Terrorist organizations as hybrid actors of the international political process: a new challenge to the transatlantic community

Abstract

The subject of the study is to identify the place and role of terrorist organizations in the system of international relations and global security from the point of view of strategic approaches of the Western expert-analytical community and official political institutions of nation states, the EU and NATO. Globalization, the growing influence of non-State actors, including armed groups, as well as changing views on the nature and essence of the State have contributed to the hidden or explicit subjectivization of many participants in the international political process. Special attention is paid in the article to the new concept of "hybrid actor", which is widely discussed among experts and scientists at the present time. For the first time, the paper attempts to compare the positions of the United States and its European allies on interaction with hybrid actors. Thus, in recent decades, non-State actors have evolved in terms of political, social and military capabilities. This trend is evident in the Middle East and North Africa region, where the combination of weak State institutions, the presence of conflicts and instability has provided fertile ground for the actions of armed groups. Non-State armed groups in the Middle East are extremely diverse and include local, tribal and communal formations, transnational criminal organizations and networks, classic rebel opposition groups and so on. Within this broad category, a number of non-State armed groups have evolved to perform political, social and managerial functions.