CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Science Department of International Relations Geopolitical Studies Master thesis 2016 Karyna Loginova CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Science Department of International Relations Geopolitical Studies Karyna Loginova Chechnya as Russia's dangerous frontier: On the Nature of Suicide Terrorism Master Thesis Prague 2016 Author: Karyna Loginova Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Irena Valková, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2016/2017 Abstract Ever since World War II up to the 80`s the world had not witnessed any form of suicide terrorism. Since then the rate of such attacks have been growing on a global level. Nowadays, suicide terrorism is one of the most researched and still not fully explained syndromes that imposes threat to nations, societies, individuals, groups, governments and other parties. Many studies and analyses focus on determining the reasons and the motives for such acts, including the damages that suicide terrorism causes on global level. There have been multiple variables determined as key factors influencing suicide terrorism, including religion, political occupation, nationalism and many others, yet there is no single answer as to why organizations and/or individuals decide on such radical tactic. Thus, as a modern phenomenon, suicide terrorism triggers the analysis from several perspectives of the individual, organizational and psychological background. This master thesis deals with the case study of Chechen suicide terrorism and its implications in the studies of suicide terrorism. The main focus of the research is on determining main motives and reasons of Chechnya to use suicide bombing against Russia. The analysis uses the Robert Pape’s theory on suicide terrorism and done by using qualitative research, with representation of dependent (suicide attacks) and independent variables (foreign occupation, religion, nationalism, geographical location). Future research is focused on explaining how the implementation of suicide bombing affected the Russian-Chechen relations and how Russian Policy changed towards Chechnya after the suicide attacks. Bibliographic note Loginova, Karyna. Chechnya as Russia's dangerous frontier: On the Nature of Suicide Terrorism. p. Mater thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, Supervisor Mgr. et Mgr. Irena Valková, Ph.D. Keywords Chechnya; Terrorism; Suicide terrorism; Russian Politics Range of thesis: 71 pages, 24,921 words, 157,933 characters Declaration of Authorship 1. The author hereby declares that he compiled this thesis independently, using only the listed resources and literature. 2. The author hereby declares that all the sources and literature used have been properly cited. 3. The author hereby declares that the thesis has not been used to obtain a different or the same degree. Prague 02/01/17 Karyna Loginova Signature: Acknowledgments The author would like to thank to his supervisor Mgr. et Mgr. Irena Valková, Ph.D. for her support and guidance throughout the research process, as well as her quick and solid responses to the questions. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................... 9 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... 9 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 10 SCOPE OF THESIS ......................................................................................................................... 10 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 12 1.1 CONCEPT OF SECURITY ......................................................................................................... 12 1.1.1 Critical Approaches to Security ......................................................................................... 14 1.1.2 Securitization ...................................................................................................................... 14 1.1.3 Critical perspectives affecting securitization ‘success’ ...................................................... 16 1.1.4 Security beyond sovereignty .............................................................................................. 18 1.2 POST 9/11 EVENTS ................................................................................................................. 20 1.3 ORIGINS OF SUICIDE TERRORISM ........................................................................................... 24 1.3.1 Understanding suicide terrorism ........................................................................................ 26 1.3.2 Examples of suicide terrorist groups .................................................................................. 27 Tamil Tigers ................................................................................................................................ 28 Kurdish PKK ............................................................................................................................... 29 Al-Qaida ...................................................................................................................................... 30 Japanese Kamikaze ..................................................................................................................... 30 1.3.3 Common characteristics ..................................................................................................... 31 1.4 ISLAMIST JIHAD ..................................................................................................................... 32 1.4.1 Jihadist transformation → Political violence → Going Global .......................................... 32 1.5 PROFILES OF SUICIDE TERRORISTS......................................................................................... 34 2. THEORETICAL SCOPE ..................................................................................................... 36 2.1. ROBERT PAPE’S THEORY OF SUICIDE TERRORISM .............................................................. 36 2.1.1 Pape`s database .................................................................................................................. 39 2.1.2 Variables............................................................................................................................. 40 2.2 LIMITATIONS.......................................................................................................................... 40 3. METHODOLGY AND DATA COLLECTION ................................................................. 43 3.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ........................................................................... 43 3.2. RESEARCH STRUCTURE ....................................................................................................... 43 4. CASE STUDY: CHECHNYA .............................................................................................. 45 4.1 CHANGING TARGETS .............................................................................................................. 45 4.2 MOTIVATIONS DETERMINING SUICIDE ATTACKS ................................................................... 46 4.3 COMPARISON: CHECHNYA VS. OTHER REGIONS .................................................................... 48 4.4 FIRST RUSSIAN-CHECHEN WAR ............................................................................................ 50 4.5 SECOND RUSSIAN-CHECHEN WAR ...................................................................................... 58 5. EMPIRICAL STUDY ........................................................................................................... 66 5.1 VARIABLES ............................................................................................................................ 69 Variable 1: Foreign Occupation .................................................................................................. 69 Variable 2: Religion .................................................................................................................... 70 Variable 3: Nationalism .............................................................................................................. 71 Variable 4: Geographical Location ............................................................................................. 72 5.2 RESULTS AND FINDINGS ........................................................................................................ 73 5.2.1 Hypothesis 1 ....................................................................................................................... 73 Foreign (Russian) Occupation ..................................................................................................... 74 Nationalism and Religious Difference ........................................................................................ 75 5.2.2 Hypothesis 2 ....................................................................................................................... 77 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 80 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................