Abstract

This chapter analyses a corpus of policy documents which sets out UK national security policy between 2001 and 2016, as an exemplar of the contemporary discourse of counter-terrorism in Europe, the USA and worldwide. To enable a chronological comparison, three sub-corpora are defined: one relating to a discourse of citizenship and community cohesion (2001–2006); one relating to the prevention of violent extremism within the UK (2007–2011); and one relating to the re-emergence of external threats to UK national security (2012–2016). Analysis confirms the appropriation of the discourse of community cohesion by a discourse of deradicalization in the second period; and reveals an intensification of a discourse of regulation, detention and exclusion in the final period.