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The Reconstitution of Security Provision after the Cold War
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Security Entrepreneurs: Performing Protection in
Post-Cold War Europe
Alexandra Gheciu
Print publication date: 2018
Print ISBN-13: 9780198813064
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198813064.001.0001
The Reconstitution of Security Provision after
the Cold War
Alexandra Gheciu
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198813064.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book, explaining its rationale, conceptual
framework, and methodology and placing it within the context of the existing
literature. It argues that the nature and impact of commercialization of security
in East European polities is profound and, in itself, deserves more attention than
it has received so far. But the processes and practices examined in this book
transcend the boundaries of those polities. A study of East European
commercialization of security also sheds new light on aspects of the evolution of
the European Union (EU) and the wider structures of European policing and
security that have been insufficiently examined until now.
Keywords: security commercialization, private security, public power, glocalization, European Union
A quarter of century after the collapse of communism, there is no simple answer
to the question of who provides every day, non-military security in East
European polities—or in what ways they do so. This matters because the
complicated, complex practices of security governance and provision enacted in
those countries have a profound impact on the (re)constitution of key state
institutions, blur the boundary between public/private domains, and shape—
while also being shaped by—the participation of those countries in European
practices of governance and in global economic and political circuits. Questions
about the evolving nature and implications of security provision sit side by side
with issues of state capacities and growing inequalities at a time when many
people in Eastern Europe demand more protection from what they perceive as a
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growing number of dangers, yet also feel that their states are unable or
unwilling to provide adequate security. More broadly, developments in Eastern
Europe are linked to current debates about the extent to which the protection of
EU residents is best achieved via a move toward closer European integration
and a greater degree of security “harmonization,” or, conversely, more reliance
on national-level institutions and arrangements.
Focusing on four East European polities—Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania
—this book examines the dynamics and implications of processes of
commercialization of security that have occurred following the collapse of
communist regimes. These processes have been central to post-communist
liberalization, and have profoundly shaped those states and their integration into
European institutional structures and global economic and political circuits.
They have also affected the behavior and power of regional and global actors
(e.g. European institutions, regional and global corporations) in Eastern Europe.
Several aspects of security commercialization are particularly important. To
begin with, private actors—specifically private security companies (PSCs)—have
been reconstituted as partial agents of public power. As such, they (p.2) have
come to be systematically involved in security governance and provision—
helping to (re)define and implement the “rules of the game” in the field of
security, as they are now empowered to protect citizens and their property and
also to contribute to the maintenance of public order. Today, public officials
across Eastern Europe admit that their (often cash-strapped) state agencies
would find it extremely difficult to “behave like a state” without the aid of the
private security industry. In the words of a senior official from the Bulgarian
Ministry of Interior: “the truth is that we just don’t have the resources to be
everywhere at once and do everything that we are supposed to do to protect our
population. The state needs a ‘little brother’, and that can only come from the
private sector.”1
In addition, under the influence of neo-liberal norms, a potent commercial logic
has come to permeate public security institutions—leading to a situation in
which cost-cutting has become a key concern for police forces and other
governmental agencies. In several instances, ministries of interior and police
forces have not only devolved important responsibilities to private actors but
have also started to offer commercial services to private customers—sometimes
in direct competition with private security providers. In some cases, the private
security function seems to be privileged over the public one, as the police have
devoted more attention and resources to their commercial operations than to the
public security provision. There is evidence that in some parts of Eastern Europe
the police often warn the population that they lack the resources to adequately
protect the property of individuals and businesses, and actively encourage them
to hire a security company run by policemen or their families. This has led to a
redefinition of the relationship between the state and its population—now cast in
the dual role of citizens and paying customers—in ways that defy conventional
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wisdom about the role of the state, and pose particularly difficult normative
challenges in societies with weak democratic traditions.
More broadly, as the next chapters demonstrate, processes of security
commercialization in Eastern Europe have led to the emergence of complex,
hybrid networks of security providers that transcend domestic/international and
public/private boundaries, and behave, in many ways, as entrepreneurs. The
concept of entrepreneurs in the field of security is not new. A particularly
influential statement of the role of entrepreneurship in the reconstitution of
security following the collapse of communist regimes can be found in Vadim
Volkov’s book on the role of violence in creating the institutions of a new market
economy in Russia in the 1990s (Volkov 2002). As we shall see, countries of the
former Eastern bloc have, like Russia, experienced aspects of violent
entrepreneurship in the process of commercializing security provision. Yet, to
focus only on violence would be to oversimplify the dynamics of
entrepreneurship that have emerged in post-communist Europe. In this book,
(p.3) the terms entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship refer to a broader set of
practices, involving not only the use of coercion but also, and increasingly,
productive power (Barnett and Duvall 2005a and 2005b) mobilized by networks
of public/private actors in the name of participating in the protection of public
order via the production of “responsible” citizens. Linked to this, we can think of
the participants in the field of security as “norm entrepreneurs,” in the sense
that they have been involved in redefining the norms of security in post-
communist Europe (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). In all those entrepreneurship
practices, the private security industry has mobilized various forms of capital to
both cooperate and compete with public agencies as they (re)define the rules of
the game in the provision of a key public good, security. Interestingly, there is an
important performative dimension involved in the practices through which
private actors—in this case private security companies—cast themselves in
public roles and seek broad recognition as competent agents of public power. In
essence, PSCs do not simply carry out functions of protection conventionally
attributed to the state; they literally perform those practices.
Why examine post-communist states? There is something particularly interesting
about the dynamics and consequences of practices through which polities that
had previously defined their identity around a firm state control over the
provision of (in)security embraced but also manipulated liberal ideas concerning
state/society relations after 1989. During the Cold War, Central/East European
states were governed by highly repressive regimes that defined their missions
around communist ideals—as such, they had very large and complex state
agencies aimed at ensuring “domestic order,” systematically monitoring the
entire population and quickly silencing any actual or potential dissidents. The
contrast between that situation, characterized by a quasi-absolute state
monopoly in the field of security, and the present situation (in which the police
and the military have been significantly downsized and in which PSCs are
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increasingly prominent security actors) is striking. Across the former Eastern
bloc, PSCs have come to perform functions that range from the protection of
people, private property, and public spaces to securing critical infrastructure,
transporting valuables, gathering intelligence, helping to run prisons, and
managing crowds at cultural and sporting events (Caparini and Marenin 2005).
