MAJOR THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

This article explores the major approaches to the study of conflict resolution strategy from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. It argues that conflict resolution strategy, as a civil integration resource, is a necessary tool for overcoming the deep­rooted ethnic conflicts in the unstable North Caucasus. This research analyzes how the strength of civil integration can affect conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The author considers the essential factors of protracted ethnic conflicts and emphasizes the destabilizing role of the repoliticization of ethnicity in a crisis society. The concept of ethnic, “identity­based” conflicts is the heuristic theoretical model of exploring causes for increased ethnoreligious tensions in the North Caucasus. This article focuses on the ability of conflict resolution strategy to de­escalate growing tensions and transform protracted identity­based conflicts. The need to stimulate civil integration is caused by moral and structural causes: from the ethical point of view, the creation of an inclusive society is the fundamental societal goal; structural factors are related to the need to reduce inequalities and differences leading to social fragmentation and an escalation of ethnic conflicts. Among the structural conditions of regional conflicts, the author names ethnosocial inequalities, a civil identity crisis, ethnopolitical neo­authoritarianism, a large­scale socioeconomic polarization and an “ideological combat” between secular modernization and religious fundamentalism.


Introduction
This article reviews the present state of analysis of ethnoregional conflict resolution in political science.The goal of the research is to analyse the constructive methods and peacebuilding strategies for resolving ethnic tensions in the North Caucasus region.The collapse of the USSR, the "sovereignization" of the ethnopolitical subjects of the Russian Federation, the destruction of interregional social and economic relations, the strengthening of ethnonationalistic tendencies have all been significant factors of imbalances in the position of the Russian regions, their disintegration of an allRussian space.It is necessary to agree with the opinion of a number of Russian political scientists, who believe that ethnic societies and ethnopolitical elites find it more profitable to quit the way of legal, administrative and political leveling between regional and national components of their identity, which was typical for imperial and especially the Soviet period of Russian history, and to wend the way of accentuation of these differences. 1The Russian ethnopolitical experience of the 1990s shows that the conflict mobilization of an ethnoregional identity can be used by political forces in different interests.In the situation of a civil identity crisis and the lack of democratic ideas, the consolidation of civil society, updated and focused on the region forms of ethnoreligious identity, may be accompanied by a conflict identification with the "big" Russian society.
A number of explanations have been suggested for the recent surge of violence in the North Caucasus.The dire economic situation in the region, the spread of separatist ideology and radical Islam, as well as corruption have been cited among the main reasons behind the escalation of violence in the North Caucasus. 2This research does 1 Nemirovsky V., "Characteristics of Social and Cultural SelfIdentity of the Population of Eastern Siberia," Sociological Studies 8, 2011, pp.88-94.not altogether reject the abovementioned factors: instead its purpose is to suggest a yet another reason for the increase of conflictrelated violence in recent years.The aforementioned hypothesis linking the decline of civil integration and civil society with the growth of ethnoreligious violence in the North Caucasus can be a contribution to the research of regional conflict resolution.Civil integration in the North Caucasus is a poorly researched topic.Only a handful of research works have ever been published on the issue 3 with a few reports by international organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Nonviolence International). 4oday, the North Caucasus remains a crucially strategic and geopolitical macroregion, as it forms the southern volatile frontier of Russia.In the wider perspective, the North Caucasus is a key factor for the social stability and political integration of the whole Russia.Russia's communications with the Transcaucasia and, by extension, its ability to exert influence on the three independent republics of the region are dependent on stability in the North Caucasus.The war in Chechnya has shown the vulnerability of Russia to ethnic separatism and Islamic fundamentalism in the North Caucasus.Furthermore, it has highlighted the question of Russia's survival in its present territorial structure.The latent and potential Chechen conflict is only the most prominent among the contemporary challenges to civil and ethnic peace in the region.There are several serious problems that need to be addressed promptly to secure the fragile, newlyachieved semblance of stability in the North Caucasus.First, it is the promoting 3 Hansen G., Humanitarian Action in the Caucasus: A Guide for Practitioners, Humani of multilevel and functional civil integration.As Russia has not yet matured to the point of being able to handle ethnic grievances in an effective way, the prospects for stable peace seem dim -unless open, democratic institutions and conflict resolution approaches are begun to be used to further this purpose. 5his article will try to answer the research question that is based on the hypothesis that numerous unresolved ethnic conflicts hold implications for stability and complicate regional security.It will argue that ethnic, "identitybased" conflicts, based on deep social disintegration, bring security risks for the multiethnic Russian region of North Caucasus.The purpose is to draw conclusions based on an interdisciplinary analysis of conflict resolution strategy in the North Caucasus and try to determine how protracted ethnic conflicts can be resolved and transformed as a functional component, conducive to the region's civil integration.
The hypothesis is that conflict resolution strategy, based on inclusive civil integration, is a highly effective North Caucasus peacebuilding resource.Regional conflict resolution must serve as an integrational and preventive tool for the conflict environment by way of providing structural solutions for deeprooted, sociocultural antagonisms as well as by transforming and rationalizing ethnoregional contradictions.The objective is to establish how certain elements within protracted, identifybased ethnic conflicts add to the growing complexity of the region's security and its potential destabilization.The methodological framework is based on two complementary methods: a detailed analysis of the main theoretical sources, literature and an analysis of empirical data.By reviewing the ethnopolitical processes and issues, we will also look at the North Caucasus region's sociocultural background for an insight into the past causal connections of deeprooted, identitybased conflicts.

Conflict Resolution as Methodological Paradigm: Theoretical Background, Methodology and Data Sources
According to D. Sandole, There are those in conflict analysis and resolution who deal with startup conditions and those who deal with process.Practitioners intervening into conflictsasprocess may deal not only initially but only with process.The problem is, once the fire has been put out, unless the underlying startup conditions -the incendiary materials -are dealt with, the fire may reoccur. 6though the conflicts that have attracted most international attention in the postCold War era have been those of the Trans caucasus, another area of both potential and actual turmoil is the North Caucasus.The first example of serious ethnic conflicts in the area is the war in Chechnya.However, the existence of this war, and its astonishing cruelty and devastation, has been instrumental in obscuring the other grievances that exist in the North Caucasus and that have the potential to escalate into open ethnic conflict.Ethnic conflict in the North Caucasus includes a wide range of phenomena and often masks the unequal distribution of economic or political power, the religious identification of the parties, the language conflict, control over land and territory.Historically, ethnopolitical and ethnoterritorial conflicts can be divided into two main categories, which spill over into one another.The first kind of destructive ethnic conflicts are those among the ethnopolitical groups of the region; the second kind are conflicts between ethnic communities and Russia.The main example of the unrest in the North Caucasus has been the short but bloody war between the Ingush and the Ossetians.However, this war distinguishes itself only by being the only one of ethnoterritorial conflicts in the region that has escalated into war.
