Threat perception is studied as a predictor of cooperation or conflict behavior

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the synthesized of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2012 and 2023, spanning 3 journals. Those papers have been cited 33 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 6 representative gaps

• SECURITY THREATS REFLECTED IN THE STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS OF NATO’S EASTERN MEMBER COUNTRIES (2022) · Strategic Impact · doi

  No study examines how sub-threshold threats (those below the level triggering immediate military response) generate divergent threat perceptions across NATO members with shared alliance identity. Prior work shows threat perception varies by power asymmetry and value similarity within alliances, but none isolates the mechanisms by which the same ambiguous or low-intensity threat produces different national assessments across NATO's Eastern and Southern members.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: study examines sub-threshold threats below level triggering immediate
• The sense of nations for cooperation. How threat perception and ideology influence counterterrorism cooperation between EU members (2023) · Journal of Contemporary European Studies · doi

  Across this set, threat perception is measured as a dependent variable only in response to explicit, salient events (invasion, terrorism, nuclear weapons) or laboratory manipulations; none of these studies operationalizes or measures threat perception formation in response to ambiguous, sub-threshold military activities (e.g., border probing, intelligence operations, hybrid warfare below armed conflict threshold) that NATO members experience differently.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: across set threat perception measured dependent variable only
• SECURITY THREATS REFLECTED IN THE STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS OF NATO’S EASTERN MEMBER COUNTRIES (2022) · Strategic Impact · doi

  Strategic documents and national security strategies of NATO Eastern members are analyzed for threat identification, but no study systematically compares how the same sub-threshold threat is framed, justified, or communicated differently in official strategic narratives across member states, nor how these narrative differences shape public and elite threat perception divergence.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: strategic documents national security strategies nato eastern members
• The sense of nations for cooperation. How threat perception and ideology influence counterterrorism cooperation between EU members (2023) · Journal of Contemporary European Studies · doi

  Political and ideological factors (cabinet ideology, party affiliation, historical memory) are shown to influence threat perception and cooperation, but none of these studies examines how sub-threshold threats activate different historical narratives or ideological frames within the same NATO member state, producing intra-national divergence in threat perception that complicates alliance cohesion.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: political ideological factors cabinet ideology party affiliation historical
• SECURITY THREATS REFLECTED IN THE STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS OF NATO’S EASTERN MEMBER COUNTRIES (2022) · Strategic Impact · doi

  Threat perception is studied as a predictor of cooperation or conflict behavior, but no study measures how divergent threat perceptions of the same sub-threshold threat across NATO members feed back to erode trust, complicate burden-sharing agreements, or create alliance credibility problems—the downstream institutional consequences of perception divergence.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: threat perception studied predictor cooperation conflict behavior study
• The Impact of Value Similarity and Power on the Perception of Threat (2012) · Political Psychology · cited 33× · doi

  Value similarity and shared identity are shown to reduce threat perception in laboratory and EU expansion contexts, but none of these studies tests whether NATO's formal institutional identity (collective defense, Article 5) and shared values actually moderate or amplify divergent threat perceptions of sub-threshold threats, or whether institutional framing can realign perception across member states.

  generalsynthesizedevidence 5/5
  Keywords: value similarity shared identity shown reduce threat perception

Questions about this gap