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This study examines the Swedish Police’s perceptions and experiences in implementing the 2015 Swedish Counter-Terrorism Strategy, focusing on the intermediary strategic level that connects political decision-making with local practitioners. Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), the study identifies barriers and facilitators across five domains: innovation, outer setting, inner setting, individual characteristics, and implementation processes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 participants from the National Operational Department (Noa), responsible for operationalizing the strategy or its critical components. The findings highlight systemic challenges, including misalignment between top-down directives and local priorities, resource limitations, and an emphasis on outputs (e.g., equipment procurement) over outcomes (e.g., prevention effectiveness). Key barriers included resistance to change, reliance on individual initiative, and a lack of clarity, motivation, and performance-based incentives. Structural and cultural factors, such as organizational autonomy and scepticism toward external mandates, further impeded implementation. Despite these obstacles, opportunities for improvement were identified. These include align national directives with local realities by engaging stakeholders early, transferring scientific knowledge on effective implementation to practitioners, recognizing individual contributions, and developing long-term, outcome-focused strategies. This research offers critical insights into the complexities of implementing counter-terrorism strategies within bureaucratic organizations, providing valuable lessons for similar contexts globally. Future research should incorporate regional and local perspectives to capture a comprehensive understanding of implementation dynamics across organizational levels.

Balancing security and civil liberties is a central challenge indemocratic counterterrorism. This qualitative study explores how Swedish policeperceive and navigate this balance, focusing on indicators of potential overreachand strategies to prevent it. Based on interviews across organizational levels,findings highlight concerns about surveillance normalization, expanding policepowers, selective targeting, and weak oversight. Police staff emphasizedproportionality, legal safeguards, community trust, and rights protection asessential to sustainable security. The study contributes to broader debates onsecurity governance and proposes ways to align law enforcement practices withdemocratic principles amid evolving threats.

An aim of committing terror is to instill fear in the population. This article explores to what extent Swedish citizens were cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally affected by the 2017 terrorist attack in Stockholm and how the citizens perceived that the authorities handled the situation. The study is based on data from a survey with 1996 participants, consisting of a random sample of people living in Sweden, aged 18–79 years. Our results show that exposure to terrorist acts has a significant negative psychological impact on the population in general and on those who do not feel part of Swedish society in particular. The attack's negative effect was despite the fact that the vast majority of respondents felt that society had handled the attack well and almost half of the respondents stated that they had gained increased confidence in the authorities.