Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Group 3 of the APSA Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism was charged with addressing the following questions:

What does the community of scholars in political science know about how violent conflicts
end that policy makers and the general public might want to know? What are the pathways
out of political violence, and what responses to political violence – by affected states, by
rebel groups, and by the international community – encourage the de-escalation (or
escalation) of violence and the transition to peace?

Answering these questions is complicated by the fact that political violence can assume a number of different forms – from interstate wars to revolutionary civil wars to secessionist conflicts to terrorism (in its many forms) to communal violence, to riots. There are limits to the extent to which we generalize across forms of political violence concerning what factors contribute to the deescalation
or termination of conflict. With that caveat in mind, the members of Group 3 offer the following summary of what social scientists have identified as the most salient issues concerning how armed conflicts come to an end, what can be done to bring them to an earlier and less destructive conclusion, and what can be done to prevent them from recurring.