Exiting armed struggle: cognitive dissonance and normative contradictions. The case of the PKK

While the involvement in terrorist organisations and social movements has generated a plethora of literature, little work exists on the exit from these two types of collectives. In order to grasp the plurality of factors involved in these processes, we based ourselves on an empirical sociological survey of 64 activists of the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK). This party experienced a major wave of departures from the guerrilla movement in the early 2000s. The micro-sociological study of desistance trajectories leads to nuance the role of ideology put forward by the meso-sociological analysis as an explanatory factor of desistance. It is also useful in highlighting the effect of the synergy between meso factors (such as organisational dysfunctions) and micro factors (personal reasons, cognitive dissonance induced by the identification of contradiction with the values that motivate commitment and the reality of life within the guerrilla) in justifying the exit from the clandestine group.