Yet, to cast this change as a mere shift from the predominance of the public
domain to the triumph of the private arena would be misleading. Rather, in those
states the security of persons and property is provided by hybrid networks of
actors, which both reflect and contribute to broader transformations of domestic
and transnational practices in the field of security. To further complicate
matters, in some instances networks of security providers not only transcend the
public/private boundary but also blur the licit/illicit divide. Thus, particularly in
the first years of post-communism (p.4) transition, many of the networks of
professionals involved in security provision had links to organized crime. In
recent years, those links have become weaker and more subtle—but have not
vanished altogether.
In recent years, several excellent works have been published on the subject of
security commodification in the neo-liberal age (Abrahamsen and Leander 2015;
Abrahamsen and Williams 2007, 2008, 2011; Avant 2005, 2006, 2016; Avant and
Haufler 2014, 2018; Ayling et al. 2009; Berndtsson 2012; Dunigan and Petersohn
2015; Eichler 2015; Haufler 1997, 2007, 2010; Krahmann 2003, 2007, 2010;
Leander 2004, 2005, 2010, 2013; Leander and Van Munster 2007). The
increasingly rich academic literature in this area also includes a series of
important analyses of security privatization in former communist countries (e.g.
Volkov 2002; Caparini and Marenin 2005; Gounev 2007; Tzvetkova 2008; Ganev
2009; Petrović 2010; Bureš 2015). Through their case studies, those works shed
valuable light on the transformations in security provision that occurred in
individual states from the former Eastern bloc. In many ways, this book builds
on those studies—expanding the analysis in several ways, both conceptually and
empirically. Thus, this book focuses on several countries, examines the interplay
between global/regional/national/local dynamics, and explores the links among
politics/security/economics in the reconstitution of the field of security.
Conceptually, the book draws on multiple disciplines, combining various
analytical tools in an effort to better understand the complexity and deep
implications of a new political economy of security provision that defies
conventional categories, breaks down traditional divides, and complicates moral
thinking about the nature and relative merits of actors involved in providing a
key public good.
The nature and impact of commercialization of security in East European polities
is profound and, in itself, deserves more attention than it has received so far. But
the processes and practices examined in this book transcend the boundaries of
those polities. A study of East European commercialization of security also sheds
new light on aspects of the evolution of the European Union (EU) and the wider
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structures of European policing and security that have been insufficiently
examined until now. The reconstitution of the field of security—as a key aspect of
the reconstruction of states in post-communist Europe—is inextricably linked,
but not reducible, to European integration and enlargement, as well as to
processes of globalization. As the next chapters show, we cannot understand the
changing nature of security provision in Eastern Europe unless we take into
account the reforms conducted as part of the EU accession negotiations (or, in
the case of Bosnia, within the framework of the international administration in
which the EU plays a key role). More broadly, we need to understand how
processes of liberalization in those countries have facilitated the influx of
multinational corporations demanding Western standards of protection—and of
global PSCs claiming to provide (p.5) those standards. Far from confining their
activities to the private sector, those global actors have forged alliances with a
series of local players, and have also become involved in efforts to reshape the
institutional and legal fabrics of their host societies.
At first glance, it might be tempting to conclude—given the massive resources
commanded by global PSCs, as well as the power exercised by the EU in
accession negotiations, not to mention within the framework of the international
administration in Bosnia—that East European polities had no choice but to
comply with the demands and prescriptions of international actors. Yet, this
would be an oversimplification of the evolution of security provision in former
communist polities. A careful analysis of the evolution of those countries reveals
that, far from being the passive recipients of Western-prescribed norms and
institutions, national and local actors have exercised significant forms of power
in shaping the logics of security provision in the post-communist era. By
exploring the dynamics and consequences of those exercises of power, this book
builds on recent critiques of the literature that ignore or marginalize the agency
of national/local actors in the processes of dissemination of international norms.2
Linked to this, the analysis developed in the following chapters sheds light on
the fluidity of security provision arrangements in the former Eastern bloc. Even
a quarter century after the collapse of communism, the domain of security in
each of the four East European countries continues to be the site of
transformation via power-filled practices through which various actors and
networks cooperate and compete, mobilizing—and seeking recognition for—
diverse types of material and non-material resources or forms of capital.3
By examining these complex sets of practices, I seek to contribute to the effort
to map an analytic terrain for the study of globalization that includes but is not
limited to a focus on growing interdependence and global institutions (Avant et
al. 2010; Sassen 2006, 2008). This book builds on several excellent studies of the
interplay between global, regional, and local dynamics in practices of security
provision (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011; Abrahamsen and Leander 2015;
Brodeur 2010; Bureš 2015; Gould 2017; Johnston 2000; van Steden and de
Waard 2013). In particular, it builds on Abrahamsen and Williams’s sophisticated
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analysis of global security assemblages—defined as transnational structures and
networks “in which a range of different actors and normativities interact,
cooperate and compete to produce new institutions, practices and forms of
deterritorialized security governance” (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011: 90).
More broadly, I suggest that recent developments in the field of security in
Eastern Europe can be seen as a reflection of what a series of scholars call
“glocalization.” Glocalization refers to a situation in which, far from being
disconnected from the local, global processes are local in each of their points
(p.6) (Latour 1993). This means that wherever globalization has effects, those
effects will depend on the particular setting or context in which they occur
(Robertson 1992; Swyngedouw 1997, 2004). Proponents of glocalization have
long argued that globalization dynamics are always reinterpreted locally, leading
to an interpenetration of the local and global scales that creates context-
dependent outcomes (Robertson 1992; Swingedouw 1997, 2004). As Saskia
Sassen has cogently argued, “[T]he fact that a process or entity is located within
the territory of a sovereign state does not necessarily mean that it is a national
process or entity; it might be a localization of the global or a denationalized
instance of the national” (Sassen 2006: 2). Under these circumstances, studying
the global “entails not only a focus on what is explicitly global in scale. It also
calls for a focus on locally scaled practices and conditions articulated with global
dynamics…And it calls for a focus on the multiplication of cross-border
connections among subnational localities where certain conditions
recur” (Sassen 2006: 7). Processes that are localized in national and subnational
settings can be part of globalization by inserting those localities in global
economic, social, or political processes. Often, they involve transboundary
networks and entities connecting diverse local or national processes and actors.
Applying this conceptualization to security practices carried out in Eastern
Europe, I show that countries emerging from the collapse of the communist bloc
have been deeply shaped—albeit in different ways—by processes of
“glocalization.”
In the following chapters, we shall see that the nature, functions, and power
exercised by security providers in many ex-communist states cannot be
understood in abstraction from the global rise of neo-liberal ideas and practices,
and, in more concrete terms, the growing presence in those countries of global
corporations—including multinational private security companies (PSCs).
