ABSTRACT
A motive for terror can be traced to the perceptual and ideological biases of the regimes. The missionary state will prefer state terror over other policy options since it perceives the costs of terrorist action to be minimal and the benefits of goal-oriented behavior to be extensive. The abuses have been widespread and the governments seem to strike arbitrarily, unpredictably, and nearly everywhere against alleged enemies of the state. Theorists acknowledge the importance of threat perception to the study of coercion, but little has been written on it, outside of psychology and in international relations literature. Threat perception can best be understood as "an anticipation on the part of an observer, the decision maker, of impending harm to the state." States assess the relative capabilities and intentions of their alleged adversaries and then formulate perceptions based on the combined impact of those capabilities and intentions.
