Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts

by Marianne Heiberg (Editor), Brendan O'Leary (Editor), John Tirman (Editor)

The wave of civil wars, terror attacks, and insurgencies over the last half century has redefined our notion of protracted conflicts. While the American news media have devoted primary coverage to the threat posed by al-Qaeda since 9/11, other insurgent groups have arisen and gained momentum across the map, and much less attention has been devoted to explaining what governmental policies bring such insurgencies to an end. The result of a multiyear project, Terror, Insurgency, and the State assembles the findings of scholars who conducted extensive field research with rebel groups and governments. This comparative analysis documents the aim of long-standing insurgent groups such as the Tamil Tigers, the IRA, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Basque Country and Liberty, and the People's Liberation Army of the Communist Party of Nepal, as well as the more recently visible Hizballah and Hamas. These groups represent varying kinds of insurgency. Several strive for national liberation or territory. They are either secessionists who contend with a central government that they regard as hostile, or irredentists who seek to reunify a divided homeland. Others, with rural and peasant bases, emphasize economic inequalities, class struggle, and socialism. At least three known factions are explicitly Islamist, with a religious agenda and a paramilitary organization.

Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers several case studies of insurgent movements around the world. It would be useful for a course that explored several theories of emergent conflict and peacebuilding in that it provides brief (but very good) summaries of several protracted social conflicts (Azar). The interesting conclusions of the editors are laid out in a number of propositions (most of which I found not useful). However, I found it fascinating that they feel their case studies undermine Collier and other 'supply-side' approaches to conflict. Page 400 "Propo 11: Causes matter more than "gree" in initiating insurgencies; "supply-side explanations" may help explain the duration of insurgent organizations, but not their origins, their ceasefires, or their termination." True.. but, they then go on to overly rely on self narratives as a good way to explain emergent conflicts. I think a combination of approaches that draw from Collier, Kalyvas, Toft, and the more narrative (discourses) is more useful than this academic one-upmanship.