A puzzling aspect of the Syrian war has been the seemingly endless infusion of foreign fighters who have fueled and sustained the conflict. Unique among these are the militants from former Soviet regions such as Northern Caucasus in Russia and republics of Central Asia. In the evolving complexity of a layered and multifaceted conflict, it is easy to overlook the incongruousness of their presence in the conflict. Unlike most other foreign fighters, including those joining from Western Europe and North America, the post-Soviet militants lack the ethno-linguistic ties to the region. Rather, they hail from areas steeped in comparatively secular traditions and largely detached from the central tenants of the Syrian war. This makes their presence among extremist groups, such as the Islamic State, somewhat intriguing and anomalous. A key question, therefore, is why would these individuals join what to them in many ways is an alien war with extremely prohibitive costs? This articles proposes, as complementary to the dominant religious-ideological accounts, an explanation rooted in the enabling effect of marginalization processes in militants’ domestic settings.
Leaders are often noted to be instrumental in transitional political processes. Yet, most studies in the field bypass them, focusing instead on such factors as institutional setup, level of political culture, geopolitical location, diffusion of ideas and other factors. Even when highlighted, leaders are thought to be acting under the constraint of these arguably more defining factors and therefore relegated to a secondary role. Part of the problem is thought to be difficult to treat individuals as a measurable variable other than being shaped by aforementioned institutional-structural factors. Through a methodological borrowing this study determines that the leadership patterns across the region do vary in a substantial way. More importantly, the variation is determined independent of the overarching institutional-structural factors. The profiling of leadership patterns is followed by discussion of implications such exogenously determined leadership patterns may have on the study of transitional processes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.