Researching Private Security in Africa: Two Theoretical Orientations, Two Tales of Security Governance
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
| Author | Bruno Oliveira Martins,Åsne Kalland Aarstad |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12590 |
Researching Private Security in Africa: Two
Theoretical Orientations, Two Tales of Security
Governance
Asne Kalland Aarstad
Independent Researcher
Bruno Oliveira Martins
Peace Research Institute Oslo, and
Malm€
o University
The Governance of Private Security by Marco Boggero.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. xvii + 199 pp., £99.99
hardcover 978-3-319-69592-1, £79.50 e-book 978-3-319-
69593-8
Private Security in Africa: From the Global Assemblage
to the Everyday edited by Paul Higate and Mats Utas. Lon-
don: Zed Books, 2017. 192 pp., £24.99 paperback
9781786990259
Over the last two decades, scholars of international secu-
rity and criminology have conducted research in a number
of African countries in order to both explain and understand
the phenomenon of private security. The approaches range
from descriptive outlines of mercenarism and private secu-
rity companies in the continent (Musah and Fayemi, 2000)
to theoretically fueled inquiries connecting local security
practices to global trends and ‘rationalities’(Abrahamsen
and Williams, 2009). A number of issues have permeated
the debate, among them the impact of private security in
scenarios of fragile statehood (Avant, 2005), the regulation
of the field (Chesterman 2009) and the notion of hybrid
security, understood as the intertwinement of public and
private actors’roles and spheres of influence (H€
onke, 2013;
H€
onke and M€
uller, 2012). The two books under review in
this essay engage with the previous literature, but they do
so from very different theoretical orientations.
Private security and social norms
Boggero’s constructivist contribution addresses the question
of how social norms influence contemporary private security
governance structures in a number of African countries. In
particular, the book looks into the factors that produce
changes in regulation and the norms that shape global initia-
tives and individual state choices. Three instances of regula-
tory cooperation are explored in the book: the Montreux
Document (and the related International Code of Conduct
for private security service providers), the UN initiative that
led to the elaboration of the Convention on Private Military
and Security Companies, and relevant domestic regulations
in a number of African countries (p. 10). After a first part in
which the first two regulatory frameworks are described, the
study conducts four case studies in Nigeria, Liberia, South
Africa and Sierra Leone to explore the interplay between the
international regulatory frameworks and domestic dynamics.
Incidental input from other countries (Uganda and Madagas-
car) is also found throughout the book. Finally, the study
briefly introduces the relevant case of Chinese private secu-
rity companies with activities in the African continent. These
companies operate in different forms, from joint ventures
with local companies to larger-scale projects and are part of
China’s broader economic intervention in Africa. This phe-
nomenon brings additional challenges to an already complex
situation characterized by different levels of state capacity
and different patterns of adherence to international PMSC
(Private Military and Security Companies) norms. Unfortu-
nately, however, the independent, brief treatment of the Chi-
nese case in a chapter called ‘Ideas and interests in Africa’
prevents an analysis of how this phenomenon influences the
governance of private security in the country case studies.
The book has rich empirical material, which is not explored
to its potential mostly due to choices at the methodological
and research design levels. The case selection is not suffi-
ciently justified and the logic of inference resulting from the
comparative exercise is not laid out. Additionally, the author’s
adherence to the process-tracing method appears superficial.
Process tracing is not thoroughly introduced, the method is
hardly applied and the most advanced and up-to-date litera-
ture on process tracing as scientific method is not referred to.
As a consequence, the book’s conclusions are more limited in
scope than they could have been.
Private security and security assemblages
In the critical security studies literature, the concept of
‘assemblage’has become a much-used frame for exploring
the complex interaction of actors and practices that
©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2018) 9:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12590
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 4 . November 2018
586
Review Essay
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