Huseyn Aliyev
Biographic Data
| ID | 266707 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Huseyn Aliyev |
| GIVEN NAMES | Huseyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Aliyev |
| SIGNATURE | ALIYEV H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Glasgow |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3305-5433 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 130 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
How Governments Ensure the Loyalty of Pro-Government Militias: Evidence from Chechnya
Although the existing literature on Pro-Government Militias (PGMs) is rife with studies on various aspects of government-militia relations, not much is known about specific approaches that governments employ to ensure loyalty of their semi-formal proxies. Lessons from recent civil war in Sudan and other cases of PGMs turning their arms against their former patrons further enhance the importance of understanding which mechanisms (if any) incumbent…
There won’t be a free Belarus without a free Ukraine: Motivations of Belarusian volunteers fighting for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war
This study examines mobilization motives of Belarusian volunteers participating in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. With an objective to provide an additional explanation as to why individuals mobilize to fight in armed conflicts outside their countries of citizenship, we demonstrate that the pursuit of political objectives in foreign fighters’ home countries may function as an important – yet largely overlooked in the extant literature – mobiliz…
Social sanctions and violent mobilization: Lessons from the Crimean Tatar case
How do social sanctions affect individual participation in civil war violence? Which mechanisms facilitate implementation of social sanctions in times of crises? This study draws on unique in-depth interview data with former ethnic Crimean Tatar combatants in Ukraine to flesh out specific mechanisms that enable social sanctions to function as an effective instrument of violent mobilization, facilitating individual participation in high-risk colle…
Fighting against Jihad? Blood Revenge and Anti-Insurgent Mobilization in Jihadist Civil Wars
Previous studies have shown that many recent Jihadist insurgencies differ from other types of civil wars due to their high levels of civilian victimization and their incidence among tribal and honorific societies. We argue that these characteristics of Jihadist wars may have an effect on anti-rebel mobilization among the local population. Notwithstanding the importance of political and sectarian motives, brutal violence against civilians frequent…
"Pro-government Anti-government Armed Groups? Toward Theorizing Pro-government "Government Challengers
This study challenges the presentation of non-state armed groups as divided into anti-government rebels and pro-government proxies and proposes that some pro-government armed groups maintain explicit anti-government rhetoric. It is this anti-government agenda that enables “pro-government” groups to successfully recruit their members and to advance their interests. From Iraq’s Shiite militias to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Afghan Uzbek warlords, there…
The Frontlines Have Shifted: Explaining the Persistence of Pro-State Militias after Civil War
Many ceasefire and peace agreements stipulate the disarmament and demobilization of pro-state armed groups involved in the conflict, yet few of these groups ever completely demobilize. This study seeks to explain the process of incomplete demobilization by advancing a theoretical argument that pro-state armed groups are least likely to disarm and demobilize when the monopoly on violence is fragmented, and when there is relative balance of capabil…
When neighborhood goes to war. Exploring the effect of belonging on violent mobilization in Ukraine
Why do some geographical locales experience higher levels of violent mobilization during armed conflicts than others? Existing studies on high-risk mobilization examined economic greed and ethno-nationalist grievances, as well as incentives- and sanctions-based motivations to fight in civil wars. In order to explain violent mobilization beyond the extant theories of participation in civil wars, this article borrows from ethnography, psychology, a…
Unlikely Recruits”: Why Politically Irrelevant Ethnic Minorities Participate in Civil Wars
There is little research on why smaller ethnic groups with no political stakes in the conflict take part in civil wars. There is even less understanding as to why members of small ethnicities join ideologically distant conflict participants to fight against an enemy that does not directly threaten their ethnic security. This study describes these ethnic minority combatants as “unlikely recruits.” It argues that members of politically irrelevant m…
Why Are Some Civil Wars More Lethal Than Others? The Effect of Pro-Regime Proxies on Conflict Lethality
Previous large-N studies on conflict lethality have focused in large part either on structural factors or on the properties of key conflict protagonists – governments and rebels. This article challenges the dyadic two-actor approach to studying conflict lethality that examines exclusively the key actors of the dyad, and – on the example of pro-regime militias – hypothesises that participation of extra-state actors in civil wars can exert signific…
Pro-regime Militias and Civil War Duration
