The dynamics of one-sided violence in post-communist territories

Since World War II, scholars have focused on the increasing trend in interstate and civil wars. This causes a rise in publications that has provided numerous insights on the factors influencing the onset and duration of civil wars so the researchers often overlooked a key factor of civil war: civilian victimization. Today, a large number of studies is being published which aim to explain this phenomenon, but not for all civil wars. Opinions on the purpose of civilian victimization differ. The question is then often raised: Why do perpetrators sometimes kill and harm civilians intentionally? Which rational facts underlie such acts? These questions are neither scrutinized for all civil wars, nor tested with the same hypotheses nor analyzed with the same method. In this context, this research study examines these questions. In order to arrive at answers, two related logics are examined: Strategic logic and international sanctioning logic. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan which had an enclave system background and won their independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Chechnya, an autonomous state within Russian Federation, were elected as case studies. Strategic logic focuses on the military strength of the warring parties and revenge, and the premise of the international sanctioning logic is that the international community can prevent the occurrence of one-sided violence. In order to examine the logics, hypotheses have been formed; a data set has been created and analized by a time series analysis. Time series analysis provided to see thy dynamics in the conflicts in Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Tajikistan and Georgia. While each of the conflicts in the case studies examined revealed different results in the framework of strategic logic, it was found that the results were the same in the framework of the international sanctioning logic.