Pathways Out Of Terrorism And Insurgency

Focuses on the social, political, economic, and psychological roots of terrorism. This work offers an examination that explores the dynamics of contemporary terrorism as well as the possibilities and limitations of peace processes undertaken by governments that try to end terrorist violence, tracing the rise and growth of various terrorist groups.

Examines global terrorist networks and discusses the long-term future of terrorism.

This book considers not the beginning or origins of terrorism but how groups that use terrorism end, the book provides a unique empirically informed perspective on the end of terrorism that is a valuable addition to the currently available in the literature on the subject.

Critical Terrorism Studies emerged around 2007, in the context of the rapidly intensifying War on Terror. It was in this era that "terrorism" became a "growth industry" which generated a huge amount of academic research as well as social and political activity. Yet a yawning gap developed between the actual material threat posed by terrorists, and the level of investment and activity devoted to responding to this threat. Similarly, the quality of terrorism research was noticeably weak and lacking in methodological rigour. Critical Terrorism Studies set out to explore the exceptional treatment of political violence, to challenge the political manipulation of terrorism fears and increase in draconian anti-terrorism legislation, and to address some of the conceptual and methodological failings of terrorism research. In the 10 years since the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism was launched, that context and mission remains as important as ever. This volume looks back on the achievements and failures of Critical Terrorism Studies in this period, as well as collecting state of the art research into terrorism discourse, queerness and the War on Terror, the Prevent Strategy, epistemology in terrorism studies, state repression, the ambiguous ends of militant campaigns, the epistemology of preventative counterterrorism, and the question of non-violent responses to terror. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Critical Studies in Terrorism.

This book explains how and why the Basque separatist armed group ETA decided to end its armed campaign against the Spanish state. The ETA’s armed campaign for Basque independence lasted fifty years and led to more than 800 casualties. This book analyzes the factors that led to ETA ending its campaign of violence in 2011, despite having yet to achieve its political objectives. It explains how the Basque pro-independence movement’s political leadership won an internal battle and brought ETA to a position in which abandoning violence was the only feasible choice. The work argues that the key factor leading to the cessation of violence was the loss of support for armed struggle within the pro-independence social base, and it examines why and how that support decreased so decisively. Written by a former journalist, the narrative is based on more than 30 interviews, including former members of ETA, Spanish judges, former ministers of the Spanish government, political leaders of all Basque political parties—from the Nationalist Left to the Partido Popular (PP)—and international mediators. As such, it is the first book to recount in detail the inside story of the internal struggle within the Nationalist Left movement, and particularly between the political party Batasuna and ETA. This book will be of much interest to students of political violence, ethnic conflict, nationalism, Spanish politics, security studies, and IR.

Annotation This work answers questions concerning the length of time that terrorist campaigns last and when targeting leadership finishes a group. It examines a wide range of historical examples to identify the ways in which almost all terrorist groups die out.

From the Foreward: Each chapter of this work is in truth a separate essay or article in which an author distinguished in his field treats a different aspect or manifestation of violence in human society. I doubt whether so complete a treatise in so short a compass has been previously attempted. The reader will be left in no doubt when he reflects on what he has read that violence is, and always has been, a feature or a threat in human society- and will remain so. The reason why this must be so is made plain in the early chapters. Violent behaviour is a display of man's aggressive instinct: without that instinct, which he (and she) shares with the rest of the animal kingdom, the human species would not survive. First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Using rare field research, this book investigates whether and how talking may transform terrorist violence. Given the failings of today’s dominant counterterrorism strategy, is talking a viable policy option to transform conflicts marked by terrorist violence? This book examines the reasons why "negotiating with terrorists" is so often shunned by decision-makers and scholars as a policy response, concluding that such objections are primarily based on a realist and statist understanding of terrorism that has dominated the field so far. Based on interviews with top rebel and military commanders in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao and interviewing key actors in Northern Ireland, Terrorism, Talking and Transformation investigates how talking may contribute to the transformation of conflicts marked by terrorist violence. The result of this analysis is a theoretically grounded, empirically recognizable and emancipation oriented framework that can be used to investigate the potential of talking in transforming not only terrorist (and counterterrorist) violence, but also the underlying structural violence that often surrounds it. This book will be of much interest to students in the fields of terrorism studies, security studies, Southeast Asian studies, conflict resolution/transformation and IR in general, and of use to practitioners in the field.