The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists - by E Souleimanov & H Aliyev (Hardcover)

About the Book

Drawing on a range of hitherto unknown first-hand data, this book is the first of its kind to offer an explanation of the motivations of various types of militants -- avengers, nationalists, and jihadists -- to abandon violence. Empirically, this book problematizes the established view of North Caucasian militants as a monolithic category of 'Islamic terrorists.' Theoretically, it points out that distinct types of insurgents are variously resilient to external and internal pressures to disengage. The study posits that stronger adherence to ideology, higher lethality rates, indiscriminate violence, disclosed identities, interrupted social links, and stronger group membership render jihadists, followed by nationalists, and in contrast to avengers, the less likely category of militants to seek individual disengagement. -- Provided by publisher

Book Synopsis

Drawing on unique first-hand data from Russia's North Caucasus, this study is the first of its kind to detail the causes and contexts of individual disengagement of various types of militants: avengers, nationalists, and jihadists. It aims to considerably enhance our theoretical understanding of individual militants' incentives to abandon violence.

About the Author

Emil Aslan Souleimanov is Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Formerly, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard. Souleimanov has published extensively on the theory and practice of security, conflict, and politics, with emphasis on the Caucasus.

Huseyn Aliyev has recently completed his PhD in Politics at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His work focuses on informal institutions and practices, civil society, security and conflict studies.