Caucasus
Emil Souleimanov
Associate Professor, Charles University, Prague
and
Huseyn Aliyev
Independent Researcher
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0001
© Emil Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-498823
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Th e authors have asserted their rights to be identifi ed as the authors of his work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-50528-9 ISBN 978-1-137-49883-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137498830
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
www.palgrave.com/pivot
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgement viii
Introduction 1
Aims and goals of the study 4
Data and methods 5
Contents of the book 6
1 Theorizing Militant Disengagement 9
‘Push’ factors 12
‘Pull’ factors 14
Collective disengagement 16
Individual disengagement 19
Voluntary and involuntary disengagement 20
Conclusion 23
2 Conceptualizing Pathways to Individual
Insurgent (Dis)Engagement 25
Understanding individual militant
(dis)engagement 26
Ethno-nationalist and secular ideological
(dis)engagement 27
Religious (dis)engagement 30
Revenge-driven (dis)engagement 32
Conceptualizing (dis)engagement in
Chechnya and Dagestan 34
Hypothesizing individual insurgent
disengagement 37
Adherence to ideology and resistance to
pressures 38
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0001 v
vi Contents
Use of violence and hidden identities 39
Social bonds and group membership 40
Conclusion 42
3 Chechnya and Dagestan: Ethnography, History,
and Conflicts 44
Ethnographic background 46
Historical background 48
Understanding the armed conflict in Chechnya
and Dagestan 51
Conclusion 58
4 Individual Disengagement in Chechnya and Dagestan 60
Adherence to ideology and resilience to pressures 61
Use of violence and hidden identities 67
Social bonds and group membership 74
Conclusion 79
Conclusion 86
Bibliography 90
Index 99
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0001
Preface
This study pioneers a detailed insight into the motivations of
various types of militants to abandon violence. Drawing on
interviews with dozens of former and current militants from
Russia’s Chechnya and Dagestan, their relatives, and close
friends, this study distinguishes various ideal types of insur-
gents, categorized as avengers, nationalists, and jihadists,
and their differing approaches to individual disengagement.
Accordingly, it illustrates that distinct types of insurgents
are variously resilient to external and internal pressures,
group membership and social bonds, (in)discriminative-
ness of violence and hidden identities, ideology and beyond.
Specifically, paying attention to contextual detail, the study
identifies three key hypotheses. First, it asserts that jihad-
ists, followed by nationalists – because of the higher levels
of adherence to ideology and stronger resistance to external
and internal pressures – are less likely than avengers to seek
individual disengagement. Second, it posits that avengers
and, to a lesser extent, nationalists, owing to the low lethality
rates of their attacks and because of their overwhelmingly
hidden identities, are more likely than the members of
jihadist groups to seek individual disengagement without
fearing of being punished. Third, it shows that nationalists,
and in particular avengers, owing to their uninterrupted social
links and weaker group membership, are more likely to seek
individual disengagement than jihadists because of the higher
likelihood of subsequent reintegration in society. Last but not
least, in empirical terms, this theoretically informed study
challenges the established view of the North Caucasian
insurgents as a monolithic category of Islamic fighters.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0002 vii
Acknowledgement
This study was carried out in the framework of the
Program P17 “Sciences on Society, Politics, and Media”
at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, in
Prague, Czech Republic.
viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0003
Introduction
Abstract: The introductory chapter presents the key
arguments of the book, suggesting that the current
scholarship on individual disengagement fails to adequately
conceptualize the phenomenon. With the bulk of existing
studies on disengagement focused on demobilization,
disarmament, and reintegration, individual pathways to
exiting militant organizations remain underexplored. This
chapter also provides a detailed explanation of the methods
and data employed throughout the book.
Souleimanov, Emil and Huseyn Aliyev. The Individual
Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists:
Why Ex-Militants Choose to Abandon Violence in the North
Caucasus. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
doi: 10.1057/9781137498830.0004.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498830.0004 