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⁵ This article also draws upon electronic communications between activists to provide a behind-the-scenes perspective on their organizations. Due to safety and privacy concerns, I will not cite these missives directly and will quote all activists anonymously. Where possible, confirming evidence from published sources is cited.

⁶ See, e.g., Lichbach, Mark, The Rebel's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Zwerman, Gilda and Steinhoff, Patricia, “When Activists Ask for Trouble,” in Davenport, Christian, Johnston, Hank, and Davenport, Carol, eds., Repression and Mobilization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and Rasler, Karen, “Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution,” American Sociological Review 61 (February 1996)Google Scholar. For an overview, see Christian Davenport, “Repression and Mobilization,” in Davenport, Johnston, and Davenport.

⁷ This assumption is most explicit in Bueno de Mesquita and Downs (fn. 1). The assumption of rational calculation flows from Olson's framework of collective action and is widespread in studies of social movements and protests. See Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and, for an overview of this extensive literature, see Ostrom, Elinor, “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action,” American Political Science Review 92 (March 1998)Google Scholar.

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⁹ Harrison, J. Richard and Carroll, Glenn, Culture and Demography in Organizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ On “audience costs” in international relations, see Schultz, Kenneth, “Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises,” American Political Science Review 92 (December 1998)Google Scholar; and Fearon, James, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review 88 (September 1994)Google Scholar.

¹¹ On focal points, see Schelling, Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

¹² On rhetorical entrapment, see also Schimmelfennig, Frank, The EU, NATO, and the Integration of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003), 222.CrossRefGoogle Scholarx

¹³ Tucker, Joshua, “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and the '2nd Wave' of Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions” (Manuscript, Princeton University, 2005)Google Scholar.

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¹⁶ Transnational contacts can also inhibit organizational change or introduce other suboptimalities into patterns of collective protest. See, for example, Henderson, Sarah, Building Democracy in Contemporary Russia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 2003)Google Scholar; and Sundstrom, Lisa, “Foreign Assistance, International Norms, and Civil Society Development,” International Organization 52, no. 2 (2005)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Zwerman and Steinhoff (fn. 6).

¹⁸ Javeline, Debra, Protest and the Politics of Blame (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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²¹ Posner, Daniel, “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference,” American Political Science Review 98 (November 2004)Google Scholar; Miguel, Edward, “Tribe or Nation? Nation Building and Public Goods in Kenya versus Tanzania,” World Politics 56 (April 2004)Google Scholar; Wantchekon, Leonard, “Clientelism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Benin,” World Politics 55 (April 2003)Google Scholar.

²² Each total corresponds to a rating of 1–7, with 1 representing the highest level of freedom and 7 the lowest. Freedom House, Freedom in the World (New York: Freedom House, various years)Google Scholar.

²³ Tilly, Charles, “From Interactions to Outcomes in Social Movements,” in Giugni, Marco, McAdam, Doug, and Tilly, Charles, eds., How Social Movements Matter (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minneapolis Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

²⁴ These research visits occurred during September-December 2001, September 2002-February 2003, and August 2005.

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²⁶ For examples of his rhetoric, see Yeltsin, “Speech to the Opening Session of the People's Deputies,” March 11, 1993; idem, “Press Conference with Russian President Boris Yeltsin (ORT),” August 19,1993; and idem, “Annual State of the Nation Address,” February 23, 1996.

²⁷ Rikhter, A., Zhurnalistika i voina (Journalism and War) (Moscow: Issledovatel'skaia gruppa Rossiisko-amerikanskogo informatsionnogo press-tsentra, 1998), tables 20–21Google Scholar.

²⁸ Pain, Emil' and Popov, Arkadii, “Rossiiskaia Politika v Chechne,” Izvestiia, February 7–10, 1995.Google Scholar

²⁹ Rikhter (fn. 27), table 38.

³⁰ Between December 1994 and December 1995, 14 journalists were killed, 4 disappeared, and at least 146 were arbitrarily detained.

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³⁴ In addition to protesting, the antiwar movement also facilitated the return of hundreds of captured Russian solders, publicized human rights abuses by Russian soldiers, and even brokered negotiations with Shamil Basayev in 1995.

³⁵ McFaul, Michael, Russia's Unfinished Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 258Google Scholar.

³⁶ It is true that Chechen actions (especially the Budennovsk hostage taking in June 1995 and victories in Grozny in August 1996) increased the pressure on Yeltsin. Yet without the pressure generated by the antiwar groups, Yeltsin and his military would have been free to escalate the war, as they tried to do after each defeat. It was the impending prospect of electoral defeat, and not battlefield outcomes, that forced Yeltsin's hand.

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⁴¹ Common Action became the Russian All-National Committee for the Cessation of War and the Establishment of Peace in the Chechen Republic in November 2002. Key members include the Committee for Anti-War Actions (KAD), the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA), the Anti-War Club (AK), For Human Rights, and Memorial. In St. Petersburg, the Antiwar Committee against the Regime's Colonial and Militaristic Policies comprised the Petersburg League of Anarchists, Punk-Revival, and Workers' Democracy, among others.

⁴² Author interview with antiwar activist, Moscow, December 7, 2002, and subsequent correspondence.

