The Sociopolitical Contexts Affecting Police-Community Engagement in Northern Ireland, Britain, and the United States

Counterterrorism is a challenging arena characterized by deep disagreements regarding “truth,” tactics, and the appropriate roles of governments and communities. Despite this, as a state-led national and international approach to conflict, counterterrorism tends, in fairly black-and-white terms, to situate terrorism as the “problem” and “terrorists” as the enemy. The politically charged calls to defeat terrorism are replete with diametric language, such as former president Bush’s argument that the world is cleanly divided in matters of terrorism: you are either for us or against us. This simplistic characterization, however attractive it may be to some, overshadows the complexities that confront governments, police, nongovernmental organizations, and communities in their efforts to work collaboratively to reduce violence.