How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

The more highly developed literature on social movements posits, for example, that terrorism may appear at the end of a cycle of the rise and fall of movements of mass protest.6 From this perspective, the best way to understand the life span of a particular group is to study the broader movement of which it is a part. But social movements are rarely oriented mainly toward violence, and may just as easily be drawn toward more idealistic means. Understanding the pattern of mobilization may be important for dissecting the origins of an established group, but may not be as revealing of its likely end. While it is important, research into social movements on the whole gives more insight into the origins of terrorist groups than it does into their decline.