ABSTRACT
One discussion of terrorism begins with the misleading statement that there has been virtually no discussion of governmental uses of terror in the social science literature (Slann 1987: 39). In point of fact, the social sciences have long been interested in the use of violence by governments. Authoritarian and totalitarian governments that rely on the use of repression and force in controlling their populations have actually been widely studied. Definitions of totalitarianism have even included the use of secret police and terror as one of the necessary characteristics of this type of regime (Neumann 1968: 183). Authoritarian governments are also likely to use repressive measures for controlling their populations and extraordinary mechanisms for dealing with dissidents and other opponents. Unlike non-state actors, it has been governments that have been able to use terror on a mass scale (Wilkinson 2000b: 1). In any event, while government use of force may not have been discussed with direct reference to terrorist practices, such practices have been analyzed in great depth.
