World-Systems Ground of Terrorist Threats: on the Issue of Methodology for Studying Armed Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Space

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to systematize the world-system prerequisites for terrorist threats, to show the place of terrorism within the theoretical structures of the movement of capital in the world-system and the maturation of contradictions in the functioning of its cycle. Methodology and sources. The authors use the “Figure-ground movement” method proposed by T. K. Hopkins and consider the world-system as a background for the study of terrorism. Refocusing perception makes it possible to more clearly see the connections between terrorism and the world-system. The geopolitical concept of R. Collins and M. Crenshaw’s concept of the development of terrorist organizations are used as theoretical foundations in addition to the world-system approach. Results and discussion. A series of successive refocuses were carried out to identify the connections between terrorism and the contradictions of the capitalist world-system. As a result, it was shown that the hegemon and the core states achieve success by maintaining a «civilized» order in the world-system by declaring the values of centrist liberalism. However, it must be recognized that states often use less expensive than the introduction of regular troops, but illegitimate means of terror to protect their interests. Terror can be used in the struggle for power when core states include their economies in a network of cumulative vectors. A number of prerequisites were discovered after a refocus from terrorism to the movement of capital in the world-system cycle. The movement of capital from the core to the periphery increases social inequality and causes the growth of national and ethnic differences that can feed separatist ideologies of terrorism. The outflow of capital from the economies of non-core areas increases the ability of the political force that has challenged the hegemon and the core states to mobilize the population under anti-system slogans that can fuel international terrorism. Based on the obtained theoretical models, the prerequisites for terrorist activity on the territory of the USSR and in the post-Soviet space were briefly described. Conclusion. The authors emphasize that the resulting theoretical models require additional verification. The next stage in the study of the causes of terrorism should be an analysis of the mechanisms of formation of terrorist organizations based on specific cases.

Authors: Nikolai E. Lukyanov, Anna A. Izgarskaya

Direction: Philosophy

Keywords: world-system, terrorism, “figure-ground movement” method, geopolitical theory, ideological networks, cumulative vector

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