State-Sponsored Terror

State-sponsored terror refers to the state sponsorship of a violent nonstate actor engaged in terrorist activity. Organizations designated as state-sponsored terrorist organizations are groups that engage in politically motivated violence against noncombatants in order to coerce another into an action they might not otherwise take. In many cases, states will sponsor terrorist organizations that are acting toward a desired state goal. State-sponsored terror is relevant in studies of political behavior due to state involvement with violent dissident groups worldwide. The following sections describe how states sponsor terrorist organizations and the use of state-sponsored terror as a means of proxy conflicts. The entry concludes with a discussion of the difficulty of identifying states that sponsor terror.