As S. Cornell notes, among the fundamental problems, three issues call for special attention: "First and perhaps most pressingly, the bid for unity of the Lezgian people in Dagestan and Azerbaijan; second, the latent problem between the Turkic Karachai and the Circasssian peoples in the two neighbor republics of KarachaevoCherkessia and KabardinoBalkaria; and thirdly the condition of the most complex of all the North Caucasian republics: Dagestan." 7n 2014, the North Caucasus was estimated to contain between close to one thousand and several thousand militants. 8Estimates of the number of insurgents in Chechnya vary between as few as a dozen or so and just over one hundred.Some experts believe that they are mostly found in the border regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, mostly operating in these neighboring republics.The insurgents are mainly active in Dagestan, and in previous years they have also been active in Ingushetia. 9By the mid2010s, the North Caucasus resistance movement has become religiously motivated and evolved from a local militant organization into a branch of the worldwide militant Islamist movement. 10According to M. Falkowski, the insurgents identify with the global umma -the worldwide community of Muslims -and the most essential element of their present ideology is "Islamicness."Today the North Caucasus differs fundamentally from the resistance movement of the "Dudayev era."Ethnic separatism has been replaced by religious fundamentalism, the founding of an Islamic state and socalled defensive jihad, which strives to expel infidels from "Muslim land."Sociocultural disintegration, largescale escalation of ethnoreligious violence and the collapse of civil society in the North Caucasus are becoming a serious problem in Russia, expe riencing a new era of deep political transit.
The role of civil integration in conflict resolution and peacebuil ding is not a new topic for research.However, no studies have been done so far to analyze the role of civil integration in ethnic conflict resolution in the North Caucasus.The spillover of ethnopolitical conflict from the Chechen Republic to the rest of the region is a recent phenomenon and the escalation of ethnoreligious violence, which engulfed the region in the last years, has hardly ever been noticed by the international community.The most comprehensive analysis of recent violence in the North Caucasus to date has been conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which has compiled a series of comprehensive reports on the situation in the North Caucasus in its Human Rights and Security Initiative Project. 12he possibility of community dialogue via alternative conflict resolution is mentioned by R. Gendron 13 and advanced onto the reconci liation level by K. Bakke. 14However, no studies have been done so far on the possibility of applying an integrational peacebuilding and conflict resolution approach in the North Caucasus.Therefore, the research, conducted in this article, can serve as an analytical contribution to this field of study.J. Senehi notes: To recognize the complexity of intercommunal conflicts is not only analytically sound, but has practical implications.Conflicts' complexity is doubleedged.Complexity contributes to conflict perpetuation and intractability.But simultaneously, this suggests multiple arenas for intervention, multiple agents of intervention, and multiple intervention tasks in a dynamic process of social change. 15is research intends to apply a twofold methodological approach: 1) Comprehensive analysis aimed at scrutinizing qualitative sets of data derived from media sources as well as scholarly publications and academic research in the field; 2) Conflict process tracing as a summary of social developments leading to the current situation.By tracing the events that have played a significant role in the generation and escalation of ethnic conflicts in the North Caucasus, this study attempts to explain peacebuilding patterns and conflict resolution strategy.The article pursues the goal of analyzing how the strength or collapse of civil integration can affect conflict resolution and peacebuilding in an instable, multiethnic region.It suggests that the lack of bottomup peace efforts emanating from within the community and civil society levels (rather than state initiatives from topdown) is one of the main causes for the failure of conflict resolution, which, in conjunction with increased state interventionism, leads to the dramatic escalation of violence in the case under study.The main argument of this study suggests that the key to the growth/reduction of ethnic violence in the context of the North Caucasus lies at the community level.In A. Curle's opinion: "Since conflict resolution by outside bodies and individuals has so far proved ineffective (in the chaotic conditions of contemporary ethnic conflict -particularly, but not exclusively, in Somalia, Eastern Europe and the former USSR), 15 Senehi J., "Constructive Storytelling: A Peace Process," Peace and Conflict Studies 9 (2), 2002, pp.41-63.
