Securing the city: Private security companies and non-state authority in global governance

International Relations

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 237-253

  Abrahamsen, Rita ^a   Williams, Michael C ^a  

^a ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Authority; Cape Town; Globalisation; Private security; South Africa

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249288700     PISSN: 00471178     EISSN: 17412862     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0047117807077006     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. The research for this article was funded by the UK ESRC, grant no. RES-223-25-0074. The article draws on three fieldwork visits to South Africa over the period 2001-4, as well as interviews with security companies in Europe. We would like to thank the ESRC for its support, and also the participants at the initial Gregynog conference for the very useful comments they provided on earlier drafts of this article.
2. John Agnew, 'The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory', Review of International Political Economy, 1(1), 1994, pp. 53-80.
3. Michael Barnett, 'Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory', in Thomas Callaghy, Ronald Kassimir and Robert Latham (eds), Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 49-50.
4. See John Braithwaite and Peter Drahos, Global Business Regulation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); A. Claire Cutler, Private Power and Global Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); A. Claire Cutler, Virginia Haufler and Tony Porter (eds), Private Authority and International Affairs (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999); Yale Ferguson and Richard Mansbach, Polities: Authority, Identities and Change (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996); Rodney Bruce Hall and Thomas Bierstecker (eds), The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Richard Higgott, Geoffrey Underhill and Andreas Bieler (eds), Non-State Actors and Authority in the Global System (London: Routledge, 2000); Karsent Ronit and Volker Schneider (eds), Private Organizations in Global Politics (London: Routledge, 2000); Robert Falkner, 'Private Environmental Governance and International Relations: Exploring the Links', Global Environmental Politics, 3(2), 2003, pp. 72-87. L. Henry, Giles Mohan and H. Yanacopulos, 'Networks as Transnational Agents of Development', Third World Quarterly, 5(5), 2004, pp. 839-55.
5. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
6. Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. K. Fayemi, Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma (London: Pluto, 2000); Guy Arnold, Mercenaries: The Scourge of the Third World (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); Jackie Cilliers and Peggy Mason (eds), Peace, Profit, or Plunder: The Privatization of Security in War-torn African Societies (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 1999).
7. Bernadette Methuen and Ian Taylor, 'Return of the Dogs of War? The Privatisation of Security in Africa', in Hall and Bierstecker, The Emergence of Private Authority, pp. 183-99.
8. Rodney B. Hall and Thomas Bierstecker, 'Private Authority as Global Governance', in Hall and Bierstecker, The Emergence of Private Authority, pp. 3-22.
9. See Abdel-Fatau Mussah, 'Africa: Private Military Intervention and Arms Proliferation in the Process of State Decay', in J. Milliken (ed.), State Failure, State Collapse, and State Reconstruction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); Methuen and Taylor, 'Return of the Dogs of War?'
10. These tendencies have been recognised in some of the most recent literature, which goes a long way towards recognising the shifting boundaries of the public-private entailed by military privatisation. See, for example, Deborah Avant, The Market for Force (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), and Peter W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).
11. Peter Evans, 'The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization', World Politics, 50(1), 1997, pp. 62-87.
12. Credit Suisse/First Boston, Review of the South African Private Security Industry (n.p.: Credit Suisse/First Boston), 7 February 2001.
13. Ulrick Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage, 1992).
14. Francesco Mancini, In Good Company: The Role of Business in Security Sector Reform (London, Demos, 2006).