Research on civil war duration has tended to focus almost exclusively on governments and rebels as actors accounting for the longevity of armed conflicts. The impact of extra-dyad actors has thus far been absent from the analysis of factors contributing to civil war duration. This study contributes to both research on civil war duration and multi-actor models of intrastate conflicts by extending the analysis beyond the government-rebel dichotomy.…
Towards an “uncivil” society? Informality and civil society in Georgia
Since the early 1990s, the NGO sector in the South Caucasus has faced countless challenges on its road to development. Among these, an endemic “informalisation of society” – to a certain degree inherited from the Soviet Union – posed a seemingly insurmountable number of obstacles for the emergence and establishment of an egalitarian and open civil society in the region. This study explores the uneasy relationship between formal civil society and …
Ideology and Disengagement: A Case Study of Nationalists and Islamists in Chechnya
Disengagement from militant groups has often been related to individual level explanations like battle fatigue or desire to re-join family and friends. We seek to empirically examine which other factors, beyond individual level determinants, influenced disengagement processes among militants belonging to different types of Chechen militant organizations. Drawing empirical insights from unique in-depth interviews with former members of Chechen ins…
Ethnicity and conflict severity: Accounting for the effect of co-ethnic and non-ethnic militias on battlefield lethality
How does the presence of armed pro-regime groups affect conflict lethality? This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, militia violence and conflict lethality in civil wars. We emphasise that differences in whether pro-regime militias were recruited in accordance with their ethnicity or not are critical in their influence upon conflict lethality, which we estimate in battlefield deaths. To that end, we categorise militias into groups…
The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict
The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobilize against their coethnics on the side of government that explicitly challenges and opposes ethnon…
Unrecognized states as a means of coercive diplomacy? Assessing the role of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Russia’s foreign policy in the South Caucasus
The scholarship on unrecognized or de facto states has been booming in the recent decades exploring this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. Yet, as this article illustrates, a crucial accent on the instrumentalization of unrecognized states by regional actors – or, to put it differently, on unrecognized states as a source of coercive diplomacy – has been neglected. This article seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical analysis of R…
When and How Do Militias Disband? Global Patterns of Pro-Government Militia Demobilization in Civil Wars
The research to date on pro-governm`ent militias demonstrates that numerous pro-regime militia groups were actively deployed in civil wars over the last half a century. As hundreds of militia groups emerged amid civil warfare, hundreds more were disbanded, integrated into regular military, or transformed into political forces. This study seeks to improve our understanding of global patterns of militia demobilization. In contrast to the growing bo…
No peace, no war’ proponents? How pro-regime militias affect civil war termination and outcomes
Previous research on non-state actors involved in civil wars has tended to disregard the role of extra-dyad agents in influencing conflict outcomes. Little is known as to whether the presence of such extra-dyadic actors as pro-regime militias affects conflict termination and outcomes. This article develops and tests a number of hypotheses on the pro-government militias’ effect upon civil war outcomes. It proposes that pro-regime militias involved…
Defected and loyal? A case study of counter-defection mechanisms inside Chechen paramilitaries
Can former insurgents in the service of counterinsurgent paramilitaries be considered a perfectly loyal force? What mechanisms may help to deter subsequent defections of individuals who have already “betrayed” once? Drawing on a unique set of primary data, this article examines the effective counter-defection practices of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow paramilitaries toward prospective defectors from among ex-insurgents. It explores three interwoven mecha…
When Informal Institutions Change: Institutional Reforms and Informal Practices in the Former Soviet Union
Huseyn Aliyev examines how, when, and under which conditions democratic institutional reforms affect informal institutions in hybrid regimes, or countries transitioning to democracy. He analyzes the impact of institutional changes on the use of informal practices and what happens when democratic reforms succeed. Does informality disappear, or do elites and populations continue relying on informal structures? When Informal Institutions Change enga…
Why Do De Facto States Fail: Lessons from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
This study seeks to improve our understanding of the causes leading to failure of de facto states. In contrast to the voluminous body of literature on sovereign state failure, the process of de facto state failure remains under-researched. Drawing upon the existing research on state failure and de facto statehood, we narrow down our theoretical explanations to a set of causes related to civil conflict, tribalism, and economic crisis. More specifi…
