COLLUSION

This chapter considers not only the record of collusion but what such extra-judicial violence says, more broadly, about the institutionalised coercive practices of the (post-)imperial, liberal-democratic state. After examining some of the issues raised by the role collusion have played as part of the legacy landscape, the chapter concludes by considering why collusion matters and what debates about its meaning tell us about struggles over memories of the Troubles today. State collusion with loyalist paramilitaries will also form the main focal point for this chapter. While the focus here is on collusion with loyalist armed organisations, it is important to recognise the significance and scale of state collusion with agents and informers operating within republican groups. Bottom-up collusion was moulded by the pervasiveness of these embedded sectarianised state-society relations. However, it is in the activities of state agents and informers operating within loyalist organisations, and the actions of their handlers, that allegations of top-down collusion are crystalised.