ABSTRACT
As this book takes an interdisciplinary approach, this chapter outlines the key themes from the areas of terrorism in international relations, psychiatry and risk analysis in psychology. This provides a good introduction to the fields of research that readers from various disciplines may be less familiar with. Critically this includes an overview of the risk analysis concept of risk perception, risk communication and the social amplification of risk that are used extensively. This chapter also assesses the various interpretations of definitions concerning fear, anxiety, panic and terror from these different fields that will be used in this book. The definitions will explain the methodological parameters and which aspects will not be covered.