Informal Institutions in Azerbaijan: Exploring the Intricacies of Tapsh
Research on informal aspects of the post-communist economy and political institutions has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While there is no lack in research on informal practices in Russia and other Eastern European countries, comprehensive empirical investigations of informality in peripheral regions of the former Soviet Union—such as the Caucasus and Central Asia—are still rare. This article aims to fill this gap by pr…
Precipitating state failure: Do civil wars and violent non-state actors create failed states
This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 20…
End to informality? Examining the impact of institutional reforms on informal institutions in post-Euromaidan Ukraine
What happens to informal institutions in the process of institutional reforms? This article aims to examine one particular aspect of the complex interaction between institutional reforms and informality; the impact of reforms on informal political institutions. The success of Ukraine’s Euromaidan in overthrowing the autocratic government of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 has ushered a wind of change into the post-Soviet political landscape, for decade…
Strong militias, weak states and armed violence: Towards a theory of ‘state-parallel’ paramilitaries
This article challenges the well-established presentation within conflict studies of paramilitary organizations as state-manipulated death squads or self-defence groups, and argues that some present-day militias extend their functions well beyond the role of shadowy pro-regime enforcers. Drawing its empirical insights from Ukrainian pro-government volunteer battalions and supporting its findings with empirical observations from other parts of the…
Evaluating the efficacy of indigenous forces in counterinsurgency: Lessons from Chechnya and Dagestan
This study seeks to identify factors conducive to the (in)efficacy of indigenous forces (IF) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Russia’s republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Empirically, it is the first study to offer an examination of the deployment of IF in the North Caucasus-based COIN. The findings of this article emphasize that the effectiveness of COIN in Chechnya, unlike Dagestan, is conditioned by a number of factors pertaining to t…
Strong militias, weak states and armed violence: Towards a theory of ‘state-parallel’ paramilitaries
This article challenges the well-established presentation within conflict studies of paramilitary organizations as state-manipulated death squads or self-defence groups, and argues that some present-day militias extend their functions well beyond the role of shadowy pro-regime enforcers. Drawing its empirical insights from Ukrainian pro-government volunteer battalions and supporting its findings with empirical observations from other parts of the…
The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict
The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobilize against their coethnics on the side of government that explicitly challenges and opposes ethnon…
Pro-regime Militias and Civil War Duration
Research on civil war duration has tended to focus almost exclusively on governments and rebels as actors accounting for the longevity of armed conflicts. The impact of extra-dyad actors has thus far been absent from the analysis of factors contributing to civil war duration. This study contributes to both research on civil war duration and multi-actor models of intrastate conflicts by extending the analysis beyond the government-rebel dichotomy.…
When and How Do Militias Disband? Global Patterns of Pro-Government Militia Demobilization in Civil Wars
The research to date on pro-governm`ent militias demonstrates that numerous pro-regime militia groups were actively deployed in civil wars over the last half a century. As hundreds of militia groups emerged amid civil warfare, hundreds more were disbanded, integrated into regular military, or transformed into political forces. This study seeks to improve our understanding of global patterns of militia demobilization. In contrast to the growing bo…
No peace, no war’ proponents? How pro-regime militias affect civil war termination and outcomes
Previous research on non-state actors involved in civil wars has tended to disregard the role of extra-dyad agents in influencing conflict outcomes. Little is known as to whether the presence of such extra-dyadic actors as pro-regime militias affects conflict termination and outcomes. This article develops and tests a number of hypotheses on the pro-government militias’ effect upon civil war outcomes. It proposes that pro-regime militias involved…
Blood Revenge and Violent Mobilization: Evidence from the Chechen Wars
Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge—widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond—is not confined to the realm of communal infighting, as previous research has presumed. An empirical analysis of Russia's tw…
Defected and loyal? A case study of counter-defection mechanisms inside Chechen paramilitaries
