Insurgency Success Factors and Rebel Legitimacy
to influencing how the Russian administration could and did react to the bid for independence 84.
Elite legitimation of the movement's justification made brute military force less appealing.
Yeltsin feared isolating academic and elite support of Yeltsin's administration, which was
already suffering from declining popular support85. Political legitimation of the independence
movement contributed to Russia's willingness to hold more traditional political negotiations with
Chechnya, resulting in their ability to negotiate and establish political and economic power in
Chechnya.
Support for the Chechen movement amongst Russian administration and political elites
decreased rapidly after the initiation of the First Chechen War86. Russian academics became
disillusioned from the idea of a peaceful transition to independence after the First Chechen War.
By 1999, Russian academics had completely pulled support of Chechen independence. Rhetoric
and framing of the Chechen independence movement in Russian literature shifted substantially
during this period presenting the movement as one of terrorism instead of a legitimate quest to
develop a nation-state. In November 1999, the Russian Academy of Academics of Socialism and
the Union of Internationalists delivered a conference condemning the Chechen independence
movement as terrorism87.
The deterioration of Russian elite support contributed to reducing the legitimacy of the
rebellion movement in the same way awarding support contributed to legitimacy. Lack of
support reduced the rebellion's legitimacy in official Russian political space and rhetoric. In the
same way positive perceptions of the rebellion fostered positive opinions of the rebellion
amongst Russian civilians, elites, and politicians, negative portrayals of the rebellion movement
produced negative perceptions of the movement amongst these same groups.
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