Is it Possible and Preferable to Negotiate with Terrorists?

Abstract

It has been a staple assumption that terrorists ‘do not want a place at the table: they want to shatter the table’. Across policymakers, academia and a wider commentariat, this position – that negotiation with the ‘new’ Islamist terrorist actor is both impossible and, anyway, highly undesirable – is so commonplace that the question has scarcely been raised. But is it true? The article considers the five pillars on which the no‐negotiation position rests. First, ‘rationality’: are terrorists pathologically mad or fanatical? Second, ‘viability’: are there common interests or is this a zero‐sum game? Third, ‘representation’: can terrorists fit into a diplomatic system recognising representative parties? Fourth, ‘legitimacy’: can diplomacy, as a system of norms, conventions and practices be applied to agents who reject this system wholesale? Fifth, ‘preferability’: even if possible, is it either strategically or ethically right to do so? The case on this question should not be closed yet.