Can former insurgents in the service of counterinsurgent paramilitaries be considered a perfectly loyal force? What mechanisms may help to deter subsequent defections of individuals who have already “betrayed” once? Drawing on a unique set of primary data, this article examines the effective counter-defection practices of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow paramilitaries toward prospective defectors from among ex-insurgents. It explores three interwoven mecha…
Examining the Use of Informal Networks by NGOs in Azerbaijan and Georgia
To date little is known about the non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) use of informal networks, contacts and connections, as well as about the ‘informalization’ of post-communist civil society in the former Soviet Union. Research on the subject has been mostly restricted to the study of civil society organizations in Central Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia, leaving the use and significance of informality among the South Caucasus's NGOs …
Why Are Some Civil Wars More Lethal Than Others? The Effect of Pro-Regime Proxies on Conflict Lethality
Previous large-N studies on conflict lethality have focused in large part either on structural factors or on the properties of key conflict protagonists – governments and rebels. This article challenges the dyadic two-actor approach to studying conflict lethality that examines exclusively the key actors of the dyad, and – on the example of pro-regime militias – hypothesises that participation of extra-state actors in civil wars can exert signific…
Evaluating the efficacy of indigenous forces in counterinsurgency: Lessons from Chechnya and Dagestan
This study seeks to identify factors conducive to the (in)efficacy of indigenous forces (IF) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Russia’s republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Empirically, it is the first study to offer an examination of the deployment of IF in the North Caucasus-based COIN. The findings of this article emphasize that the effectiveness of COIN in Chechnya, unlike Dagestan, is conditioned by a number of factors pertaining to t…
Post-Soviet informality: Towards theory-building
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest that informal practices and institutions of post-Soviet countries differ from informality in other post-socialist regions and, therefore, proposes categorizing it as “post-Soviet informality” – a composite definition that extends beyond the concept of “informal economy” and encompasses, along with economic activities, social and political spheres. Design/methodology/approach – The arguments of the…
Informal networks as sources of human (in)security in the South Caucasus
In contrast to numerous studies on exogenous mechanisms of human security – such as the provision of human security by international actors – this study examines the role of informal networks in providing ‘freedoms from want’ and ‘freedoms from fear’ to the population. With the primary focus on post-communist South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) this article conducts a rigorous examination of informal networks’ critical function as so…
Asymmetry of Values, Indigenous Forces, and Incumbent Success in Counterinsurgency: Evidence from Chechnya
This article fills the gap in existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict, indigenous forces, and how socio-cultural codes shape the dynamics and outcomes of conflict transformation. Specifically, it identifies three key socio-cultural values commonplace in honorific societies: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. As sources of effective pro-insurgent violent mobilisation and support from among the local population, these values provide insurge…
The Frontlines Have Shifted: Explaining the Persistence of Pro-State Militias after Civil War
Many ceasefire and peace agreements stipulate the disarmament and demobilization of pro-state armed groups involved in the conflict, yet few of these groups ever completely demobilize. This study seeks to explain the process of incomplete demobilization by advancing a theoretical argument that pro-state armed groups are least likely to disarm and demobilize when the monopoly on violence is fragmented, and when there is relative balance of capabil…
Informal Institutions in Azerbaijan: Exploring the Intricacies of Tapsh
Research on informal aspects of the post-communist economy and political institutions has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While there is no lack in research on informal practices in Russia and other Eastern European countries, comprehensive empirical investigations of informality in peripheral regions of the former Soviet Union—such as the Caucasus and Central Asia—are still rare. This article aims to fill this gap by pr…
Assessing the European Union’s Assistance to Civil Society in Its Eastern Neighbourhood: Lessons from the South Caucasus
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, assistance to civil society has been at the forefront of the European Union’s (EU) strategy in its post-Soviet Eastern neighbourhood. The literature on the EU support to civil society in post-Soviet countries has so far primarily focused on democratisation and the research assessing the effects of EU assistance to civil society has been limited. This study builds on existing literature about the EU cooperation …
Towards an “uncivil” society? Informality and civil society in Georgia
