Terror, Insurgency and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts

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.

Marianne Heiberg (1945-2004) was Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and an expert on ethnic conflicts and peacekeeping operations in the Middle East. She served as Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East and as Special Advisor to the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its Culture for Peace program. Brendan O'Leary is Lauder Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Ethnic Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of fifteen books, including The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. John Tirman is Executive Director of the Center for International Studies at MIT and has served as an advisor to the U.S. State Department and several NGOs. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy, including The Maze of Fear: Security and Migration After 9/11 and Multilateralism Under Challenge? Power, International Order, and Structural Change.