This article adds to typological research on political violence and terrorism. A neglected way in the field, including by theoretical research. The goal is to marginalize frequent and divisive dilemmas in the field, especially dilemmas about definition and causes of terrorism. The proposed typology of political violence is deductive. It avoids two weaknesses of current typologies : reliance on a definition of terrorism and lack of link between state and non-state violence. The violent organization is characterized by three criteria : who, why and how ? It integrates time variable to allow dynamic analysis of violent organizations.