Since the early 1990s, the NGO sector in the South Caucasus has faced countless challenges on its road to development. Among these, an endemic “informalisation of society” – to a certain degree inherited from the Soviet Union – posed a seemingly insurmountable number of obstacles for the emergence and establishment of an egalitarian and open civil society in the region. This study explores the uneasy relationship between formal civil society and …
Ethnicity and conflict severity: Accounting for the effect of co-ethnic and non-ethnic militias on battlefield lethality
How does the presence of armed pro-regime groups affect conflict lethality? This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, militia violence and conflict lethality in civil wars. We emphasise that differences in whether pro-regime militias were recruited in accordance with their ethnicity or not are critical in their influence upon conflict lethality, which we estimate in battlefield deaths. To that end, we categorise militias into groups…
Precipitating state failure: Do civil wars and violent non-state actors create failed states
This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 20…
End to informality? Examining the impact of institutional reforms on informal institutions in post-Euromaidan Ukraine
What happens to informal institutions in the process of institutional reforms? This article aims to examine one particular aspect of the complex interaction between institutional reforms and informality; the impact of reforms on informal political institutions. The success of Ukraine’s Euromaidan in overthrowing the autocratic government of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 has ushered a wind of change into the post-Soviet political landscape, for decade…
Social sanctions and violent mobilization: Lessons from the Crimean Tatar case
How do social sanctions affect individual participation in civil war violence? Which mechanisms facilitate implementation of social sanctions in times of crises? This study draws on unique in-depth interview data with former ethnic Crimean Tatar combatants in Ukraine to flesh out specific mechanisms that enable social sanctions to function as an effective instrument of violent mobilization, facilitating individual participation in high-risk colle…
"Pro-government Anti-government Armed Groups? Toward Theorizing Pro-government "Government Challengers
This study challenges the presentation of non-state armed groups as divided into anti-government rebels and pro-government proxies and proposes that some pro-government armed groups maintain explicit anti-government rhetoric. It is this anti-government agenda that enables “pro-government” groups to successfully recruit their members and to advance their interests. From Iraq’s Shiite militias to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Afghan Uzbek warlords, there…
When neighborhood goes to war. Exploring the effect of belonging on violent mobilization in Ukraine
Why do some geographical locales experience higher levels of violent mobilization during armed conflicts than others? Existing studies on high-risk mobilization examined economic greed and ethno-nationalist grievances, as well as incentives- and sanctions-based motivations to fight in civil wars. In order to explain violent mobilization beyond the extant theories of participation in civil wars, this article borrows from ethnography, psychology, a…
Why Do De Facto States Fail: Lessons from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
This study seeks to improve our understanding of the causes leading to failure of de facto states. In contrast to the voluminous body of literature on sovereign state failure, the process of de facto state failure remains under-researched. Drawing upon the existing research on state failure and de facto statehood, we narrow down our theoretical explanations to a set of causes related to civil conflict, tribalism, and economic crisis. More specifi…
Civil society in the South Caucasus: Kinship networks as obstacles to civil participation
The research to date on informal networks of the post-communist South Caucasus has tended to focus either on the informal institutions’ role in providing social safety nets for the population or on the networks’ economic functions. This article examines the impact of informal kinship networks on participation in organized civil society in the present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. In order to explore how kinship institutions affect membersh…
Focused on Iran? Exploring the rationale behind the strategic relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel
This article, unlike the small but rapidly expanding body of literature on Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel, focuses on the role of Iranian influence as a factor strengthening the strategic partnership that has been successfully blossoming between Azerbaijan and Israel in areas of economic, cultural, developmental and more recently, military cooperation. This study aims to examine the key characteristics of bilateral cooperation between the two…
The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists: Why Ex-Militants Choose to Abandon Violence in the North Caucasus
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
Examining the Use of Informal Networks by NGOs in Azerbaijan and Georgia
To date little is known about the non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) use of informal networks, contacts and connections, as well as about the ‘informalization’ of post-communist civil society in the former Soviet Union. Research on the subject has been mostly restricted to the study of civil society organizations in Central Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia, leaving the use and significance of informality among the South Caucasus's NGOs …
