In Identifying Threats and Threatening Identities, Rousseau addresses four sets of
questions: (1) how do individuals define members of the ‘‘ingroup,’’ and how
do they treat ‘‘outgroups’’; (2) how do individuals construct beliefs and opinions;
(3) how do ideas spread throughout a population, and when do they
become hegemonic; and (4) how do societies differ in the construction of
threats? Rousseau reviews the threat perception literature from realist, liberal,
and constructivist standpoints (Chapters 2 and 3). He then introduces a ‘‘construction
of threat model’’ aimed at answering the four sets of questions and
demonstrating when realist and liberal predictions are correct.