This pathbreaking book uncovers the important underappreciated role of armed opposition groups turned political parties in shaping long-term patterns of politics after war. Based on an empirically grounded and theoretically informed retrospective on nearly 30 years of post-conflict democratic state-building efforts it examines whether this practice has contributed to peace and finds that engaging post-rebel parties in electoral politics has proven to be a viable long-term strategy for bringing political stability that disparate post-rebel parties from different political contexts invest heavily in electoral politics and that few post-rebel parties actively seek return to civil conflict as a solution after becoming a political party. This book will be of key interest to scholars students and practitioners in democracy governance elections political parties post-conflict peacebuilding and more broadly to international relations comparative politics and regional politics. . Language: English