Definitions of War, Torture, and Terrorism in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States

Abstract

Unlike other chapters in this section, all of which focus on a single geographic region, this chapter reports on countries [the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK), the United States (US), Canada, and Australia] located in three different geographical regions of the world: Western Europe, North America, and the Pacific. These major predominantly English-speaking countries share, in addition to a common language, similar forms of governments, similar legal systems, educational systems, shared media, and popular culture. They were all, at some point in their history, part of the British Empire. We refer to this set of countries throughout this volume as the UK/Anglo countries or region. However, because Great Britain once colonized Northern Ireland just as it colonized the USA, Canada, and Australia, we recruited separate samples from Great Britain and Northern Ireland in our pursuit of a sample of “voices” from the region.