it is necessary to consider the peacemaking potential within the conflicting communities themselves." 16For that purpose, the concept of indigenous empowerment 17 is adopted here as part of the conflict resolution strategy -bottomup peacebuilding, i.e., peace processes starting at the civilintegrational level.The innovative conflict resolution approach of bottomup peacebuilding, suggested by A. Curle and J. Lederach, assumes that peace processes should originate at the grassroots and, consequently, develop into higher levels of integration and political dialog.As stated by J. Lederach, "the principle of indigenous empowerment suggests that conflict transformation must actively envision, include, respect, integrate and promote the human and cultural resources from within a given setting." 18"Bottomup peacebuilding" is aimed at the conflict resolution strategy from the grassroots rather than topdown and its goal is to create human security and strengthen the rule of law by enhancing local civil structures.Sometimes there is no opportunity for a formal, higher, macropolitical level conflict resolution due to the dispersed nature of the insurgency and a lack of credible leadership, coupled with the unwillingness of the federal government to accept the very existence of the conflict. 19Another new concept in the theory of conflict resolution may be the concept of cultural diplomacy, which "is based on such scientific concepts as soft power and mutual cultural interaction.It is important to note that in accordance with the national cultural characteristics of countries, there are different practices of interpreting the term cultural diplomacy."The theoretical tradition of analyzing conflict resolution strategy as a civil integration resource is associated with a "conceptual anta gonism" of conflict theories, multiculturalism and neofunctionalism, i.e., the contradiction is in interpreting the essence of integration as a way of deescalating certain deeprooted, ethnic conflicts in pluralistic societies.Conflict theorists refer to the analysis of conflict specifics of ethnicity, multiculturalists rely on the normative essence of ascriptive ethnic identification, and neofunctionalists interpret the status and civil rights of ethnic groups from the point of equal opportunities and integration imperativeness.The comprehensive theory of ethnic conflict must explain why ethnic relations, which are based on peace and integration, are more typical than widespread violence, despite serious tensions. 21According to J. Burton, Conflict resolution has been a neglected subject.It is a challenge to all existing capitalist, communist, or other systems.It is a process that can deal with complex situations, both national and international.Its interactive analytical problemsolving processes have been tested and show enormous promise.But the resolution of particular conflicts is just a small beginning.While it helps to provide insights into the nature of conflict and conditions that stimulate conflict, by itself it does not deal with the problem of conflict.Conflict provention is the goal.Both are part of a process of system change, and their theoretical framework points political systems in the directions required. 22re recently, scholars have tried to better understand the negotiation and conflict resolution dynamics in civil, ethnic, religious and regional conflicts, where parties have turned to negotiated approa ches to resolve their differences even after prolonged fighting.Unlike those in the past, the majority of conflicts during the last decade of the 20 th century ended in negotiated settlements, usually with the assistance of a third party. 23Various explanations have been offered to explain this recent trend.According to R. Licklider, "We have some evidence that long civil wars are disproportionately likely to be ended with negotiated settlements rather than military victory.This is plausible since a long civil war means that neither side has been able to achieve a military victory." 24Many of the civil and regional disputes that ended in the late 1980s and early 1990s were relatively prolonged affairs, having been aided and propelled by the two superpowers.The desire to end these socalled "proxy wars" as the Cold War wound down encouraged the superpowers to pursue negotiated solutions so that they could exit, because continuation had become increasingly costly. 25n conflict resolution theory, an important assumption is that although parties may identify specific issues as the causes of conflict, conflict also reflects subjective, phenomenological and social fractures.Consequently, analyzing "interests" may be less useful than identifying the underlying needs that govern each identity group's perception of the conflict. 26The seminal research on intergroup relations is decades old, but its insights were "discovered" for the first time by political analysts grappling with internal ethnic wars.This included a new look at prejudice reduction and social categorization studies 27 as well as research on identity formation -ethnic, religious, racial, tribal. 28In an identitybased conflict's approach, the ethnic identity is considered as one of the basic human needs, while the group identity's threat is represented as one of the group safety risks. 29Moreover, two key needs are distinguished: the need for identity and need for safety.According to J. Rothman, irrationality, deep subjectivity and uncontrollability of identitybased conflicts are the crucial attributes of such conflicts. 30The motives for ethnoconfessional groups to be involved in deeprooted, identitybased conflicts will affect the solution perspectives of such conflicts; for the sake of satisfying their material interests, people would hardly risk their lives consciously.In ethnosecessionist conflicts, at least one side could be identified as belonging to a culturally distinct (ethnic/religious) group or at least mobilized on behalf of this group.The North Caucasian conflicts belong to this category.Cases of ethnic conflicts in their "pure form" -with one group acting against another because of some "natural" hostility -are rarely encountered, although as violence es- calates, ethnic or religious affiliation can emerge as the sole elective principle in the choice of victims. 31s J. Bercovitch, V. Kremenyuk, and I. Zartman explain, conflict resolution is a "vibrant, interdisciplinary field where theory and practice pace realworld events." 32They note further: Scholars working on CR study the phenomenon of conflict and analyze ways to bring it under control, bringing their insights and concepts to bear on actual conflicts, be they domestic or international, so as to foster better and more effective relations between states and people.Conflict Resolution is about ideas, theories, and methods that can improve our understanding of conflict and our collective practice of reduction in violence and enhancement of political processes for harmonizing interests. 33terdisciplinary methodology allows for analyzing the ethnic conflict/civil integration dialectics as a complex phenomenon, conditioned by a diversity of social, ethnic, cultural and political factors.At the stage of studying the structural causes of ethnic tension escalation in the North Caucasus, an important methodological basis is the concept of "identitybased conflicts" by J. Burton and J. Rothman.It allows to determine identitybased conflicts as social ones by their form (occurring between social subjects of various levels) and as valueideological conflicts by their content, relying on cultural distinctions. 34Conflict resolution theory focuses its attention on the capacity of civil integration to transform the destructive "identity based conflicts" into constructive conflicts of interests.According J. Burton, Resolving one conflict, however, does not prevent the next one.Conflict resolution, unlike dispute settlement, is not primarily or even mainly concerned with particular cases.Its processes are analytical and problemsolving, and its approach is within a theoretical framework or explanation of conflict.Its main thrust is, therefore, not merely in conflict prevention, in isolating and removing the sources of conflict, but also in conflict 'provention': promoting the conditions that create cooperative relationships. 35 policy makers want to get successful in discovering causes of ethnic "identitybased" conflicts, they have to start with a definition that will lead to constructive methods of conflict resolution.As J. Rothman notes, "we consider the ethnic identity to be a self perception that is filled with "cul tural formula": it is based on cultural needs and preferences, group characteristics and collective values. 36n the North Caucasus, cultural "hyperidentity" may be of a group or an intergroup; however, it is always the source of negative cultural stereotypes and ethnic conflict catalyst.The conflict parties may perceive themselves as personal maximizers, while protecting individual values, pursuing their own interests and expressing individu alistic needs; they may be ethnic groups and feel like they are a part of collective whole; they may feel like they are carriers of multiple cultural identities and get involved in the conflict at the intergroup level.In the North Caucasus, these perceptions are generated by the "cultural formula" and ethnic "hyperidentities," which become ideological, religious, ethnopolitical bases of conflict parties with personal, group and intergroup emotions and meanings.

