Insurgent Terrorism

In this compelling book, Asal, Phillips, and Rethemeyer provide a much-needed investigation into why armed militant organizations target civilians during conflicts. The authors use both original quantitative data and numerous case references to construct a comprehensive picture of militant group targeting behavior that considers group relations with civilians, state counter-insurgency strategy, inter-group competition, group criminal activity, group ideology and ethnic ties and a host of other factors. The end result is a book that will inform both scholarly and policy audiences alike. A must-read for anyone interested in insurgent group behavior. * James Piazza, Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science, The Pennsylvania State University *
By honing in on relational explanations, this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of why insurgent organizations sometimes kill civilians and other times not. The concept of insurgent embeddedness provides a compelling and novel theoretical lens to explain this variation. Combined with a rich qualitative and quantitative empirical material, it generates profound insights that will inform and inspire students of insurgent violence in years to come. * Hanne Fjelde, Associate Professor, Uppsala University *
Insurgent Terrorism is a thought-provoking, provocative investigation by three leading scholars on why insurgent groups may target civilians in pursuit of political goals. This is an important question of increasing relevance for sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. The book supports its theses with data-driven, careful empirical analysis based on insurgent attacks, goals, and inter-organization linkages. * Todd Sandler, Emeritus Chair, University of Texas at Dallas *
This book provides a fresh look at organizations' choices to engage in terrorist attacks against civilians. Advancing a theory of embeddedness, the authors examine complex relationships between insurgent organizations, the state, other insurgents, and the civilian population. They find a diverse set of factors impact different types of terrorism, advancing our understanding of this phenomena. * Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Cunningham, Professor, University of Maryland *
Insurgent Terrorism is an important book that presents detailed cross-national data and analyses of civilian targeting by insurgent groups in civil conflict. Asal, Phillips, and Rethemeyer persuasively argue that the embeddedness of insurgent groups - that is, their relations with the state, the public, and each other - explains variation in civilian victimization. This relational account produces novel and intriguing findings, such as that both alignment and rivalry with other groups lead to more frequent civilian targeting. Marked by empirical richness, the book advances knowledge on the behavior of insurgent groups, civilian victimization, and civil conflict. * Ursula Daxecker, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam *