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Book review of battle for allegiance: governments, terrorist groups, and constituencies in conflict: by Seden Akcinaroglu and Efe Tokdemir, Michigan, University of Michigan Press, 2020, 218 pp., £64.50 (Hardback) (UK), ISBN 9780472131990
This imaginative book takes on a counter-intuitive topic – why do terrorist groups use nonviolent methods? The book is concerned with this main question as well as the effectiveness of government responses towards the use of non-violent methods by terrorist groups and attempts to answer four inter-related questions: Why do terrorist groups pursue violent or non-violent tactics, or both? How does the use of such strategies affect a terrorist group’s success in achieving its goals? How do governments respond to such strategies? And how do the people respond to the strategies employed by both terrorist groups and governments? (1). Unlike many other books addressing terrorist-related issues, this book examines the political appeals that terrorist organisations make to constituents through non-violent means. The book’s introduction, which forms the first chapter, contains an excellent literature review that discusses previous work done on the use of non-violent methods by terrorist groups. The book looks at these four questions from the perspective of three different relationships: the government’s relationships with both the terrorist organisation and the target constituency, and the relationship between the terrorist organisation and the target constituency (15). The non-violent relationships between these three poles include governance, social services, accommodation, and political support. The book’s organisation reflects these three poles as well, with the first part examining the role of non-violent methods used by terrorist organisations, and the second part examining the governments’ response. The text uses extensive interviews, as well as a global level quantitative approach, to go beyond the case study method that the authors believe has defined the field.