Between Ethnoreligious Conflicts and Social Disintegration: The Role of Islamic Revival in the North Caucasus
By the end of the Soviet Union, Caucasian Muslims were rediscove ring their previously suppressed religious identity, an identity that was completely denied by Soviet social engineering.Folk Islam was legitimized as "traditional," an integral part of their ethnocultural identity, but also vital for selfidentification.During the 1990s, Caucasus witnessed a growing number of young Muslims attending mosques regularly, observing fasts and performing daily prayers, travelling and studying Islam abroad, thus expanding their individual knowledge and understanding of Islam.Notwithstanding, the social and political impact has been different in each region of the Caucasus.It was more intensive in the NorthEast (DagestanChechnyaIngushetia), due to the strong Sufi presence, which withstood the decades of Soviet atheism, and less intensive in the NorthWest (KabardinoBalkaria, KarachayCircassia and Adygea), where the mosquecentered Isla mic tradition had been suppressed.However, the First Chechen War triggered an Islamization of politics throughout the Caucasus, spar king memories of Islamic resistance to Russia and attracting Muslim volunteers from abroad.Nowadays, not only are people more conscious of their Muslim identity, but religiosity is also increasing.77 percent of the youth of Dagestan identified themselves as "strict believers" in 2010, whereas in 2000 only 53 per cent did so. 37However, the Islamic revival in the North Caucasus included the encounter with other, nontraditional strains of Islam, such as Wahhabism, which was becoming popular among the Caucasian youth.Organized in their own largely nonviolent congregations (jamaat), Wahhabis were eager to purify Islam and restore the tawhid (monotheism) in Caucasus; therefore, they criticized rites of nonIslamic origin and the worship of saints and sheikhs, prominent in the Sufi tradition.In response, Muslim elders branded critical younger Muslims as extremists; this created a dichotomy between "official," traditional Sufi Islam and the "untraditional," "imported" WahhabiSalafi Islam, which characterizes Caucasus up to today. 38n the last decade, the jihadi insurgency spread across the North Caucasus, while the focus gradually shifted from Chechnya to the republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and KabardinoBalkaria.This originated from the clashes between state authorities and Wahhabis, where all forms of Islamic dissent were cracked down; identification of such dissidents often relied on religious garment, untrimmed beards or frequent mosque attendance.The brutality of the state authorities toward these suspects, coupled with the popular disillusionment of the judicial process, led to the escalation of Islamistinspired violence, as new, more radical jamaats emerged or moderate ones were radicalized.As Islamist groups are viewed with suspicion by all local governments in the North Caucasus, and as the authorities are still repressing any form of opposition, more and more young Muslims are drawn to fundamentalist, Islamic resistance groups in order to elude repression.39 The unsatisfactory social conditions in the North Caucasus, mainly high unemployment and widespread corruption, are another explanation that lead young people to believe that an Islamic state will restore social justice and equality.Many jamaats promise to reduce criminal violence, impose law and order and end corruption, while in KarachayCircassia, jama'ats provided assistance and employment to those losing their jobs.40 However, it is important to note that, despite the widespread militancy, radicalization came primarily in the form of peaceful and nonviolent enclaves that emphasized on education, and only a small, yet extremely active part of the youth is finding its way to the forests among the fighters.
The growing ethnoreligious factor produces various sociocultural tensions and creates psychological pressure on individuals.At present, there is no coherent discourse or political movement toward secular independence in the North Caucasus, implying weak links between security problems and ethnonationalist sentiment.Rather, ideological elements prevail in the still ongoing attacks.Radica lization, which had happened as a result of the wars in Chechnya, weakened the connection to the original cause, but created linkages between groups developed during the fighting.Regarding the Dagestan Republic, it is characterized by a religious patchwork.The two main tendencies remain the Wahhabis and the Sufis.One of the major problem is that in the last 20 years, Wahhabis lost intellectuals who had a political platform and who could cooperate and debate with the Republic's authorities.This leads to the rise of unsystematic violence from them, and the simplification of their battle to the level of terror against security and power structures.Nowadays, Dagestan is the Republic with more clashes in the region; however, they still haven't reached a level that would justify the application of the term "war." 41Spaces for dialogues exist, such as the Congress of Nationalities, convened recently, and the media remains relatively free.Dagestanis are highly religious and this is reflected in the sociopolitical life of the Republic that appreciates the constructive role religion can have.The risk situation in the North Caucasus is currently characte rized as a protracted insurgency.Some of the newlyradicalized groups, having espoused the Global Jihadi ideology, resolve in terrorist and guerilla tactics, although antiWestern sentiments were not as intense. 42It is believed that recruitment is the primary focus of ISIS in the North Caucasus.It is estimated that there are already 15 000 combatants of "Wilayat Qawqaz," in addition to around 2 fighters from Caucasus, especially Chechens, who have joined ISIS ranks in Syria and Iraq.ISISaffiliated groups have carried out their first attacks in the North Caucasus, such as the attack in southern Dagestan in December 2015. 43t seems that the Caucasus Emirate is becoming irrelevant to those combatant radicals who want to be part of a transnational Islamic project.However, many local commanders still refuse to join ISIS and submit to foreign leadership.While some believe it is unlikely that the ISIS will fully supplant the homegrown Emirate, the swi tching of allegiance by many fighters may entail employing ISIS methods.Arguably, in the next years, it is possible for a different type of Caucasian Jihad to develop. 44On the other hand, in Che chnya, there is a different form of political Islam in place that might be called prostate.Sharia norms are applied, such as dress code and ban on alcohol consumption, while issues like polygamy or honor killings are officially endorsed, in violation to the Russian Federation's Constitution.In 2008, the largest mosque in Europe was built in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, and the Republic has generously invested on restoring Sufi holy sites and the creation of new ones.Thus, by allegedly creating an Islamic order, R. Kadyrov projects a moral dilemma, which makes many nonbelligerent, potential supporters of the insurgents complacent. 46In terms of armed conflicts and insurgency, Chechnya is going through a period of relative calmness; however, one cannot talk of genuine pacification in Chechnya, first due to the repressive character of the regime, and second because local ethnoreligious conflicts and terrorist attacks continue to take place.
