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

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

First, they are drawn from a range of modern time periods, from the late nineteenth century to the present, as well as across different regional settings including Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The goal is to minimize the West-centric “tyranny of the now” by casting a wider regional and historical net. Second, the cases chosen have ample, reliable documentary material available. Governments often do not want repressive counterterrorist policies publicized; this book includes only cases where the documentary evidence is reasonably complete and objective. Third, the cases encompass groups with a range of motivations, including separatist, leftist-revolutionary, and Islamist; and a range of types of terrorist organizations, from cellular to hierarchical. Fourth, they provide the opportunity to study state behavior across different types of regimes: authoritarian (Egypt, tsarist Russia), new or fragile democracies (Peru, post–Cold War Russia, Turkey), and established democracies (Uruguay). The argument is often made that democratic states are unable to end terrorism through repression, because democratic states find it difficult to maintain such campaigns over time. This set of six cases will test whether repression works in nondemocratic states as well.