Existential threats and civil-security relations Edited by Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer At the onset of the twenty-first century, a substantial portion of politicians and citizens throughout the world believe and declare that their states are facing existential threat, whether domestic, external, or both. This perception is discerned in states categorized widely, from not democratic and partially democratic states to small states and greater powers that are considered to be democratic, such as the United States, Britain, and France. The chapters in this book present and develop the major theoretical approaches to existential threats: structural, cultural, and rational. The authors also conceptualize existential threats and distinguish them from other types of threats, discussing some of the most important actors that promote the perception of an existential threat - the security sector especially, but also the media. Small states that have faced - or still face - similar predicaments include effective democracies, such as the United States (in its formative period) and Switzerland; formal democracies, such as Israel and Finland; authoritarian or partially free states that have transformed into informal democracies, such as South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, and the smaller East European states after the cold war; and states that have remained partially free, such as Singapore and some formerly Soviet states. Oren Barak is senior lecturer of Political Science and international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and research fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations. Gabriel Sheffer is professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been the director of both the Jerusalem Group for National Planning at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.