In analyzing the role and status of civil organizations in conflict resolution processes in Dagestan, Ingushetia and KabardinoBalkaria, H. Aliyev notes, While civil society's function of ensuring transparency within state institutions is decreasing, large circles of the population become disaffected with the state and opt to support the insurgency.In conjunction, pressed by the state and driven by donor priorities, the majority of NGOs ope rating in the region do not heavily involve in development and human rights issues in Dagestan, Ingushetia and KabardinoBalkaria, instead focusing on humanitarian aid and other service delivery functions.In the absence of a functional civil society, local surrogates of NGOs are prone to act as their substitutes.Although the latter are failing to ensure democracy and civil freedoms, instead further exacerbating interconfessional and clan cleavages.Often presented as grassroot civil society, jamaats of Dagestan and teips of Ingushetia, due to their limited capabilities, cannot implement conflict resolution without a third party intervention.Regardless of whether the escalation of violence can be linked to the decline of civil society, conflict resolution still requires civil participation and is unlikely to be successful if only implemented from the topdown.Thus, in spite of the actual causes of the current escalation of violence third party involvement is needed from the bottomup.This can only be done by nongovernmental organizations, needed to reach out to the masses and connect them to those on the top. 47 territorial association (demos) but as an ethnic community (ethnos) or ethnonation -has the right to selfdetermination, to -its own‖ state."49 The North Caucasus escalation of social anomie and disintegration amplifies radical ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, intolerance, isolationist tendencies, ethnic regionalization, and religious extre mism.Xenophobic and ethnonationalist ideas are widely spread in the postSoviet Russian society.The slogan "Russia for Russians" is to some degree or another supported by the majority of interviewees since the beginning of 2000s; in 2011, it was supported by 58% of interviewees.50 The actualization of anticonflict and the inclusive mechanisms of civil integration are associated with the necessity to develop a secular and supraethnic model of macrosocial consolidation that supports crossethnic cooperation and crosscultural dialog.Civil integration, as a social process of supporting and promoting human rights and civil institutions in the traditionalist North Caucasus society, becomes the primary method of resolving ethnic and religious conflicts.51 According to J. O'Loughlin and F. Witmer, The conflicts in the North Caucasus have evolved from a frontline in Grozny, the Chechen republic, in the early stages of the war in 1999-2000 to a scattered pattern of guerrilla warfare on Russian forces and local allies by a myriad of locallybased rebels as this pattern of fragmentation is evident in the local violence density scores and maps after 2006.What remains uncertain though is why this fragmented pattern has developed and is intensifying? Wh accounts for the fact that one community has produced a mobilized antiRussian population while adjoining and similar communities remain quiescent?In these differences lie a real aim of disaggregated study of civil war, one that must take the local context of such activity much more seriously.52 One of the first Russian concepts of conflict resolution strategy in the North Caucasus was V. Tishkov's ethnological analysis, dedicated to the Chechen conflict settlement.According to V. Tishkov, The instability in Chechnya and the adjacent North Caucasian lands, as well as the crisis of Russia's statehood in the period of its deep transformation, generate largescale violence on a routine everyday basis with poor prospects for stability and reconstruction.Before starting major reconstruction programs something should be done to bring into political and public discourse the attitudes which clean the road of the conflict and do not close the door for the Chechens to exercise these shared identities.There is no RussiaChechnya identity disposition.Otherwise, Chechens are excluded from the country's populace justifying not only atrocities on the part of the military but also a politics of caging representatives of the whole group into a category of nocitizens or enemy citizens without rights and privileges.This is an impossible start for postconflict reconstruction. 53M. Kramer described the most destructive North Caucasus conflict in Chechnya as a stalemate since the rebels "continued to inflict enough damage on Russian soldiers to erode their morale and create the appearance of an endless, unwinnable war," 54 but in 2006, the Russian government claimed that the war was won and that the rebels had routed. 55However, as the war was winding down in Chechnya after 2004, the conflict intensified in the region as a 52 O'Loughlin J., Witmer F., "The Diffusion of Violence in the North Caucasus of Russia, 1999-2010," Environment and Planning A 44, 2012, pp.178-201.whole. 56By 2009, significantly more violent events were occurring in Ingushetia and Dagestan, the republics adjoining Chechnya to the west and to the east. 57In a region where the biggest concern of ordinary people is economic insecurity and where corruption is rife and barely concealed, many young men have turned to radical Islam.The attacks by the state forces on Islamists has furthered radicalized many and produced a titfortat upsurge in violence by local military jama'ats (militant Islamic communities) who have increasingly attacked the organs of the Russian state and its local representatives (police, military and political figures). 58By 2008, the Chechen rebel leadership was integrating their separate military campaign with the wider opposition to Russian presence in the region under the aegis of the "Caucasian Front."This latest chapter of the North Caucasian conflicts has not yet reached its dénouement, though predictions of wider and deeper conflicts are common despite the President's declaration of the end of "counterterrorism actions" in Chechnya in 2009. 59he specifics of identitybased conflicts as threats and challenges of integration of the North Caucasus is that they are a collision of competing values and ethnic identities.The idea of valueoriented collision clarifies the concept of regional conflict as identitybased conflict, emphasizing the essence of this explanatory model. 60From the structural point of view, regional conflicts appear as an effect of escalation of ethnoconfessional contradictions between Islam and Christianity, social inequalities and ethnic mobilization, threatening civil integration in the polyethnic society.In contemporary Russia, internal conflicts have become obviously ethnoreligious.Over a half of civil conflicts after the Second World War are classified as ethnic or religious.The identification of the ethnic conflict as an antigovernmental rebellion on behalf of an ethnic group is a ground for classifying the ethnoregional internal conflict. 61Fearon and Laitin argue further: With the spike in internal wars after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the thenUN Secretary General, Boutros BoutrosGhali, issued the UN Agenda for Peace in 1992.The report identified four overarching tasks for the UN and others to undertake preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding.These proposed goals introduced a broader conflict resolution research and policy agenda, beyond the emphasis on strategic bargaining and deal making.It effectively extended conflict resolution concerns to both latent and active conflicts and to the increasingly difficult challenge of rebuilding socalled failed or failing states.In doing so, it called for understanding conflict dyna mics within and between identity groups as well as governments and for exploring how relationships between such groups could be sustainably transformed -beyond negotiated settlements -such that violence would not recur. 62en if ethnoregional society has not experienced recent conflict, W. Kymlicka has suggested that a toorapid introduction of liberal multiculturalism policies (or "interculturalism" or "diversity policies" as others prefer to call them) may carry the risk of destabilization.He notes: Liberal multiculturalism is easier to adopt where liberal democracy is already well established, and where the rule of law and human rights are well protected.In countries where these basic foundations of 61 Fearon J., Laitin D., "Explaining Interethnic Cooperation," The American Political Science Review 90 (4), 1996, pp.715-753.liberal democracy are not yet present or consolidated, some level of democratization and liberalization may be needed before it makes sense to push for the full implementation of liberal multiculturalism. 63 points out that international organizations must sometimes strike a delicate balance between justice for ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples and security fears about the destabilizing effects of ethnic politics on democracy and development. 64While W. Kymlicka believes that liberal multiculturalism policies can contribute to freedom, equality, democracy and civil integration, he urges policy makers to understand the context where they are being introduced: "The underlying conditions, the nature of the ethnic groups involved, and the types of policies being considered." 65ivil integration falls into a class of policy problems that J. Chap man has described as "messes."J. Chapman characterizes policy "messes" this way: messes are characterized by no clear agreement about exactly what the problem is and by uncertainty and ambiguity as to how improvements might be made, and they are unbounded in terms of the time and resources they could absorb, the scope of enquiry needed to understand and resolve them and the number of people that may need to be involved. 66Policy "messes" founded on complex systems are also distinguished by a variety of perspectives on the problem, based on the different mental frameworks used by the various stakeholders.These perspectives are not limited to differences in academic disciplines, but may also arise from "different contexts, different cultures, different histories, different aspirations and different allegiances." 67As a result, stakeholders may not agree on the nature of the problem or may dismiss as irrelevant the differing perspectives on it, which do not fit within their frame of reference.For this reason, it is seldom possible to approach a policy "mess" using a linear or rational model of policy or decision making, since there is never a single, correct way to address it.
