Classifying Responses
Namrata Goswami
NETWORKS OF REBELLION: EXPLAINING INSURGENT COHESION AND COLLAPSE by Paul Staniland ., 2015, 299 pp., 995
October 2015, volume 39, No 10

Insurgencies, by definition, signify organized violence waged for a specific political end. Insurgencies are waged within a defined territory, aspire to represent a social base, and portray themselves as enjoying legitimacy from their host population. In accomplishing these tasks, insurgent groups tap into the pre-existing social networks of which they were part before taking up arms against the state. The Naga insurgency in India is a case in point. Before the Naga National Council (NNC) took to violence in 1955, it was part of nonviolent social networks for nearly nine years since its inception in 1946. Paul Staniland highlights the importance of pre-war social networks in the organizational structure, recruitment base, ideology, and social constraints for insurgencies.

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