Indeed, to grasp the growing role played by private actors in the provision of
security in East European polities, one needs to take into account the broader
context of international normative transformations within which processes of
post-communist transition were taking place. Those normative transformations
became particularly important when East European elites embarked upon
ambitious processes of moving closer/seeking accession to the EU and
integrating their polities into global economic circuits (particularly by opening
their doors to foreign capital). In that context, countries from the former Eastern
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bloc became more open to international influences, including the influence of
prevailing norms of commodification of security that became globally dominant
in the 1990s.
As Abrahamsen and Williams have persuasively argued, the neo-liberal focus on
the roll-back of the state and efficient governance has facilitated the growth of
the private security sector (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011). As the neo-liberal
logic came to prevail in many areas of life in countries (p.7) around the world,
the security sector, too, came under pressure to embrace “new managerialism”
strategies for cost efficiency. Neo-liberal norms have served to legitimize both
the outsourcing of functions that were previously seen as falling within the
purview of the state and the partial commodification of security—leading to a
situation in which, at least within certain limits, security becomes a service to be
bought in the marketplace and a commodity capable of being exported as a set
of technical capabilities, knowledge, and skills (Avant 2005, 2016; Brodeur 1983,
2010; Button 2007; de Waard 1999; Dupont et al. 2003; Dupont 2014; Joachim
and Schneiker 2014; Loader 1999, 2000; Sklansky 2006; Westermeyer 2013).
The adoption of neo-liberal policies and practices, with their focus on the alleged
efficiency and rationality of the market, led to a growing acceptance of private
security corporations as legitimate providers of security. In contrast to the
conventional view that only certain (state) actors had the authority to provide
security, the neo-liberal logic suggests that non-state actors that have the
necessary material and symbolic capital (expertise, knowledge, prestige) could
compete with public actors—albeit within certain limits—in various areas in the
field of security. Against the background of those changes, public–private
partnerships in the protection of citizens and their property have also
proliferated, and community-based forms of policing have gained new
prominence in many countries around the world. More broadly, post-Keynesian
policing has become increasingly detached from imageries of public dependency
on police expertise and has moved toward a more contractual neo-liberal
imagery. In this emergent discourse, the community appears as a “network of
agentive, expert and independent actors who enter partnerships with the
police” (O’Malley and Palmer 1996: 138).
It is in the context of these neo-liberal transformations that private actors,
especially private security companies, have come to operate as a third sector of
security provision, working alongside the police and punitive institutions of the
state. Interestingly, private security actors have come to play important roles not
only in the provision of security as related to physical dangers such as robbery,
but also in the identification and management of risk. It could thus be argued
that private security in Eastern Europe, as in so many other countries, reflects
the rise to prominence of a logic of risk-management, articulating—and seeking
to implement—a vision of a polity in which societies manage many of their risks
via individual consumer choices (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011; Beck 1992,
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1999, 2002; Coker 2009; Ericson and Haggerty 1997; Gheciu 2008; Krahmann
2010).
The private security industry promises to minimize the risk to private clients
that doubt the capabilities, skills, and will of government agencies to protect
them against a multitude of dangers and risks. At the same time, PSCs seek an
ever greater involvement in partnerships with public agencies, arguing that (p.
8) they have the skills, knowledge, expertise, and material capabilities to
effectively address not only immediate physical threats but also the diverse
national and transnational risks (including financial and cyber risks) of the
twenty-first century (Krahmann 2010). For their part, state agencies now “seek
to build broader alliances, enlisting the governmental powers of private actors,
and shaping them to the ends of crime control” (Garland 2001: 124). As private
actors become systematically involved in the provision of security, they are both
aided by and further reinforce a culture of responsibilization of individuals and
businesses, which focuses on educating social actors on how to minimize the risk
of becoming victims of various forms of insecurity. The notion involved here is
that individuals and communities have both the ability and the duty to contribute
to their own security by behaving in a “rational,” “responsible” way—most
notably by engaging the services of a private security company to prevent
violence against them and their property.
As we shall see, in all ex-communist states individuals and businesses have been
systematically targeted by education campaigns—and in some cases have
witnessed the adoption of new legislation that imposes duties of “responsible”
behavior in the field of security. The focus on risk-management and
responsibilization of individuals and communities is reflected in new discourses
on security and also inscribed in important pieces of legislation. For instance,
recent legislation introduced in countries like Bulgaria and Romania extends to
PSCs the function of preventive policing. In a world of risk-management, the
focus is on establishing “risk profiles,” by using categories developed by experts
and data gathered from a multitude of public and private sources, and then
formulating strategies for managing those risk factors (Valverde and Mopas
2006).
While global and regional actors and dynamics have played powerful roles in
redefining security provision in ex-communist Europe, one cannot forget the
ways in which those dynamics were also affected by local conditions. The
analysis developed in the next chapters illustrates the multiple ways in which
localities are productive in shaping their articulation with global dynamics,
rather than simply being the powerless victims of the global. This enables us to
contest the idea that globalization homogenizes place and that it subsumes the
local. For instance, it is revealing that, in the initial years of post-communist
transition, even the most powerful global security corporations were unable to
gain access to East European markets. Their problem was that, for all their
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material resources and globally recognized expertise, they lacked the specific
material capabilities and non-material capital that was valued in those markets.4
The irony of that situation was that, even as East European polities were
officially embracing liberalization, adopting norms of security privatization as
part of the effort to gain admission to Western institutions and to integrate into
global economic circuits, in practice international (p.9) security companies
were virtually excluded from those markets. It was only by acquiring some of
that specific local capital—and in some instances making normatively
problematic compromises—that those global players were able to acquire
powerful positions in the field of security.
To fully grasp the impact of the multitude of local, national and global ideas,
practices, and actors it is necessary to conceptualize the space of the political as
going beyond conventional dichotomies of national/international and public/
private (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011). It is only by doing so that we can
understand, for instance, the emergence of a transnational space of political
mobilization, in which national private security providers and local NGOs have
forged alliances with global corporations and regional professional associations
to promote legislative changes and seek more labor protections in their
countries. In a similar vein, it is only by transcending conventional wisdom about
neat boundaries that we can study the emergence of hybrid networks of security
providers that defy the distinction between public/ private domains and engage
in a broad spectrum of activities—including, in some instances, by participating
in the illicit economy, nationally and internationally. Those hybrid networks have
become powerful actors in many ex-communist states, where they combine—
often in problematic ways—the logics of public good provision and pursuit of
private profit (Best and Gheciu 2014).