Civil integration reduces ethnic tension, which is associated with a high level of solidarity and safety, an attenuation of ethnic mobilization and a reduction of a negative stereotypization of "others" as "cultural ene mies." 68While analyzing the role and status of religion and ethnicity in the dynamics of regional sociocultural conflicts, one should point out a relation between group identities and primordial values of closed traditional societies, where civic selfawareness and individualism do not play any evident ideological role.Currently, such societies may function in the globalized world by means of preserving their own culture, based on collective values; group identification is correlated within such collectives with ethnic values and religious traditions.According to J. Rothman, an appeal to individual interests cannot patch a crack as a result of ethnic contradictions, if we are deal ing with an ethnic groupwide collision in the process of conflict mediation; attempts to manipulate groups may lead to identitybased conflict. 69nternational cooperation, based on solid legal and operational measures, and the exchange of information in the external dimension of counterterrorism are crucial in the fight against foreign terrorist fighters, the financing of terrorism, the combat and prevention of radicalization, reinforced border checks and illegal trafficking of firearms (Skocajic Juvan, Grizold 2017: 260).According to E. Babbitt, Negotiation and conflict resolution concepts provide powerful lenses through which to assess conflict dynamics and design appropriate strategies for moving these dynamics in a constructive direction.The biggest challenge in building bridges to policy is in transferring not only the checklist of 'best practices' but also the essence of analyzing international relationships through the conflict resolution lens.We have made good progress in this direction to date, and the signs are promising for the collaboration between theory and practice to deepen in the next decade.The prerequisites of such collaboration include the ability of governments to admit that they do not have all the answers and can learn better ways of dealing with conflict and for scholars to fully appreciate the constraints under which policy makers are operating and gear their analysis to these realities. 70cording to H. Aliyev, in the North Caucasus, good governance, capacity, and civil society building efforts conducted by both local and international aid groups are continuously encountering corrupt and uncooperative authorities.In most cases, these authorities are not interested in changing the existing situation and due to their loyalty to the federal government, are considerably immune to criticism.As a result, development, human rights and democratization efforts are bogged down in bureaucracy and corruption.The aid organizations do not prioritize the conflict resolution: only a handful of peacebuilding efforts have been ever implemented in the region and mostly of a low scale and capacity.Therefore, growing violence is continuing to serve as a major factor affecting the efficacy of development and human rights efforts. 71entitybased conflict has its own unique latent and complex traits and some of these elements will be more evident than the other; nevertheless, they all are common denominators of the genesis of such deeprooted and destructive conflict.The primordialist approach helps to explain the potentially conflictogenic nature of radical ethnicity and cultural intolerance; the concept of ethnic entrepreneurs explains how institutional factors and ethnic stereotypes interact each other.Ethnicity and religion are the embodiment of a powerful emotional stress that may be reactivated, provided the groups are aware of a threat to the ethnicity, religious values and group interests, which leads to ethnification, ethnic intolerance and, ulti mately, violent ethnic conflict. 72s violence increases, the "security dilemma" will become more acute and the desire for peaceful and cooperative strategies of conflict management will weaken. 73This will tend to thwart the prospects for successful negotiations unless instruments of outright strategic leverage and coercive diplomacy can be found. 74Once violence has reached a threshold where no further escalation is possible without major costs, the disputants may be willing to consider other alternatives than the use of force.However, ethnoreligious conflicts get stuck in the middle range of the escalation curve, i.e., violence is ongoing and episodic but not sufficient to make the idea of a political solution an attractive alternative.Such conflicts are sometimes referred to as protracted or intractable conflicts, because they are marked by selfsustaining patterns of hostility and violence; they have multiple sources or causes -identities, values, selfinterest, security dilemmas, inequalities -and there is no apparent end in sight to largescale ethnic violence."Lacking any apparent deadline, impending disaster, or sense of time shifting to the other side's advantage, these conflicts can be sustained for years unless others intervene and encourage the parties to change their strategic calculus and consider their negotiation options." 75ssential risk factors in the North Caucasus and Chechen Republic are called by V. Tishkov as the absence of consistent and well funded Russian state policy of postconflict reconstruction; political disintegration, alienation and social disorientation of the civilian population; widespread human rights abuses; the internationalization of ethnic conflicts and external support for separatists. 76Protracted conflicts are a consequence of the reactualization and radicalization of politicized ethnicities.Social inequalities, fragmentations and polarizations serve as systemic factors that determine the acuity of ethnic tension and escalation of identitybased conflicts in the North Caucasus.The analysis of social tension escalation and cultural identity mobilization suggests a destructive action of factors of ethnoreligious intolerance and political disintegration in a region.Identity based conflicts are not only armed or political and legal standoffs, but also the conflicts of different historiosophies, historical and cultural val ues and symbols.This gives rise of a phenomenon of competing cultural and historical traditions, most often such antagonism of religious or ethnic traditions within a multinational society, a fight for the historical heritage (constructionists write, not without a reason, that there are not any objective historical facts, they are actually a pro duct of interpretation of those with more or less rights to legitimate nomination of such facts) or conflicts between traditions of representatives of different social groups.A bitter rivalry of religious as well as ethnic traditions is possible in a multiconfessional and multiethnic society; an opposition of regional tradi tions, a fight for determining the essence of the conflict and an establishing of the causes of a such conflict etc.Such a "war of interpretations," a fight with the help of one selected subset of historical facts or another becomes a prologue of acute North Caucasus conflicts. 77ccording to the Saferworld 2012 report, people across the region recognize the need to combat violent extremism, but a majority disagrees with the way this is pursued by security authorities, or finds it ineffective.In fact, the methods used by security agencies are perceived not only as unlawful, but also cruel, including shooting and tortures, leaving local society suspicious of their fairness and making it hard to solicit community cooperation.Moreover, since some extremists lead a normal life, it is difficult for the authorities to identify them, so the whole population, especially young men, come under suspicion.This does not help to create an environment of transparency and trust.The climate in Dagestan and Chechnya is still tense and violence can develop in several directions.In Dagestan, the religious factor is undoubtedly the leader in destabilizing the republics as it functions as the main ideological banner to unite different dissatisfied groups under one wing.In Chechnya, even if the security situation has highly improved since 2008, the discontent with the social situation, which carries tensions between the population and the authorities, is still very high.In both cases, the ones who are more dissatisfied and willing to change are the youth, especially the educated ones, who do not see how they can realize themselves in a rigid and corrupted society. 