Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies

This paper discusses why large-scale and sustained violence has not come to Dagestan in the Russian North Caucasus despite many sources of instability, such as territorial disputes, the influence of fundamentalist Islam, and the potential for interethnic violence. It assesses the general risk of large-scale sustained political violence; identifies issues that are most likely to provoke large-scale violence as well as the likely participants; and identifies early warning indicators of impending violence. The core argument of the paper is that the nature of Dagestan's cleavage structure makes it unlikely that in the foreseeable future the republic's chronic instability will lead to a violent mobilization of the population.