ABSTRACT
The horrific attacks of 9/11 transformed for most Americans and many people in other Western countries the perception of terrorism from fictional scenes in disaster movies to images of real-life horror. Just as important, never before had one terrorist attack reshaped the priorities and actual policy agenda of a victimized state as drastically as the assault on targets in New York and Washington. The point is that there were few lethal terrorist attacks in the United States (US) in all of 2017. Compared to the more than close to 40,000 individuals killed in car accidents and the close to 13,000 dying in gun homicides every year in the US the number of annual terrorist fatalities is small even in years with major terrorist attacks. Yet, the threat perception of the American public tends to be far greater with respect to terrorism than car crashes or gun violence. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
