This book provides an in-depth analysis of how mobilization and legitimation for war are made possible, with a focus on Russia's conflict with Chechnya.

Through which processes do leaders and their publics come to define and accept certain conflicts as difficult to engage in, and others as logical, even necessary? Drawing on a detailed study of changes in Russia s approach to Chechnya, this book argues that re-phrasing Chechnya as a terrorist threat in 1999 was essential to making the use of violence acceptable to the Russian public. The book refutes popular explanations that see...