It would be impossible, within a single book, to examine the dynamics of
transition in all ex-communist states. Therefore, in an effort to give a broader
overview of the new logics of security provision in that region, I have focused on
countries that have had particularly interesting—and also different—trajectories
post-1989. By including ex-communist polities with different trajectories, the
book hopes to enable the readers to gain a better understanding of the diverse
sets of practices—and their implications—through which national, regional, and
global actors participate in security provision and governance. Two of the
countries examined here, Bulgaria and Romania, are now members of the EU,
but are widely regarded as the most problematic of the new members—in part
precisely because they emerged from particularly repressive communist
regimes. At the heart of those regimes were extremely powerful state security
institutions. The contrast between that situation and the current security
landscape, in which private security companies occupy very prominent positions,
is particularly sharp. It thus invites questions about the specific practices
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through which such transformations were possible, and the challenges
associated with those practices.
An analysis of the evolution of security practices in countries like Romania and
Bulgaria also enables us to shed new light on the dynamics and consequences of
processes of European integration and enlargement. It is worth recalling that,
when they joined the Union in 2007, Romania and Bulgaria (p.10) were
regarded as having so much work to do in the areas of judicial reform,
corruption, and organized crime that EU officials decided to impose on them a
special supervision mechanism (the “Cooperation and Verification Mechanism”).
Even today Romania and Bulgaria continue to be assessed under the special
verification scheme, as the EU is still applying pressure on Bucharest and Sofia
to improve their judicial and administrative systems. This mechanism has had a
significant impact on the measures taken by the Romanian and Bulgarian
governments—including steps aimed at excluding organized crime from the field
of security—but has not been uncontroversial. While the Romanian and
Bulgarian governments have been keen to put an end to this mechanism and
thus gain more autonomy from Brussels, many NGOs from those countries have
expressed continued support for the verification scheme, arguing that in the
absence of monitoring from Brussels key reforms would be delayed or
abandoned. Given the special nature of the relationship between the EU and
these two countries, an analysis of the ways in which Brussels has interacted
with Bucharest and Sofia can help us gain a better understanding of the nature
but also limits of EU power in (re)shaping candidate states.
In addition, this study also examines the transformation of security provision in
two very different countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Their
inclusion enables us to study the added complications of transforming practices
of security provision in countries that, on top of communist legacies, have also
had to deal with the consequences of violent conflict. Among the countries
emerging from the collapse of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Serbia are especially
interesting case studies because, while they share powerful legacies (the
Yugoslav communist regime and the history of recent conflict), they are also
different in important ways. Above all, while Serbia emerged from the Yugoslav
wars as an independent state, Bosnia continues to be under an international
administration—though the nature and power of that administration has
changed significantly in recent years. Therefore, processes of reform of security
provision in those two polities have been significantly different in terms of the
actors engaged in the reform process, and the social, economic, and political
contexts in which those actors have had to operate. Particularly important for
our purposes is the fact that, through the direct intervention of international
administrators, legislative reform could be achieved much faster in Bosnia
compared to Serbia. In spite of that difference, however, in both countries the
persistence of attitudes and various (material and non-material) resources
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inherited from their violent past has had a profound impact on attempts to
reform security governance and provision.
The analysis developed in this book is based on research in the four ex-
communist polities and at European institutions in Brussels as well as the
London headquarters of a leading multinational PSC that has come to occupy a
prominent position in Eastern Europe, G4S. It covers, broadly speaking, the (p.
11) first quarter of a century following the collapse of communism in Eastern
Europe. It traces transformations in the field of security that started, albeit with
some significant problems, in the early 1990s in Bulgaria and Romania, and—in
the cases of Serbia and Bosnia—after the end of the Yugoslav wars. It then
examines the evolution of practices of security provision in the context of
growing integration into European institutional structures and insertion of those
polities into global circuits, focusing on events that occurred up until 2015. The
analysis of this long period of time is needed in order to capture key
developments in the evolution of practices of security governance and provision
at both the national and the European levels. This includes the start of a rapid
process of commercialization of security in post-1989 Eastern Europe; the
professionalization of the private security industry and its reconstitution as
agent of public power especially in the 2000s and early 2010s, as well as
European-level debates and contestations over the roles of PSCs, which led to
the adoption, in 2014, of significant new EU “rules of the game” that help shape
the field of security. Given that the focus is on some twenty-five years of
numerous transformations in four different countries, it would be impossible to
pay attention to each and every change in the field of security. Instead, the aim
of this book is to shed light on some of the most fundamental aspects of post-
communist transformations in the field of everyday, non-military security
provision, exploring the ways in which these transformations are linked to a
multifaceted process of commercialization. My aim is to give readers a better
sense of the complex, fluid new political economy of security provision in several
former communist states, and to help them understand how practices of security
provision and governance are connected to—but not simply determined by—
other fields and to broader developments at the European and global levels.
In an effort to minimize the danger of bias, I adopted the strategy of
triangulation, combining different qualitative methods (interviews, participant
observation, literature review, and content and discourse analysis of relevant
documents), and drawing on multiple data sources. Thus, the book draws on
some 120 formal, semi-structured interviews and numerous additional informal
meetings in each of the countries included in the study. In each country, I
interviewed senior staff members of the main global and local PSCs,
representatives of professional associations of the private security industry,
government officials (including those involved in regulating the private security
industry), NGO representatives, EU officials, public and private clients of the
security industry, and investigative journalists. I also spent time at sites guarded
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by private security actors in Eastern Europe—both private clients, especially
financial institutions, and public institutions, such as schools, government
buildings, parks, and cultural venues—observing the interactions between PSCs,
state security actors, and the local population. This material (p.12) was
supplemented by a study of official documents related to the commercialization
of security. This included key pieces of legislation concerning the role and
powers of PSCs as well as their relationship to the police and other public
institutions; official national and EU reports and statements on the partnership
between public actors and PSCs in the provision of security; and reports by
NGOs and investigative journalists concerning the dynamics of—and challenges
associated with—the commercialization of security. Finally, I also studied the
texts and images present in the promotional material circulated by global and
local private security companies, including printed material (newsletters,
posters, etc.) but also images disseminated via video clips, pictures, and reports
posted on the websites of PSCs and their professional associations. This material
—studied in conjunction with informational and promotional material published
by national governments and EU institutions—was important in helping me to
gain a broader perspective of how all these different actors represent
themselves, perform particular roles, and depict their relationships to other
players involved in security provision in Europe.
