ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that dual status groups, political actors that choose to use both political violence and non-violent political participation as political parties, do so because it is more rational to use different strategies depending on the context compared to ceasing all uses of violence as former terrorist and guerrilla groups have done. In this way, some terrorist and guerrilla groups play a dual role as both violent non-state actors and legitimate political parties. Research of such dual status groups is greatly lacking in studies on terrorism, insurgency, political violence, and democracy. There are two cases in the Middle East in which an Islamist terrorist group has established a political party and simultaneously continues violence, Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah and Hamas are both cited by de Zeeuw as partial transformations and it is certainly true that both of these groups are only partially transformed in that they have not renounced violence and changed their structures to be purely political parties.
