(Counter-)terrorism and hybridity

This chapter illustrates the hybrid nature of terrorism and counter-terrorism as mechanisms of resistance within asymmetrical power relationships and, through considering its combination of measures and engaged actors, to illustrate the critical usefulness of conceptualising counter-terrorism as a hybrid phenomenon. The approaches at national, regional and international level indicate the contemporary nature of counter-terrorism as a hybrid activity that envelops and transcends the national and international, public and private, law and non-law. Contemporary counter-terrorism can be accurately characterised as, to at least some extent, a partnership between public and private actors. To characterise counter-terrorism as being neither legal nor extra-legal is to allude to two different traits of counter-terrorism: first, the use of instruments and modalities beyond law for the purposes of countering terrorism, and second engagement in activities that do not have a clear legal grounding in the name of counter-terrorism.