As the next chapters reveal, the relationships that emerge between public and
private actors involved in security provision are complex and often fluid. As a
corollary to this, any of the alliances between various security providers
identified here may well be fundamentally transformed (if not terminated) in the
future. Therefore, it has to be said that this book’s findings are specific to these
case studies—and do not claim to enable any predictions regarding future
security arrangements. However, the analysis developed here offers a new
conceptualization of post-1989 dynamics and implications of security governance
and provision in those countries, and of the links between those dynamics and
broader processes of European integration and globalization. More broadly, it
suggests ways in which one can draw on bodies of literature associated with
different disciplines to capture the various forms of power as well as the
challenges and normative dilemmas associated with the reconstitution of
practices of security in the contemporary era. I suggest that this type of
conceptual framework could be applied to explore dynamics, challenges, and
dilemmas of security provision in various regions and at different times.
Toward New Forms of Public Power in Post-Communist Europe
Post-communist processes of commercialization of security have led to a
fundamental reshaping of public power in Eastern Europe. Following a neo-
liberal logic, at the heart of those processes of commercialization of security has
been the mobilization of private actors, specifically private security companies
(PSCs), in the performance of functions traditionally associated with (p.13) the
state. It might be tempting to conceptualize the proliferation of PSCs following
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the collapse of communism as the expression of the growth of the private sector
at the expense of the public domain of governance (Börzel and Risse 2005). Yet,
this would be an oversimplification of the rise and growing power of the private
security industry. Instead, what was involved in those countries was the
reconstitution of private actors as agents empowered to perform public power.
What, then, do we mean by public power? To understand this, we need to place
our discussion within the framework of liberal thinking about political
legitimacy. Central to liberal political thought and practice are norms of political
legitimacy that are concerned with the problem of constituting and controlling
the exercise of power within the social order “in a manner that simultaneously
empowers institutions to perform valued collective functions, and prevents
powerful institutions from degenerating into tyranny.”5 A fundamental purpose
served by liberal norms of political legitimacy is to set out the nature of the
public goods/values and purposes that should be upheld by political institutions,
and to prescribe institutional forms capable of upholding these public liberal
values both by enabling a series of political actors to perform protective
functions, and by constraining the abuse of their power. In light of these social
goals of political legitimacy norms, the subject of those norms can be
conceptualized as public power: the power that must be institutionally enabled
to serve some public liberal values or goods, and institutionally restrained in
order to protect those public liberal values/goods from a potential abuse of
power.6
On this logic, particular agents or institutional forms of public power can be
deemed legitimate to the extent that they protect/promote those values/goods
that are recognized as valuable by a liberal polity. These include the basic
individual rights and freedoms that are the heart of liberal thought, but also a
series of collective goods—above all, security. Conventional wisdom about
modern polities has long tended to equate public power with the state, but the
liberal logic of public power as concerned with protecting liberal values/goods
suggests that public power can be identified in any existing powers wielded not
only by states but also by non-state political actors that are in a position to
promote those values/goods.7
A particularly interesting illustration of the process of investing non-state actors
with the right to exercise public power can be found in the context of post-
communist transitions in Europe. Against the background of the new normative
environment discussed above, East Europeans have adopted policies and
practices that, far from casting commercial, profit-driven security corporations
in opposition to the state, have in effect constructed some of those actors as
agents engaged in the exercise of public power. As we shall see, new legislation
and institutional arrangements have been adopted that both (p.14) empower
private actors—particularly private security companies—to perform security
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functions and, in recognition of the influence that such actors can exercise, seek
to prevent them from abusing their power.
The contemporary proliferation of PSCs raises important and complex questions
regarding their role in—and potential impact on—democratic societies. It is
worth noting that today the private security industry is one of the most
important economic sectors in each of the countries studied in this book. For
instance, by 2010 the private security industry had a yearly turnover of
approximately 29 million euros in Bosnia, 311 million euros in Bulgaria, 153
million euros in Serbia, and 497 million euros in Romania (CoESS 2011, 2013b).
A further illustration of the importance of the private security industry can be
found in the ratio between private security agents/the population. In three of the
four countries examined in this book, by 2011 that ratio was higher than that
between the police/the population: in Bulgaria, the private security/population
ratio was 1/132, compared to the police/population ratio of 1/155. In Romania,
the PSC/population ration of 1/229 was higher than the police/population ratio of
1/1,050, and in Serbia the PSC/population ratio of 1/146 was also higher than
the police/population ratio of 1/218 (CoESS 2011). Of the four countries, it was
only in Bosnia that the PSC/population ratio was lower than that between the
police/population: 1/2,295, compared to 1/217 for the police. This difference is
hardly surprising given the special political situation in Bosnia. Furthermore, as
we shall see, the fact that fewer PSCs were operating in Bosnia compared to
other East European polities has not prevented the private security industry
from playing a powerful role in that country.
The PSCs’ empowerment as agents of public power in Eastern Europe and
elsewhere can appear as a problematic departure from that quintessential
modern principle, involving a systematic weakening of the state and an
unavoidable dilution of what Benedict Anderson (1983) called the imagined
horizontal community of citizens.8 This book suggests that such fears of societal
polarization are to some degree well founded. Indeed, in the Western Balkans as
well as in Romania and Bulgaria the partial privatization of security has
contributed, in part, to an accentuation of the divide between those who can
afford to pay private security and those who cannot. This problem is often
stressed by critics of neo-liberalism, who regard the privatization of what is
widely regarded as the core function of the state, security, as an alarming
indicator and source of a decline of the state. This is a serious concern, which
cannot and should not be ignored. As the next chapters show, the consequences
of the “violent entrepreneurship”9 of some private security companies that
emerged in the Balkans in the 1990s provide a potent reminder of the possible
dangers involved in rapid security privatization.
Yet, this is not the whole story of the transformation of security provision in the
context of privatization. To capture the more nuanced relationship (p.15)
between security and the state, we need to recognize that the power to provide
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public goods—including security—may be differently constituted in different
settings (Best and Gheciu 2014). In fact, in some instances the ways in which
private security companies have worked with specific segments of government
bureaucracy raise the possibility that they may reinforce/extend the structures
of the state instead of undermining them. For instance, in many East European
states cash-strapped police forces often rely on private security companies to
help them protect critical infrastructure. In such instances, PSCs can be seen to
help enact or perform the state in the eyes of its citizens, making the state more
visible and tangible—and arguably also more effective in daily life.
At times, however, the dynamics of public/private cooperation have been more
problematic. For instance, there have been situations in which individuals with
prominent positions within the state enlisted the services of PSCs in an effort to
bypass laws and accountability norms and perform functions (e.g. illegal
surveillance of their competitors) that cannot be carried out by state agencies.
