Social Cohesion and Counter-terrorism

Book excerpt: This book offers a research-based contribution to the debate around community cohesion and counter-terrorism policies in Britain. It is based upon privileged access to staff and elected members at five major local authorities, and upon qualitative interviews with a diverse range of individuals from differing ethnic communities who live and work in these areas. Social Cohesion and Counter-Terrorism provides an empirically led critical contribution to the understanding of current policies that have a direct impact upon the experiences of citizens in multi-ethnic urban contexts. It addresses the culpability of the central government in its construction of two policy agendas which have had serious negative consequences for British ethnic relations. The book explores the misfit between central government policy construction and the reality of the local authority's implementation of the policy.