Assessing the European Union’s Assistance to Civil Society in Its Eastern Neighbourhood: Lessons from the South Caucasus
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, assistance to civil society has been at the forefront of the European Union’s (EU) strategy in its post-Soviet Eastern neighbourhood. The literature on the EU support to civil society in post-Soviet countries has so far primarily focused on democratisation and the research assessing the effects of EU assistance to civil society has been limited. This study builds on existing literature about the EU cooperation …
Informal networks as sources of human (in)security in the South Caucasus
In contrast to numerous studies on exogenous mechanisms of human security – such as the provision of human security by international actors – this study examines the role of informal networks in providing ‘freedoms from want’ and ‘freedoms from fear’ to the population. With the primary focus on post-communist South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) this article conducts a rigorous examination of informal networks’ critical function as so…
Blood Revenge and Violent Mobilization: Evidence from the Chechen Wars
Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge—widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond—is not confined to the realm of communal infighting, as previous research has presumed. An empirical analysis of Russia's tw…
Post-Soviet informality: Towards theory-building
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest that informal practices and institutions of post-Soviet countries differ from informality in other post-socialist regions and, therefore, proposes categorizing it as “post-Soviet informality” – a composite definition that extends beyond the concept of “informal economy” and encompasses, along with economic activities, social and political spheres. Design/methodology/approach – The arguments of the…
Asymmetry of Values, Indigenous Forces, and Incumbent Success in Counterinsurgency: Evidence from Chechnya
This article fills the gap in existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict, indigenous forces, and how socio-cultural codes shape the dynamics and outcomes of conflict transformation. Specifically, it identifies three key socio-cultural values commonplace in honorific societies: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. As sources of effective pro-insurgent violent mobilisation and support from among the local population, these values provide insurge…
Post-communist civil society and the Soviet legacy: Challenges of Democratisation and Reform in the Caucasus
This book examines the relationship between the weakness of civil society and the legacy of Soviet public and private spheres in the post-Soviet Caucasus. Starting from the assumption that an analysis of 'civic traditions' of formal and informal civil associations inherited from the Soviet period can provide explanations as to why the present-day civil sector is weak, this study looks at the significance of the former regime's legacy for contempo…
End to informality? Examining the impact of institutional reforms on informal institutions in post-Euromaidan Ukraine
What happens to informal institutions in the process of institutional reforms? This article aims to examine one particular aspect of the complex interaction between institutional reforms and informality; the impact of reforms on informal political institutions. The success of Ukraine’s Euromaidan in overthrowing the autocratic government of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 has ushered a wind of change into the post-Soviet political landscape, for decade…
Strong militias, weak states and armed violence: Towards a theory of ‘state-parallel’ paramilitaries
This article challenges the well-established presentation within conflict studies of paramilitary organizations as state-manipulated death squads or self-defence groups, and argues that some present-day militias extend their functions well beyond the role of shadowy pro-regime enforcers. Drawing its empirical insights from Ukrainian pro-government volunteer battalions and supporting its findings with empirical observations from other parts of the…
Evaluating the efficacy of indigenous forces in counterinsurgency: Lessons from Chechnya and Dagestan
This study seeks to identify factors conducive to the (in)efficacy of indigenous forces (IF) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Russia’s republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Empirically, it is the first study to offer an examination of the deployment of IF in the North Caucasus-based COIN. The findings of this article emphasize that the effectiveness of COIN in Chechnya, unlike Dagestan, is conditioned by a number of factors pertaining to t…
When Informal Institutions Change: Institutional Reforms and Informal Practices in the Former Soviet Union
Huseyn Aliyev examines how, when, and under which conditions democratic institutional reforms affect informal institutions in hybrid regimes, or countries transitioning to democracy. He analyzes the impact of institutional changes on the use of informal practices and what happens when democratic reforms succeed. Does informality disappear, or do elites and populations continue relying on informal structures? When Informal Institutions Change enga…
