ABSTRACT
The history of party politics and modern forms of terrorist violence suggests there have been frequent points of convergence between the activities of party organizations around the world and the use of the gun and the bomb to achieve political objectives. In this chapter we hope to achieve three goals. First, we want to specify the political conditions that promote linkage between party politics and terrorism. Second, we intend to discuss the range of possible relationships that exist between political parties and terrorist groups. We believe these relationships are often both dynamic and reciprocal: parties may turn to terror, but terrorist organizations may turn to the electoral arena to pursue their goals by appealing to voters and vice versa.1 Third, we introduce and analyze a collection of data focused on relationships between parties and terrorist groups in order to show readers how common those relationships are, the ideological orientation of the parties involved and, finally, when and where these links are most prevalent.
