Author: chermen
Peer-reviewed
Geographies of hybrid war: rebellion and foreign intervention in Ukraine, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2020, download citation
What explains the variation in violence in the internationalized civil conflict? This study identifies such conflict as an adaptation of insurgency warfare by the state. The analysis of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine indicates that violence levels peak in the areas where the preexisting political loyalties for the challenger state were strongest, where the central government of the incumbent state has inadequate access, and where the impact of war on civilians is relatively low. The study also points to the importance of scaling factors for determining the intensity of violence.
Ethnicity or Religion? A Theory of Identity Choice with Evidence from the Russian North Caucasus, Nationalities Papers, 2020, download citation
Previous research has either equated religion- and language-based group identities or asserted that their social effects are the same. This article proposes a novel differentiation between religious and ethnic self-identification that accounts for in-group income inequality and the social role of the group. The study argues that ethnicity-based identities tend to be associated with economic activities, thereby increasing the demand for income equality within such groups. Religious identities, on the contrary, are centered around noneconomic activities and have the ideological framework for reconciling material inequalities. The observable implication of this distinction is that the high-, low-, and middle-income categories of the multicultural society will display differential association with ethnic and religious identities. Ethnic groups will have lower in-group income inequality as a result of the exclusion of the poor and the departure of the rich. Religious groups, on the contrary, will have higher in-group income inequality due to the capacity of religion to accommodate both poor and rich. Relevant empirical tests from the ethnically and religiously diverse Russian North Caucasus region indicate support for the proposed theory.
The Political Economy of Support for Sharia: Evidence from the Russian North Caucasus, Politics and Religion, 2016 (with David S. Siroky, and Khasan Dzutsev), download citation
Many scholars have argued that orthodox Muslims harbor attitudes that are more economically communitarian and politically
The Empire Strikes Back: Ethnicity, Terrain, and Indiscriminate Violence in Counterinsurgencies, Social Science Quarterly, 2015 (with David S. Siroky), download citation
Objective: The literature on indiscriminate violence has emphasized how information shapes state capacity and determines whether and where the government employs collective targeting. This article investigates the conditions that influence the government’s ability to obtain intelligence in counterinsurgencies. Specifically, it suggests that the government is more likely to use indiscriminate violence in areas characterized by indigenous ethnic homogeneity and forested terrain. These features increase the cost of acquiring information about the
The differential demand for
Indirect rule is one of the means that central authorities have long employed in hopes of defusing communal conflict and civil war in multicultural societies. Yet very little is known about the appeal of indirect rule among the ruled themselves. Why do people in some places demand more indirect rule and local autonomy, whereas others seem content to be governed directly by rulers of an alien culture? This is a crucial question with important implications for determining the form of governance that is most likely to provide social order in culturally heterogeneous societies. Although much attention has been given to consider the relative costs and benefits of direct versus indirect rule for the central authorities, the other side of the coin – namely, the variable demand for indirect rule among the members of distinctive cultural groups – has hardly been examined with systematic empirical data. This paper presents a theory of the differential demand for indirect rule and offers an initial test of its principal empirical implications using original micro-level data from the North Caucasus region of Russia. The theory’s core claim is that the middle class should express the greatest demand for
Comparative analysis of public opinion and hostage attack victims’ attitudes: evidence from Beslan, September 2004, Caucasus Survey, 2013 (with Khasan Dzutsev), download citation
How does an extreme situation, such as a violent attack, impact political opinions of the affected population? Using original data from the hostage crisis in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, this article explores the differences and similarities in attitudes towards the key social and political issues between the directly affected and the general populations of the town. The study was constructed as a quasi-natural experiment of a rare kind, since the attack generated directly affected and unaffected populations living in the same society. Our research shows that despite deep distrust toward both the national and regional government, respondents still indicated a relatively low inclination to engage in civic activity in opposition to the state authorities as a result of the attack. The results of the study throw light on the question of why the Beslan attack did not become a catalyst for change in North Ossetia: absence of political opposition disempowers the general population and prevents social change from happening even under highly stressful circumstances. The inconclusiveness of the official investigation into the Beslan attack may, however, leave these tragic events open to future politicisation.
Rational or reckless? Georgia’s zugzwang in the Caucasus, Nationalities Papers, 2012 (with David S. Siroky), download citation
Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia’s westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia’s pre-war policy is a new regional strategy – the North Caucasus Initiative – that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia’s military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided – a direction in which this new initiative appears to point – the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia’s long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.
Editor-reviewed
Russia’s Syria War: A Strategic Trap? Middle East Policy, 2018 (with Emil A. Souleimanov)
Published working papers
Building Models for Biopathway Dynamics Using Intrinsic Dimensionality Analysis, arXiv:1804.11005, 2015 (with Emilia M. Wysocka, Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay, Laura Condon, and Sahil Garg)
An Agent-Based Model of Corruption: Micro Approach, Computational Model Library, 2015