How are distinctions between public and private and between global and local security governance in Africa being redrawn? This article surveys the breadth of private security activity on the continent, and the political and economic factors driving its growth. It argues that analysis of private security in Africa must be situated within the significant power shifts taking place in international political economy. Contemporary security involves complex, fluid structures in which public and private agents interact, cooperate and compete. Issues of public scrutiny and accountability have important implications for democratic control and oversight.
Private actors are now an intrinsic part of global governance in many areas, and the resurgence of private security is striking. Private security companies operate at the transnational level and private security personnel frequently outnumber the public police by considerable margins. The activities of private military companies extend beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to Africa and other developing countries. The privatisation of non-military security has also expanded. A few large private security companies have emerged. The world’s largest PSC in terms of geographical reach, Group4Securicor, has 530,000 employees, an annual turnover of approximately $9 billion, and operations in 115 countries. Just as the uniformed guards of private security companies have become familiar in Africa, so have more informal non-state security actors.
In Africa, the military dimension has dominated discussion. But old modes of analysis may be ill-suited to appreciate the impacts of security privatisation. The shifting distinction between public and private is central to the understanding of global capitalism and the emergence of private security:
- The continent-wide expansion of private security is linked to the presence of international corporate activities and development personnel.
- The World Trade Organisation now includes private security in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), thus providing a strong incentive for member states to allow free and fair competition in security services.
- Local PSCs may struggle to survive in competition with well-resourced global giants, and local labour may struggle to have their demands heard against such powerful global employers.
- The private security sector (characterised by low salaries and poor labour conditions) is currently one of Africa’s few sectors of employment growth.
- Ostensibly public police forces may act primarily for private purposes on behalf of political elites concerned with regime survival, and this may encourage citizens to turn to private security.
- Traditional modes of policing may in fact be more effective than state forces, and vigilantism may be related to locally specific moral frameworks of identification and belonging.
The public/private distinction is historically constructed, reflecting particular social interests and power relations at particular points in time. Different markets or economies can be seen to have their own public/private distinction, in which a sphere of economic activity is perceived to be private and by implication, non-political. At present, the sphere of the private is expanding, constituting more and more areas of life as ‘non-political’. Absolute public/private distinctions and national/international divides are poor guides for political understanding.
- It is insufficient to explain the rise of private security in Africa purely with reference to weak or failing states, as if it was entirely domestically produced.
- Global capital that provides its own security allows for the extraction of resources in the absence of a public security apparatus.
- The power and authority conferred on private actors can alter the political landscape and affect who is secured and how.
- Private security actors and their foreign, financial backers (often mining companies) can enable weak state rulers to extend and maintain their non-bureaucratic, personal control within the commercially viable parts of their countries.
- Private security raises questions of equality, legitimacy, and social cohesion. The extent to which the availability of private security for the rich entails an increase in insecurity by the poor and reinforces existing inequalities is a key concern.