In other words, we should not assume that the ever increasing prominence of
private security actors will necessarily aid in the construction of democratic,
transparent, accountable institutions. On the contrary: in some instances it may
well reinforce the coercive capacities of already abusive state actors. But the
important point is that we cannot simply conceptualize commercial security
actors as either a source of support or a threat to formal state institutions. The
ways in which private security relates to state institutions is context-dependent
and can thus alter radically over time.
Thinking about Security Commercialization from Different Perspectives
A central claim in this book is that it is only by employing a multidisciplinary
approach that we can capture the complexity of processes of security
commercialization in Eastern Europe. In developing such an approach, I draw on
different bodies of literature from the fields of political science, sociology,
anthropology, and criminology, and seek to contribute to the recent literature on
the reconstitution of the public domain in global governance and the new logics
of public/private interactions (e.g. Abrahamsen and Williams 2011; Avant et al.
2010; Best and Gheciu 2014; Hall and Biersteker 2002). The next chapters
examine the nature and practices of hybrid networks of actors that defy
conventional boundaries between domestic/international, public/private, and
security/economics and that exercise significant forms of coercive and
productive power in post-communist Europe. As we shall see, the actors who
exercise public power and participate in the provision of a key public good—
security—do not always act in a manner consistent with the logic (p.16)
conventionally attributed to public entities. In this context the book seeks to
capture not simply the outsourcing of security provision but also, more broadly,
changes in the nature of public agencies and in the logics that they enact. Thus,
the emergence of complex links between state agencies, private security, and in
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some instances organized crime have facilitated practices of security that cannot
be understood as long as we use conventional International Relations categories.
In essence, we can understand developments in post-communist Europe as
reflecting the reconstitution of political space and the emergence of a new
political economy of security, in which new actors are empowered, the public
function of security provision is redefined, new alliances emerge, and new
capabilities are valorized.10 In this context, in sharp contrast to the Weberian
model, the state is only one of a number of actors or nodes involved in the
governance and provision of security (Shearing and Wood 2003a; Wood and
Dupont 2006). In today’s world, security is also the responsibility of individuals,
local communities, corporations, and private security companies, all of whom
participate—with various degrees of influence—in “hybrid security
structures” (Johnston 1992; Bigo 2006; Loader 2005; Amoore 2007; Abrahamsen
and Williams 2011; Avant and Haufler 2014).11 An analysis of the plurality and
hybridity of security actors is linked to another important aspect of
contemporary security provision: we cannot conceptualize the transformation of
the field of security in static terms. In other words, it would be misleading to
think about the field of security in terms of a stable geometry of arrangements of
security provision. Analyses that interpret the evolution of security as involving a
form of stability—be it in terms of the prominence of private actors at the
expense of public ones or vice versa (as many IR accounts do)—fail to take into
account the dynamic nature of contemporary security provision. As the next
chapters show, we should not underestimate the persistent fluidity and complex,
power-filled practices through which the public and private actors are redefined
and relationships among them are (re)articulated.
The refusal to assume, a priori, the existence of a particular, fixed model of
security provision also enables us to understand that the process of blurring
boundaries involves not just the dilution of borders between the global, regional,
and national in the context of glocalization, but also the partial dissolution of the
boundary between the licit and illicit domains of activity. By examining the
blurring of the licit/illicit boundary, this book builds on analyses developed by
criminologists, political geographers, and critical IR scholars. As Tim Hall
(2013), among others, has pointed out, the illicit should not be seen as a discrete
ontological realm. Rather, the licit and illicit are intertwined in complex ways, in
various regions and through social, economic, and political practices (Galeotti
2005; Hobbs 2001). To understand (p.17) the emergence of links between licit/
illicit domains we need to cast our minds back to the early days of post-
communist transition, and shed light on the flawed processes of privatization
that occurred in many East European states. To capture those problems it is
useful to draw on classical sociological accounts, particularly Max Weber’s work.
As discussed in Chapter 2, the first years of post-communism witnessed the rise
of what Weber called “political capitalism.”12 Weber’s fears (particularly the
“iron cage”) and his hopes (concerning the “taming” of bureaucracy via the
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establishment of horizontal and vertical accountability) have been the subject of
countless scholarly interpretations. Less well known, however, are his fears of a
different possible scenario: the corruption of the civil service, leading to a de-
bureaucratization of the state. According to Weber, unusual circumstances could
lead to a situation in which politically oriented practices of profit-making
become prominent. Political capitalism, in other words, is associated with
predatory profits from politically connected people, and the distortion or
breakdown of rule-enforcement mechanisms and decision-making processes that
are at the heart of the public domain. As politically connected entrepreneurs
gain “unlimited and uncontrolled command over the state,” the core institutions
of the state are emasculated, fractured administrative apparatuses become too
weak to exercise any significant control over their environment, and the
distinction between state/non-state agencies becomes blurred.13 It was in the
context of the rise of political capitalism that the field of security in many East
European polities witnessed the emergence of networks of security providers
that transcended the licit/illicit boundaries.14
In analyzing the blurring of licit/illicit boundaries in Eastern Europe, however, it
is important to keep in mind that this process was affected not only by domestic
processes (often linked to flawed privatizations) but also by global dynamics. In
recent years, a series of criminologists and political scientists have highlighted
the fact that licit economic activities constitute only some dimensions of
globalization (Galeotti 2005; Wilson 2009). Therefore, by limiting investigations
and not acknowledging the presence of the illicit, we fail to capture globalization
in all its complexities—and we also fail to capture the ways in which perfectly
legitimate actors often participate in illicit circuits. For instance, contrary to
conventional wisdom, states have always—and in complex ways—been
implicated in illicit aspects of globalization—including in the area of (in)security
provision (Andreas 2011). In fact—ironically—states and key international
organizations (the UN and NATO) were implicated in the growth of illicit
economic activities in the Balkans following the Yugoslav wars—most notably via
their involvement in sex trade/human trafficking in Bosnia. Even in East
European polities that did not suffer from conflict, one of the most problematic
developments following the collapse of communism was the emergence of
powerful links between certain state security (p.18) institutions, private
security companies, and organized crime. Understanding how such
developments have affected the dynamics of security provision and have
reshaped relations between the state and its citizens enables us to capture one
of the most interesting (yet under-analyzed) aspects of post-communist
transition. In some extreme cases, illicit actors, including organized criminal
groups, have acted as proxy agents of governance, extending informal
governance in areas where the state presence is weak or inefficient. This is what
happened, for example, in the 1990s in some of the provincial towns and Black
Sea resorts in Bulgaria, where organized criminal groups played more important
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and powerful roles as (in)security providers than the police, thereby
undermining the credibility of the state. Over time, the relationship between the
licit/illicit has evolved. Particularly in the context of growing European
integration, some of the most violent practices associated with the illicit
economy have vanished or have become marginalized. Yet, certain links between
political actors/business/white-collar crime/transnational organized crime persist
in parts of Eastern Europe, complicating—and raising difficult questions about—
contemporary practices of security governance and provision.