78he analysis of relation between the ethnic tension and sociocultural identity at the North Caucasus regional level leads us to the idea of the destructive effect of ethnocultural controversies, conditioned by social fragmentation and disintegration, dissatisfaction in the basic needs of equality, justice and security.In the empirical study of the ethnoconfessional relationships and the development prospects in the North Caucasus, it is pointed out that interethnic relationships in the region can be characterized as stably tense ones.Alongside with that, neither the former, nor the latter are viewed as the acutest problems and rank 11 and 15, respectively, out of the 16 suggested in the social problems topicality rating.This result proved to be slightly unexpected, given the character of the place occupied by the ethnonational problems range in the social and political discourse in the region.According to the respondents, the problems which are common for the entire country are the most relevant: corruption and bribery (48.5%), prices and taxes growth and inflation (46.5%), unemployment (38.6%), the rise in crime (34.9%); the housing problem and the communal service problems (32.8%).Although the respondents have estimated the probability of interethnic conflicts as average, in conditions of a stable tension, any conflict, regardless of its true causes, can quickly turn into an interethnic one.For such circumstances, perceiving the actions of people of other nationalities as a potential threat to one's own nationality security is characteristic.The situation that has formed creates favorable conditions for ethnoconflict mobilization -a quick uniting of people in accordance with their national sign for participating in the conflict actions.The high tension in interethnic relationships is the main reason in why regional conflicts, having an interethnic component, keep breaking out within the North Caucasus. 79egional identitybased conflicts are dangerous in the way their gen esis and dynamics present social dissatisfaction that is highly politicized; and the action of extremism and violence sets implies concentrating an aggressive poten tial in the point of ethnic intolerance 79 Avksentiev V., Shulga M., "The Multinational Stavropol Territory: A Stronghold of Stability or Crossroads of Problems?"Sociological Studies 12 (3), 2013, pp.34-42.and confessional irreconcilability.The degree of violence in identity based con flicts is determined by the intensity of interethnic tension and social dissatisfaction, and the scope of institutional support and political mobilization being the conditions of armed con frontation. 80According to V. Dudouet, Although nonstate armed groups represent primary stakeholders in contemporary political conflicts, there is still little understanding among policymakers or scholars of the internal drivers and dynamics which shape their radicalization and deradicalization processes.For instance, one often hears the assertion that bringing rebel leaders and socalled "spoilers" to the negotiation table or converting them into peaceful politicians requires weakening, splintering, or completely dismantling their militant structures. 81 analyzing current peacebuilding and conflict resolution practice in the North Caucasus, H. Aliyev notes: It is possible to identify a number of priority areas for peacebuilders.First, peacebuilding has to target wide circles of the population possibly, starting with grassroots, such as current and potential rebel recruits, supporters, sympathizers, as well as the local population in areas of insurgent activity.It is necessary to ensure that peacebuilding efforts are targeting the most affected by the conflict segments of population.Second, peacebuilding has to include not only rebel force but most importantly security and military of North Caucasian republics, as well as similar structures at the federal level.The growth of authoritarianism and its onslaught on civil society, accompanied by centralization and militarism, are one of the main reasons for the current escalation of violence.Decentralization and demilitarization of local and federal governments might be considered as one of the main longterm objectives to deescalate the conflict. 82onViolence International in CIS (NIS) began its peacebuil ding efforts in the Republic of KarachayCherkessia and the border regions between Chechnya and Dagestan.Its main goal is conflict prevention and deescalation as well as reconciliation and rehabilitation in conflictaffected societies.The NIS peacebuilding program focused on conducting peace trainings to youth in the remote regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.In 2001 and 2002, the NIS launched a number of programs designed to increase interethnic reconciliation and peacebuilding in the border regions of Chechnya and Dagestan.Programs aimed to reduce tensions between Dagestani and Chechen villagers in border regions after the invasion of border districts of Dagestan by the Chechenled Islamist brigade in 1999 (which was the start of the Second Chechen Campaign).Two separate programs have been also implemented in KarachayCherkessia and Kabardino Balkaria.Both had goals of increasing interethnic tolerance and conflict prevention in multiethnic settings (NonViolence International, Projects 2009).According to the data provided by the NonViolence International group, most of its funding, used to implement peacebuilding programs in the North Caucasus, is from private sources. 83n 2005, the NIS launched the North Caucasus Regional Peacebuil ding Program. 84The program intends to cover almost all of the Russian North Caucasus (except Stavropol) and its primary goals are peacebuilding, regional development, interethnic and interconfessional tolerance.
The problemsolving workshop is one type of thirdparty assisted dialogue, undertaken by both official and nongovernmental actors in the North Caucasus.This activity is directed at ethnic, racial or religious groups who are in a hostile relationship.Like "circumnegotia-83 NonViolence International, Operational and Methodological Implementation of Multi-Sector Peace-building Programs, Moscow 2010.tion," this dialogue occurs at a quasiofficial level around or prior to the formal peace process. 85Dialogue is directed at officials and civic leaders, including heads of local nongovernmental organizations, community developers, health officials, refugee camp leaders, ethnic/religious leaders, intellectuals and academics.This dialogue process can be assisted by specialized training programs that are directed at exploring ways of establishing and building relationships, furthe ring proficiency in facilitation, mediation and brokering, data collection, factfinding and other kinds of cooperative decisionmaking.As L. Kriesberg notes, much of this activity is directed at developing "constituency support for peace efforts." 86

Conclusions
The North Caucasus conflict, studied in this article, is often called a separatist insurgency struggling to establish a sovereign Islamic state on the territory of the Russian North Caucasus, i.e., in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, KabardinoBalkaria, North Ossetia and KarachayCherkessia.However, this study makes an assumption that the current ethnoreligious conflict is an outcome of poor governance and conflict management, political disintegration and abuses of basic civil rights and freedoms.
