ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a framework of analysis to investigate the consequences of violence on democratic stability. It provides a short historical discussion of the challenges facing all three democracies, including terrorism and economic crisis. The book examines the consequences of terrorism on democratic stability. It is theorized that terrorist violence threatens democratic stability by undermining both rudimentary purposes of the state: security and integration. The book examines the consequences of state repression and violence on democratic stability. It is hypothesized that state violence also undermines the rudimentary purposes of the state. A decrease in citizen confidence is expected to follow the decrease in the rudimentary purposes. The book concludes the testing of the two hypotheses by examining changes in citizen confidence in the state and in democratic stability.