Performing Protection in Post-Communist Europe
In a broader perspective, by examining processes of contestation involved in the
redefinition of norms and practices of security provision, this book invites us to
think about security provision from an unusual angle: that of security as a
performative practice. In particular, the pluralization of the field of security has
been accompanied by efforts by the private security industry—as actors that
have not been conventionally regarded as providers of security—to gain
recognition as legitimate, effective participants in the protection of both private
individuals and public spaces, and thus to secure lucrative contracts with both
private clients and public agencies. In that context, PSCs have sought to
effectively perform a multitude of security tasks traditionally attributed to the
state, but also to “act out” their roles as they seek to persuade multiple
audiences that it is normal for them to be key players in the twenty-first
century’s security environment.
To understand the performative aspect of security provision, I draw on
performance studies, including the constructivist works of International
Relations (IR) scholars like Emanuel Adler (2005, 2010) and Erik Ringmar (2012,
2014, 2017) and sociologists like Jeffrey Alexander (Alexander et al. 2006;
Alexander 2011), the literature on authority in the age of mediatization by public
policy scholars (Hajer 2009), and studies of staging techniques developed by
students of dramaturgy and performance studies (Schechner 2002, 2015). Those
works—which were often developed in dialogue with one another—help us
decipher (p.19) the ways in which the private security industry has used
particular scripts as well as various “stage props” to construct chains of
meaning that legitimize their proposed courses of action.15
Within the field of International Relations, the analysis of security performances
can be seen as part of a larger constructivist effort to return to symbolic
interactionism in order to understand the production of social order. While
symbolic interactionist scholars (especially Herbert Mead) have long been a
source of inspiration for constructivists, their key insights into social
interactions often appear to have been forgotten in conventional constructivist
accounts. As Lawson and Shilliam put it, “[i]n IR, many constructivists appear to
have ignored—either by accident or design—what symbolic interactionists have
been arguing for the past century or more” (Lawson and Shilliam 2010: 80). In
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particular, the problem is that conventional constructivists conceptualized the
self as individualistic. However, for symbolic interactionism, the self is first and
foremost a social phenomenon, not an individualist or psychological one (Mead
1913). In fact, this may be one of the key assumptions that all symbolic
interactionists share. Mead’s fundamental argument about consciousness was
that it arose out of constant shifts and role-taking, of seeing things from the
point of view of the other(s). For symbolic interactionism, the self is highly
complex, fragile, and always in the making. This sophisticated conception of the
social self was never fully imported into IR constructivism. One of the major
critiques raised against the first generation of constructivism was exactly the
way it translated symbolic interactionism into IR by turning the state into a
unitary actor (Weldes 1999). This approach makes it difficult to grasp the
multiple, evolving fractures and fissures within states, as well as the practices
through which various public and private, and domestic and international, actors
collaborate but also compete in the (re)constitution of states and, more broadly,
in the production and reproduction of international order.
It is by returning to the symbolic interactionist view of the self as a fragile
phenomenon, always in the making through multiple social interactions—and by
building on the recent constructivist literature that applies this view to the
sphere of international politics—that we can better grasp the dynamics and
implications of contemporary practices of security provision in Europe.
Particularly important for our purposes is the recent constructivist literature
that focuses on the performative dimension of the practices through which social
selves are constructed and, in turn, help (re)shape international order (Adler
2010; Ringmar 2012, 2017). Focusing on the performative aspect of social
practices, I suggest that we can understand how security is literally performed
in everyday life by actors who engage in strategic action in part by conforming
to key aspects of the accepted scripts regarding the roles of security providers in
post-Cold War Europe and in part by contesting certain rules of the game in the
field of security.
(p.20) It is useful to conceptualize practices in which private security actors
both share and contest the prevailing “rules of the game” as staged
performances. Through those practices, representatives of the private security
industry remind their audiences of how society works, and which rules and
shared ideas enable and constrain their actions (Ringmar 2012). As Ringmar has
pointed out, in performances social actors use particular vocabularies to
assemble scripts through which they seek to obtain recognition from their
audiences (2012: 7). Scripts provide individuals and groups with roles and goals,
“with instructions for how to act and for how to go on” (2012: 7). They tell us
who we are and how we are related to various others in the international arena,
and how people in “our” society should interact with one another.
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By conceptualizing security practices as staged activities, we can gain a better
understanding of how private actors have taken advantage of a changing
security environment—marked by the commodification of security and
pluralization of security providers—to enact performances through which they
seek recognition by multiple audiences of their authority as legitimate, efficient
security providers in the twenty-first century. Those audiences include public
authorities at both the national and international level, but also private clients—
be they individual citizens or corporations, both East European and
international. All those actors have been the target of PSC attempts to convince
them that it is normal for the private security industry to perform increasingly
important roles as providers of public as well as private security. While in the
new field of security there is a shared understanding that private actors will play
important roles, there continue to be significant debates and contestations
among field participants over the precise definitions and boundaries of those
roles. In that context, representatives of the private security industry both
cooperate and compete with public actors as they enact their roles as partial
agents of public power and enact multiple practices of protection.
To understand how PSCs stage performances aimed at enhancing their roles and
power in the field of security, it is also useful to draw on studies of
performativity produced by public policy and dramaturgy scholars. As one of the
pioneers of the field of performance studies, Richard Schechner, has argued, at
the simplest level, a performance may be defined as all the activity of a given
participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the
other participants (Schechner 2002: 23). From this perspective, performances
only exist as actions, interactions, and relationships; therefore, to treat any work
or product as “performance” means to investigate what the object does, how it
interacts with other objects or beings, and how it relates to other objects or
beings (2002: 24). Importantly, Schechner argues that we can understand all
human activity as “performance” (2002: 25). To study a form of (p.21) behavior
as “performance” means to analyze it in terms of doing, behaving, and showing
(2002: 32; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1999: 1–2). Thus, to perform is first to execute,
to carry out to completion, to discharge a duty—in our case, to discharge a duty
of protection of citizens and their property and of maintaining domestic order.
Second, to perform is to behave in everyday life in a manner that conforms with
the habits, customs, laws, and etiquette that prevail in a given society at a
particular moment in time. To perform in this sense is to provide protection in a
way that is deemed appropriate, considering the habitus or dominant
dispositions in the field of security in post-communist East European polities.