This research pursues the goal of analyzing how the strength of civilpolitical integration can affect conflict resolution and peacebuilding.It suggests that the lack of bottomup peace efforts emanating at the community and civil society levels (rather than state initiatives from topdown) is one of the main causes for the failure of conflict resolution, which, in conjunction with increased state interventionism, leads to the dramatic escalation of violence in the case under study.The fundamental obstacles to resolve ethnoregional conflicts -and major contributing factors to insurgency -remain civil disintegration, anomie, ethnic intolerance, social inequalities and largescale corruption at all levels of regional and federal administration.This increases citizens' alienation from the state and promotes the search for radical alternatives, including the Islamic State (ISIS) and jihad.In recent years, deep social frustration is a major conflict driver.The authorities are perceived as unable to solve either structural concerns or daily problems.Many feel that local elites have privatized the state.Those who want better services try to leave, increasing pressure on neighboring regions and Russia's big cities.The situation is further complicated by alternative concepts of ethnopolitics and statehood.Islamists instrumentalize social problems and offer a nondemocratic state based on Sharia (Islamic law) that they say will be better equipped to deliver social justice.Growing civil disintegration, unresolved social problems and ineffective institutions contribute significantly to the appeal of radical ethnonationalism and Islamist ideology, erode trust in the state and are a major reason why the North Caucasian conflicts are so difficult to solve.
Realistic and achievable goals of conflict resolution as civil integration resource in the North Caucasus are: 1) Strengthening the rule of law and the protection of human rights; 2) Democratization and meeting the basic needs of the populations; 3) Ensuring personal security for the North Caucasus people; 4) Civil society building and socioeconomic development; 5) Improving cultural relations between North Caucasus ethnicities and the larger Russian society.The need to stimulate civilpolitical integration is caused by moral and structural causes: from the ethical point of view, the creation of an inclusive society is the fundamental societal goal; structural factors are related to the need to reduce inequalities and differences leading to social fragmentation and escalation of destructive ethnic conflicts.In discussing conflict resolution strategies, it is necessary to consider the following: 1) The peace and integration of North Caucasus is a macropolitical project, the content of which is determined by issues of social cohesion and civil solidarity; 2) The development of the North Caucasus after the end of armed ethnic conflicts shows the inadmissibility of political demodernization, fundamentalism and isolationism.Today, the North Caucasus remains a crucially geopoli tical macroregion, as it forms the southern volatile frontier of Russia.In this case, conflict resolution strategy must serve as an integrational and preventive tool on the conflict environment by way of providing structural solutions for deeprooted sociocultural antagonisms, transforming and rationalizing ethnoregional contradictions.
All of these issues would merit further analysis though complementary methodologies offering a more independent perspective on ethnoregional conflict dynamics.In particular, the findings gathered here call for more indepth research on the boundaries between political integration/conflict resolution strategies and different forms of ethnic conflicts in the North Caucasus, on the internal dynamics and decisionmaking involved in shifting goals and strategies and on their various implications for the processes of ethnoreligious radicalization and political integration.There also needs to be a more interdisciplinary investigation on the linkages between conflict resolution strategy, social cohesion, political integration, negotiations, democratic transitions and postconflict institutionalization. Finally, such analysis might offer useful lessons for constructive international engagement to support the conversion of state challengers into active peacebuilders, as long as these actors are politically motivated movements, which enjoy strong social legitimacy and aspire to take part in democratic politics.Indeed, our findings call for a rethinking of conventional intervention in ethnopolitical conflicts, promoting the social cohesion and civil integration during negotiations, offering assistance to support democratic transitions in the North Caucasus that possess a future role within a peaceful environment, all in contrast to criminalization strategies (e.g., through antiterrorist measures, such as proscription and counterinsurgency), which prevent ethnic groups from expanding their civil capacities.conflicts and emphasizes the destabilizing role of the repoliticization of ethnicity in a crisis society.The concept of ethnic, "identitybased" conflicts is the heuristic theoretical model of exploring causes for increased ethnoreligious tensions in the North Caucasus.This article focuses on the ability of conflict resolution strategy to deescalate growing tensions and transform protracted identitybased conflicts.The need to stimulate civil integration is caused by moral and structural causes: from the ethical point of view, the creation of an inclusive society is the fundamental societal goal; structural factors are related to the need to reduce inequalities and differences leading to social fragmentation and an escalation of ethnic conflicts.Among the structural conditions of regional conflicts, the author names ethnosocial inequalities, a civil identity crisis, ethnopolitical neoauthoritarianism, largescale socioeconomic polarization and an "ideological combat" between secular modernization and religious fundamentalism.While discussing conflict resolution strategies, it is necessary to consider the following: 1) Peace and integration within the North Caucasus is a macropolitical project, the content of which is determined by issues of social cohesion and civil solidarity; 2) The development of the North Caucasus after the end of armed ethnic conflicts shows the inadmissibility of political demodernization, fundamentalism and isolationism.Today, the North Caucasus remains a crucially geopolitical macroregion, as it forms the southern volatile frontier of Russia.In this case, conflict resolution strategy must serve as an integrational and preventive tool on the conflict environment by way of providing structural solutions for deeprooted cultural antagonisms, transforming and rationalizing ethnoregional contradictions.

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Aliyev H. Aid, "Efficiency in an Armed Conflict.The Role of Civil Society in the Escalation of Violence in the North Caucasus," IFHV Working Paper 1 (1), 2011, pp.40-54.13 Gendron R. "Alternative Dispute Resolution in the North Caucasus," Caucasian Review of International Affairs 3 (4), 2009, p. 77.14 Bakke K., "Reconciliation in ConflictAffected Societies: Multilevel Modeling of Individual and Contextual Factors in the North Caucasus of Russia," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99 (5), 2009, p. 45.

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Babbitt E., Hampson F., "Conflict Resolution as a Field of Inquiry: Practice Informing Theory," International Studies Review, No. 13, 2011, p. 46.71 Aliyev H. Aid, "Efficiency in an Armed Conflict.The Role of Civil Society in the Escalation of Violence in the North Caucasus," IFHV Working Paper 1 (1), 2011, p. 54.
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