Defection denied: a study of civilian support for insurgency in irregular war

Abstract

The book Defection Denied. A Study of Civilian Support for Insurgency in Irregular War is one of the few comprehensive publications on the under-researched topic of Islamist insurgency in the Russia ’ s North Caucasus ’ s republic of Dagestan. The decades-long brutal Jihadist struggle in the remote mountainous region of North Caucasus has long had its epicentre in the autonomous republic of Dagestan, where rugged mountainous terrain, ethnic and sectarian clea-vages and rampant systemic corruption provided Jihadist insurgents with a fertile ground for recruitment. Siroky et al. vividly capture these dynamics, focusing on one of the least explored aspects of the armed con fl ict in the North Caucasus, civilian support for insurgents. When unveiling their research puzzle, the authors emphasise the lack of primary data on gauging popular support for insurgency, which in the absence of unbiased polling and survey data, is nearly impossible to collect in restrictive authoritarian settings of Dagestan. Few would argue that Dagestan, along with other