Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

lxxii • INTRODUCTIONsystems. The main characteristics of actor types and of types of goals areas follows:Type of ActorState• Acting against one’s own people to preserve their regime, sometimescalled state repression, regime terrorism, or state terror.• Acting against other states to topple their governments, known alsoas state sponsorship of terrorism.• Acting against other states to force political changes, that is,changes in the policies of targeted governments, also called statesponsorship of terrorism.Revolutionary• Acting to overthrow a regime to establish a new regime.• Acting to create a new state out of the territory of an existing state,for example, nationalist insurgents.• Acting to create a fundamental change in the nation-state system,for example, pan-nationalist or anarchistic movements.Entrepreneurial• Acting autonomously from any nation-state but also from any aspirantwould-be nation-state.• Operating transnationally, may hire themselves out to states orother groups.• Engaging in criminal actions but usually as a means to other politicalends, for example, bank robberies and kidnapping for ransom in orderto finance operations or else to drive out some foreign presence.Goals of ActorsRegime Maintenance: State repression of dissidentsRegime Change: Revolution by substate or antistate actorsLimited Advantage (subsystematic changes): Forcing policychanges by the state or protecting criminal enterprises from policeactions by the state