ABSTRACT
The specter of political violence and terrorism has increasingly occupied the public mind and social science inquiry in recent years. Perpetrators of political violence and terrorism are often seen in one of two ways by sectors of the world’s citizenry. Members of the middle class in developed societies perceive terrorists as pathological individuals driven by evil demons. Third World peoples, with the exception of most political and economic elites, see violent nongovernmental political actors as fighters for national and, indeed, human liberation.
