And the Last Straw Falls: The Cumulative Influence of Disillusionment among Former Viet Cong Insurgents

Elizabeth M. Jenaway and Steven Windisch

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2025, vol. 48, issue 4, 439-461

Abstract: Relying on interviews with 87 former members of the Viet Cong, we investigate the cumulative role of unmet behavioral and emotional expectations in producing disillusionment. We found that the combination of unmet expectations generated negative emotions, creating distance between participants and their organization. Unlike desistance from conventional crime, which results from a reduction in anger, we found that the emergence of anger provoked disengagement from the insurgency. Moreover, our findings highlight how disillusionment does not begin with a single event but is influenced by the cascading effect of multiple factors that merge over time.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2022.2097584 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uterxx:v:48:y:2025:i:4:p:439-461

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2022.2097584

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().