ABSTRACT
The chapter delineates three periods in the development of the continuity state repressive apparatuses (CSRAs): 1969–1981 (from the start of the insurgency until the Hunger Strikes); 1981–1998 (from the Hunger Strikes until the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)); 1998 to the present. It concentrates on key features of state practice couched within Gramsci's concept of hegemony: state rule premised upon force plus consent. The deep state is present in all capitalist societies and has an essential role in shaping political and civil society for outcomes which are congruent with the interests of the 'departing' imperial state. The period after the Hunger Strikes in 1981 marked the renewal of the CSRA, which would consolidate essential features of the deep state. The political and historical character of the reconstitution of UK state hegemony in Northern Ireland in the period both before and after the signing of the GFA in 1998 provides a unique example of the process of reformation of British state power.
