Conciliation as Counter-Terrorist Strategy

Conventional wisdom suggests that regimes should never bargain with terrorists. This preference for coercive and repressive responses rests largely on rhetorical rather than analytical characterizations of the problem of terrorism. If we consider terrorism as one possible tactic available to a challenger group engaged in a political struggle we push the question of response back into the political context where it belongs. We argue that two major models of this political context - the war model and the rational actor model - not only fail to preclude conciliatory strategies, they actually incorporate them. We outline some of the strategic and tactical considerations that must be weighed in determining the appropriateness of a conciliatory strategy.