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This pathbreaking book uncovers the important, underappreciated role of armed opposition groups turned political parties in shaping long-term patterns of politics after war.

Based on an empirically grounded and theoretically informed retrospective on nearly 30 years of post-conflict democratic state-building efforts, it examines whether this practice has contributed to peace and finds that engaging post-rebel parties in electoral politics has proven to be a viable long-term strategy for bringing political stability, that disparate post-rebel parties from different political contexts invest heavily in electoral politics, and that few post-rebel parties actively seek return to civil conflict as a solution after becoming a political party.

This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in democracy, governance, elections, political parties, post-conflict peacebuilding, and more broadly to international relations, comparative politics, and regional politics.

Carrie Manning is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author or co-author of three books and numerous articles on post-conflict politics and democratization.

Ian O. Smith is Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies and Global Affairs at St Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas. His research focuses on political parties and electoral competition in hybrid regimes.

Ozlem Tuncel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research addresses elections, political parties, and autocratic regimes.