⁴³ See, e.g., “Putin Firm on Russian Human Rights,” BBC, February 10, 2005; Putin, “Stenogram of Answers at a Kremlin Press Conference with Russian and Foreign Journalists,” June 20, 2003; and idem, “Annual Speech to Russia's Federation Assembly,” July 8, 2000.

⁴⁴ This parodies the Soviet slogan “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country.”

⁴⁵ This remark appeared as the “quote of the day” in September 25,1999, editions of Komsomol'skaia pravda, Nezavisimaia gazeta, and Novye Izvestiia, among others.

⁴⁶ See “Rezoliutsua o neobkhodimosti konsolidatsn antivoennogo dvzheniy,” November 9—10, 2002; Gazeta Regional'nikh Pravozashchitnykh Organizatsii (February-March 2003), 8–9.

⁴⁷ This may be true of most, if not all, Russian activists and not simply of antiwar protestors. See Sarah Mendelson and Theodore Gerber, “Local Activist Culture and Transnational Diffusion” (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 2005).

⁴⁸ “Voda kamen' tochit,” Piket na Pusbkinskoi 1 (2000), 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Author interview with antiwar activist, Moscow, December 7,2002.

⁵⁰ In St. Petersburg the police have taken to videotaping these pickets, ostensibly because they attract a fairly high proportion of young demonstrators who are affiliated with anarchist movements.

⁵¹ Totals derived from weekly organization records as well as from participant observation.

⁵² There is an implicit counterfactual here: if activists updated their slogans to match mainstream views, they would recruit at a faster rate with higher success than if they continue their current efforts that appeal to a much narrower segment of the populace.

⁵³ Maskhadov, once the president of Chechnya and political figurehead of the independence movement, was killed in March 2005 by Russian forces.

⁵⁴ Gerber, Theodore P. and Mendelson, Sarah E., “Russian Public Opinion on Human Rights and the War in Chechnya,” Post-Soviet Affairs 18 (October-December 2002), 293–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^3S One report claimed, for example, that participants at a large December 2003 antiwar rally were each promised 150 rubles (about $5 dollars) for attending. The article paints such rallies as “social rackets.” See “Rules of the Game,” Kommersanf -Den'gi, April 26, 2004.

⁵⁶ Mendelson and Gerber (fn. 47).

⁵⁷ Author correspondence with activist, July 2003.

⁵⁸ Levada, Yuri, “What the Polls Tell Us,” Journal of Democracy 15 (July 2004)Google Scholar; Makinen, Sirke, “Russia's Integrity: Russian Parties of Power and the Yabloko Association on Russo-Chechen Relations, 1999–2001,” Europe-Asia Studies 56 (December 2004)Google Scholar; Rose, Munro, and Mishler (fn. 2).

⁵⁹ Levada Center Poll, June 9–14,2006.

⁶⁰ Gudkov, Lev, “Ksenofobiia kak problema,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, December 26, 2005, 10.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Gerber and Mendelson (fn. 54).

⁶² Some signs do make this appeal, but they tend to get lost among a welter of other unconnected banners.

⁶³ Merom, Gil, How Democracies Lose Small Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁴ Russia's press freedom score averaged 51 during the first Chechen war and 63 during the second, with 100 representing the worst possible score. The 2005 score was 68; Freedom House, Press Freedom Survey (various years).

⁶³ Now available online at http://voinenet.ru/articles/16/index.shtml.

⁶⁶ Author correspondence with activist, May 6, 2003.

⁶⁷ Available at http://www.hro.org/army.

⁶⁸ The circulation for Nezavisimaia gazeta and Novaia gazeta is 50,000 and 135,000, respectively.

⁶⁹ See “Voina molodykh,” Literaturniia gazeta, August 13, 2003, 7Google Scholar. Films include Brat, Kavkazskii plennik, and Blokpost. See also Politikovskaia, Anna, Vtoraia chechenskaia (Moscow: Zakharov, 2002)Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ One poll found that 30 percent of respondents had served in the military and another 52 percent had relatives who had served; “The Army—a Man's Destiny?” Public Opinion Foundation, October 3, 2002.

⁷¹ Mendelson and Gerber (fn. 47), 25–26.

⁷² The petition (“Zapros Putinu...”) can be found at http://www.hro.org/war/anti/2004/05/17-h.

⁷³ “V Ryazani rasprostraneny gazety protiv voiny v Chechne,” HRO.org., July 26, 2004, at http:// www.hro.org/war/anti/2004/07/26-l.php.

⁷⁴ Moscow has 10.4 million inhabitants (2002), St. Petersburg 4.7 million, and Ryazan, 522,000.

⁷⁵ “Votum peremiriia,” Kommersant” February 14, 2005Google Scholar, and “Odin protsent protestuiushchikh,” Izvestiia, January 25, 2005Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ This campaign, under the direction of pro-Putin movement Nashi, attracted about seven thousand demonstrators to Red Square on September 1, 2005. The antiwar movement's matching protest drew about five hundred. See “Either a Holiday or a Wake,” Novye Izvestiia, September 5, 2005Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ “Rock Stars Recruited to Fight Revolution,” Moscow Times, March 31, 2005Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ “Voda kamen' tochit,” Piket na Pushkinskoi 1 (2000), 6Google Scholar.