15. Basic information on both companies can be found on their respective websites: www.securitas.com and www.group4securicor.com.
16. See www.adt.com and www.chubbsecurity.com.
17. Richard Friedman, 'On the Concept of Authority in Political Philosophy', in Joseph Raz (ed.), Authority (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 63; Bruce Lincoln, Authority: Construction and Corrosion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Barnett, 'Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory', discusses authority in IR.
18. Lincoln, Authority.
19. Lincoln, Authority; Barnett, 'Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory'. On private security, Anna Leander, 'The Power to Construct International Security: On the Significance of the Emergence of Private Military Companies', Millennium, 33(3), 2005, pp. 803-26.
20. Steven Lukes, 'Perspectives on Authority', in Raz, Authority, pp. 203-17.
21. Barnett, 'Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory'.
22. Cutler, Private Power and Global Authority.
23. Jennifer Clapp, 'The Privatization of Global Environmental Governance: ISO 14000 and the Developing World', Global Governance, 4(3), 1999, pp. 295-316.
24. Thomas Callaghy, 'Networks and Governance in Africa: Innovation in the Debt Regime', in Callaghy et al., Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa, pp. 115-48.
25. Barnett, 'Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory'.
26. See, for example, Cutler et al., Private Authority and International Affairs; Virginia Haufler, A Public Role for the Private Sector: Industry Self-Regulation in a Global Economy (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2001).
27. Rick Sarre, 'The Legal Basis for the Authority of Private Police and an Examination of their Relationship to the "Public" Police', in Private Sector and Community Involvement in the Criminal Justice System (Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1994), p. 169.
28. For extensive and detailed analyses of these processes, see David Garland, The Culture of Control (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Les Johnston, The Rebirth of Private Policing (London: Routledge, 1992); Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn, Private Security and Public Policing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Ian Loader, 'Thinking Normatively about Private Security', Journal of Law and Society, 24(3), 1997, pp. 377-94; P. O'Malley and D. Palmer, 'Post-Keynesian Policing', Economy and Society, 27, 1996, pp. 135-47; George S. Rigakos, 'Hyperpanoptics as a Commodity: The Case of the Parapolice', Canadian Journal of Sociology, 24(3), 1999, pp. 381-410; Les Johnston and Clifford Shearing, Governing Security (London: Routledge, 2004).
29. Indicative is the treatment of both Securitas and Group4Falck as exemplary models of a service company in Waldemar Schmitt, Gordon Adler and Els van Weering, Winning at Service (New York: Wiley, 2003), and the discussion in John Stees, Outsourcing Security: A Guide for Contracting Services (Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998).
30. For example of this in environmental governance, see Clapp, 'The Privatization of Global Environmental Governance'.
31. Falkner, 'Private Environmental Governance and International Relations'.
32. Johnston, Rebirth of Private Policing; Jones and Newburn, Private Security and Public Policing; David H. Bayley and Clifford Shearing, The New Structure of Policing: Description, Conceptualization and Research Agenda (Washington DC: National Institute of Justice, 2001).
33. Ian Loader, 'Private Security and the Demand for Protection in Contemporary Britain', Policing and Society, 7, 1997, p. 147.
34. Jones and Newburn, Private Security and Public Policing.
35. Credit Suisse/First Boston, Review of the South African Private Security Industry.
36. Mark Shaw and Clifford Shearing, 'Reshaping Security: An Examination of the Governance of Security in South Africa', African Security Review, 7(3), 1998, p. 4.
37. Data supplied by private security company.
38. Credit Suisse/First Boston, Review of the South African Private Security Industry, p. 7.
39. Martin Schonteich, '2001 Crime Trends: A Turning Point?', SA Crime Quarterly, 1 July 2002; D. Albert, 'New Security Company Identifies Niche Market', Security Focus, 22(1), 2004, p. 56; Anthony Minaar, 'Crime Prevention, Partnership Policing and the Growth of Private Security: The South African Experience', paper presented at Policing in Central and Eastern Europe - Dilemmas of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 23-5 2004.
40. Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority website at: www.psira-sa.co.za.
41. Minaar, 'Crime Prevention, Partnership Policing and the Growth of Private Security', p. 13.
42. See Jenny Irish, Policing for Profit: The Future of South Africa's Private Security Industry, ISS Monograph Series 39 (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 1999); Martin Schonteich, 'Fighting Crime with Private Muscle: The Private Sector and Crime Prevention', African Security Review, 8(5), 1999, pp. 65-75; Mike Hough, 'Private and Public Security in the RSA: Competition or Cooperation?', Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 24(2), 2002: Pp. 78-95.
43. Hough, 'Private and Public Security in the RSA'.
44. Hough 'Private and Public Security in the RSA', p. 85.
45. Private Security Industry Regulation Act, 2001.
46. Rita Abrahamsen and Michael C. Williams, 'Privatisation, Globalisation and the Politics of Protection in South Africa', in Jef Huysmans, Andrew Dobson and Raia Prokhovnik (eds), The Politics of Protection: Sites of Insecurity and Political Agency (London: Routledge, 2006).
47. The strike was highly conflictual and controversial. Fifty-seven security guards were killed, according to the Private Security Industry Provident Fund, because they wanted to return to work. The South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union is suing the Ministry of Safety and Security following a march in Cape Town when the police fired shots and used teargas against demonstrators. See 'At Long Last, Security Strike is Over', Mail and Guardian, 22 June 2006; 'Provident Fund: 57 Guards Killed During Strike', Mail and Guardian, 19 June 2006.
48. See Bill Dixon and Janine Rauch, Sector Policing: Origins and Prospects. ISS Monograph 97 (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2004) and Dixon, this issue, pp. 163-82.
49. Minaar, 'Crime Prevention, Partnership Policing and the Growth of Private Security'.
50. SAPS, quoted in Julie Berg, 'Private Policing in South Africa: The Cape Town City Improvement District - Pluralisation in Practice', Society in Transition, 35(2), 2004, p. 227.
51. Department of Community Safety, 'Provincial Government Western Cape: Strategic Plan 2003/04 to 2005/06', p. 6.
52. See Tony Travers and J. Weimar, Business Improvement Districts: New York and London (London: Corporation of London, 1996); Robert C. Davies, Christopher W. Ortiz, Sarah Dadush, Jenny Irish, Arturo Alvarado and Diane Davis, 'The Public Accountability of Private Police: Lessons from New York, Johannesburg, and Mexico City', Policing and Society, 13(2), 2003, pp. 197-210.
53. The board of directors consists of representatives from, amongst others, Business Against Crime, the Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce, Cape Town Heritage Trust and the City of Cape Town; see www.capetownpartnership.co.za (accessed 11 February 2007). See also Berg, Private Policing in South Africa: The Cape Town City Improvement District'.
54. See www.capetownpartnership.co.za.
55. The Cape Town City Police is a municipal police service established in December 2001. The main aim is visible policing, and they make arrests and issue fines for all types of offences but do not have investigative functions, which is the responsibility of the SAPS.
56. Interviews with Securicor managers.
57. Shearing and Phillip Stenning, 'Modern Private Security: Its Growth and Implications', in M. Tonry and M. Norval (eds), Crime and Justice - An Annual Review of Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 193-245.
58. Sylvester E. Sylvester, 'It's Official: Cape Town is Clean and Safe', Cape Argus, 6 March 2002.
59. Derek Bock, 'Cape Town Central City: An Urban Renewal Success Story' (Public Powerpoint presentation, Cape Town, 2005).
60. Department of Safety and Security, White Paper on Safety and Security: In Service of Safety 1999-2004 (Pretoria: Department of Safety and Security, 1998), p. 7.
61. Les Johnston, Policing the Risk Society (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 162.
62. Quoted in Berg, 'Private Policing in South Africa', p. 242.
63. See Sylvester, 'It's Official: Cape Town is Clean and Safe'.
64. See www.capetown.gov.za/by-laws. For a highly critical view of the CCID, see Tony Roshan Samara, 'State Security in Transition: The War on Crime in Post Apartheid South Africa', Social Identities, 9(2), 2003, pp. 277-312.