How Violence Ends: "Macro", "Meso" and "Micro" Analysis of Insurgents, Terrorists, and the Way Out of Conflict

Abstract

Many scholars have noticed how violence, and the involvement of agents (insurgents and terrorists) in violence, tends to be cyclical. However, relatively limited attention has been paid so far, within academia as well as in the broader public debate, to “how violence ends”, i.e. to the ways in which such (violent) groups move away from violence or cease to exist. This panel addresses these issues trying to combine approaches ranging from social movements studies to research in IR. The integration of these two traditionally separated strands is useful as while IR (and Security Studies) increasingly engaged in the analysis of intra-state conflicts and terrorism, they still can benefit a lot from a more intense consideration of studies dealing with low-scale political violence. These, however provide a wealth of insights on how violent groups behave, and in particular on how the macro, meso, and micro analytical levels of analysis interrelate in explaining the choice to end violence and/or the demise of combatants. The panel aims to offer an occasion for cross-fertilisation between concepts, theories and hypotheses deriving from both the fields, by exploring how the combination of organisational (meso) dynamics and characteristics of the groups and the (macro) changes in the political, cultural and social context affect the “exit” from terrorism/violence/civil wars from the standpoint of individuals and of insurgent and terrorist groups. Particular attention will be placed on the ‘time’ and ‘space’ of the end of violence, namely on the opportunities and constraints to disengagement available in the context in which violent actors operate (e.g. regime types, the mix of repression and facilitation that the state offers to them, etc.), as well as on the trajectories over time of cycles of violence (e.g. how different historical periods shape their strategic choices toward exit). Papers focusing either on different types of ‘disengaged’ terrorist/violent groups in single countries or on comparative cross-country analysis of the same type (e.g. ethnonationalists, left-wing, right-wing, religious) of violent groups are welcome. Papers might be both qualitative and quantitative (including analyses that use time-series or spatial econometrics). Of particular interest for this panel are studies that combine different approaches and levels of analysis.

Title	Details
Rules of Disengagement: Individual and Collective Ways Out of Terrorism in Spain	View Paper Details
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Pathways of an ‘Early’ Disengagement from Anti-Personnel Violence: The Case of the Weather Underground Organisation	View Paper Details
Exit From War: The Transformation of Rebels into Post-War Political Elites	View Paper Details