The networked and plural nature of policing suggests that agencies are often involved in extensive exchanges of expertise, resources and knowledge. However, the network structure and distribution of power between various policing actors can vary considerably. This highlights the importance of developing sound analytical perspectives that can help unpack the complexities behind the linkages. Applying the network perspective, this article underlines the value of utilizing analytical tools and approaches drawn from social network analysis, such as brokerage and homophily, to empirically assess the roles of agencies and their contribution to plural policing. This, in turn, shows how, in the mixed economy of policing, as well as being understood in terms of the normative debates that often figure in the current literature, relational phenomena also require more sophisticated empirical approaches.

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The increasing pluralisation of policing and the changing patterns of security have in the past decades called into question the sharp dividing lines between the 'public' and the 'private'. For instance, Marc Schuilenburg ([2015. The securitization of society: crime, risk, and social order. New York University Press]) outlines the notion of the middle groundwhere everything is becoming hybridwhich fundamentally changes the relationships and practices of policing agencies, making the conceptual pairs of public-private obsolete. However, by examining policing collaboration in the airport and maritime port environment in Norway, the empirical findings in this article reveal that the public-private divide is still salient to the various policing agencies. The findings are at odds with the conceptual and empirical assumptions about the middle ground of hybridity in policing. The article demonstrates that both public and private policing agencies strongly rely on the traditional dividing lines of public and private to navigate and make sense of their practices and relations, as well as their own sense of identity in a complex policing environment. The article discusses the implications of these findings.

Global hubs such as airports and maritime ports are geographical centers where immense flows converge, and are characterized by speed, time and efficiency in linking local markets and global economic trade networks. Being symbolic infrastructures of capitalism, global hubs may attract criminal exploitation and be exposed to security risks. Drawing on extensive interview material from those involved in Norwegian airport and port security, this article explores how policing agencies experience the balancing of the imperatives of security and trade. It reveals how policing agencies are affected by, and seek to adapt to, the demands for efficiency and speed intrinsic to the trade regime, thereby highlighting the importance of the temporal dimension to understanding the complexities of contemporary security governance.

There has been considerable scholarly interest regarding the notion of exceptionality, i.e. how and under what conditions extraordinary powers and measures are justified in the name of security. Exceptional threats are now omnipresent in the security discourse of the aviation and maritime industries, and this influences the everyday working environment. Taking Norwegian airport and port security as its point of departure, this article analyzes how security and policing agencies perceive, experience, and respond to the exceptional as part of their everyday practice. Drawing on extensive interview material with security agencies, it reveals how agencies construct strategies to cope with the consequences of exceptionality that arise from heightened (in)security and vulnerability. This article demonstrates that instrumental logic in risk management is one crucial strategy, but evidence also reveals the importance of the human dimension in security practices, as the emotional aspect of security consciousness is a part of the everyday life of security agencies. Closely associated with this is the emergence of mechanisms of active resistance that provide excitement and alleviate boredom.