ABSTRACT
Since 1968 and the start of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, terrorism and counter-terrorism have grown in significance and importance within the domestic sphere of Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). A threat that was a secondary concern in 1968 compared to the dominant menace of the Cold War has become in the present the major preoccupation of the British domestic security state. Understanding why this change has occurred and in what form involves four key groups of actors: the terrorists, the counter-terrorists, the politicians, and the courts. The first on this list represent proactivity, whereas the remainder tend to react to acts of terrorism of varying seriousness with the courts, in turn, being doubly reactive in that they react against the reaction of politicians and security forces to the actions of the terrorists. A key development across the time span to be covered is that, particularly since 9/11, the British security state has tried to shift from solely being reactive to becoming increasingly proactive although, arguably, that is still in reaction to a changing terrorism template.