Why Do De Facto States Fail: Lessons from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
This study seeks to improve our understanding of the causes leading to failure of de facto states. In contrast to the voluminous body of literature on sovereign state failure, the process of de facto state failure remains under-researched. Drawing upon the existing research on state failure and de facto statehood, we narrow down our theoretical explanations to a set of causes related to civil conflict, tribalism, and economic crisis. More specifi…
Informal Institutions in Azerbaijan: Exploring the Intricacies of Tapsh
Research on informal aspects of the post-communist economy and political institutions has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While there is no lack in research on informal practices in Russia and other Eastern European countries, comprehensive empirical investigations of informality in peripheral regions of the former Soviet Union—such as the Caucasus and Central Asia—are still rare. This article aims to fill this gap by pr…
Precipitating state failure: Do civil wars and violent non-state actors create failed states
This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 20…
Unrecognized states as a means of coercive diplomacy? Assessing the role of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Russia’s foreign policy in the South Caucasus
The scholarship on unrecognized or de facto states has been booming in the recent decades exploring this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. Yet, as this article illustrates, a crucial accent on the instrumentalization of unrecognized states by regional actors – or, to put it differently, on unrecognized states as a source of coercive diplomacy – has been neglected. This article seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical analysis of R…
When and How Do Militias Disband? Global Patterns of Pro-Government Militia Demobilization in Civil Wars
The research to date on pro-governm`ent militias demonstrates that numerous pro-regime militia groups were actively deployed in civil wars over the last half a century. As hundreds of militia groups emerged amid civil warfare, hundreds more were disbanded, integrated into regular military, or transformed into political forces. This study seeks to improve our understanding of global patterns of militia demobilization. In contrast to the growing bo…
No peace, no war’ proponents? How pro-regime militias affect civil war termination and outcomes
Previous research on non-state actors involved in civil wars has tended to disregard the role of extra-dyad agents in influencing conflict outcomes. Little is known as to whether the presence of such extra-dyadic actors as pro-regime militias affects conflict termination and outcomes. This article develops and tests a number of hypotheses on the pro-government militias’ effect upon civil war outcomes. It proposes that pro-regime militias involved…
Defected and loyal? A case study of counter-defection mechanisms inside Chechen paramilitaries
Can former insurgents in the service of counterinsurgent paramilitaries be considered a perfectly loyal force? What mechanisms may help to deter subsequent defections of individuals who have already “betrayed” once? Drawing on a unique set of primary data, this article examines the effective counter-defection practices of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow paramilitaries toward prospective defectors from among ex-insurgents. It explores three interwoven mecha…
Towards an “uncivil” society? Informality and civil society in Georgia
Since the early 1990s, the NGO sector in the South Caucasus has faced countless challenges on its road to development. Among these, an endemic “informalisation of society” – to a certain degree inherited from the Soviet Union – posed a seemingly insurmountable number of obstacles for the emergence and establishment of an egalitarian and open civil society in the region. This study explores the uneasy relationship between formal civil society and …
Ideology and Disengagement: A Case Study of Nationalists and Islamists in Chechnya
Disengagement from militant groups has often been related to individual level explanations like battle fatigue or desire to re-join family and friends. We seek to empirically examine which other factors, beyond individual level determinants, influenced disengagement processes among militants belonging to different types of Chechen militant organizations. Drawing empirical insights from unique in-depth interviews with former members of Chechen ins…
Ethnicity and conflict severity: Accounting for the effect of co-ethnic and non-ethnic militias on battlefield lethality
How does the presence of armed pro-regime groups affect conflict lethality? This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, militia violence and conflict lethality in civil wars. We emphasise that differences in whether pro-regime militias were recruited in accordance with their ethnicity or not are critical in their influence upon conflict lethality, which we estimate in battlefield deaths. To that end, we categorise militias into groups…
The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict
The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobilize against their coethnics on the side of government that explicitly challenges and opposes ethnon…
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