Third, to perform is to show. Thus, when doing and behaving are displayed,
when they are shown, when participants are invited to exercise discernment,
evaluation, and appreciation, security practices move toward the theatrical or
the spectacular—they become representations that mobilize particular
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discursive and stage “props” aimed at generating the positive evaluation of
specific audiences.
In our case, we shall see that the PSCs’ use of the spectacular has involved their
effective mobilization of a multitude of material and non-material resources in
order to enhance their position and power in the field of security. Indeed, PSCs
have proven adept at using scripts or discourses sanctioned by states and
international organizations in the context of the affirmation of neo-liberal norms
to “stage perform” as trustworthy security providers. The private security
industry’s quest to secure greater recognition often involves a combination of
speech acts and various “stage props” or “means of symbolic production.”16
These include practical, visually potent displays of material capabilities,
expertise, and experience in a variety of security provision scenarios (ranging
from displays of their ability to protect critical infrastructure and public
institutions to instances of caring for vulnerable members of the public during
cultural and sporting events). Staging practices seek to establish a connection
between the audience and the actors, and thus to create conditions for
projecting particular sets of meanings from the performers to the audience
(Alexander 2011: 53–5). In other words, the objective is to get audiences to
regard actors that enact security practices as genuine, honest, and trustworthy,
and to interpret their performances as natural.
In an effort to convince audiences to accept the performed meanings, the private
security actors enact scripts that often involve good/bad binaries. In general,
they cast themselves as sources of protection—similar to, and in some ways
better than, the state—and radically different from, and opposed to, individuals
and groups that represent a threat or risk to the security and well-being of
individuals, their property, and their community. This type of representation has
become particularly important in recent years, as PSCs have come under
pressure from both national authorities and international actors (especially the
EU) to distance themselves from the lawless behavior that had (p.22) been
widespread among private security providers in the first years of post-
communism. In that context, as we shall see, performances of virtuous
protection are important not only as part of an effort to gain legitimacy in the
eyes of multiple audiences, but also as a way for members of the private security
industry to (re)-imagine themselves as participants in an ethical community,
involved in the important function of provision of protection by legal and
efficient means, transcending the stigma of private security as “dirty work.”17
Overview of the Book
To understand contemporary practices of security provision in the former
Eastern bloc, we need to start with a genealogical analysis, exploring the
reconstitution of East European polities in the early days of post-communism,
and analyzing the impact of those transformations on the field of security. In
particular, we need to understand the peculiar dynamics and consequences of
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the flawed privatization processes that occurred in Eastern Europe in the 1990s.
Those dynamics are the subject of Chapter 2, which sheds light on a
phenomenon that can be explained through the prism of Max Weber’s concepts
of political capitalism and de-bureaucratization of the state.18 That phenomenon
had a profound influence on processes of security commercialization in the early
days of post-communism, and continues to shape the ways in which security is
performed in that part of the world even today.
In the early years of post-communist transition, many East European states—
including the countries examined in this book—were dominated by ex-communist
elites whose primary concern was to maintain their power and privileges in the
new era. What took place in those years was the rise of political capitalism
through a de-bureaucratization of the state as a result of massive, abusive
transfer of state assets into the hands of the ex-communist nomenclature.
Particularly relevant was the privatization of security-related ministries, which
involved the transfer of the communist state’s coercive and information-
gathering capabilities into assets that were placed under the control of networks
of (ex-communist) political and economic entrepreneurs. Many of those
entrepreneurs—who often retained connections to key individuals within state
structures—established private security companies, invoking global norms of
security commodification to cast themselves as legitimate security providers
who were contributing to the liberalization of their countries. In other words,
what former communist polities witnessed was not a process of replacing states
with markets but, rather, “a merger of the state with quasi-markets” (Los 2003;
Los and Zybertowicz 2000), both of which are constituted and controlled by
state/corporate/criminal organized interests. As substantial assets shifted from
the state to private control, newly (re)created public institutions in charge of (p.
23) providing security were left without the resources needed to fulfill their
mandates. This further reinforced the power of newly created PSCs, both
because many people and businesses came to rely on their services (since they
did not trust the cash-strapped, often corrupt police forces), and because public
agencies did not have enough resources to monitor and restrain the power of
PSCs.
In many instances, PSCs took advantage of the legal and institutional
weaknesses in ex-communist states to engage in what would normally be
considered criminal practices, including protection rackets and illegal
surveillance of their clients’ competitors.19 In the course of those practices, they
systematically used the material resources as well as non-material capital,
particularly the expertise and skills (including in the use of violent, illegal
techniques of “protection”) inherited from the communist era. In a social context
in which those skills and expertise were highly valued, domestic security
providers clearly dominated the market, limiting or excluding the operation of
global security companies—despite the latter’s superior material capabilities and
international reputation. Ironically, while in the early years of post-communism
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there was a limited influx of European and global actors in the legitimate
business of security provision, a different type of internationalization was taking
place. What was occurring in that context was an illicit internationalization,
involving the participation of security providers from ex-communist states into
international networks of organized crime.
Drawing on Los’s sociological account of the quasi merger of states and
markets, on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital, and strategies, and on
the recent literature on global security assemblages (Abrahamsen and Williams
2006, 2011), Chapters 3, 4, and 5 examine the evolution of security provision
after the early years of post-communism. As we shall see, in recent years East
European polities have become more closely integrated into the European field
of security, and started to move away from some of the most problematic, violent
dynamics of the early days of post-communism. Processes of integration into the
EU and insertion into global economic flows have played important—albeit not
unlimited—roles in pushing East European polities to adopt new legislative
frameworks governing private security, and to deal with some of the most
obvious abuses inherited from their problematic post-communist transitions.
Practices of inclusion of East European polities in the European field of security
have also entailed the growing participation of security providers based in those
countries in transversal networks of European security professionals—especially
via integration of the national associations of PSCs into the Confederation of
European Security Services (CoESS). CoESS has served as a forum for
transnational mobilization through which the private security industry has
advocated for more rights for security workers in their national arenas, has
pushed their national governments for better legislation, and has also started to
participate in efforts to reshape (p.24) European security governance. Yet, in
spite of all these changes, certain actors, attitudes, and forms of non-material
capital inherited from the communist past persist and continue to affect the
ways in which security is performed.
Chapter 3 places the analysis of developments in Eastern Europe in a broader
international context, examining how the transformation of the field of security
has been shaped by processes of European integration as well as globalization—
especially through the influx into Eastern Europe of multinational corporations,
including global security companies. In particular, as each of the countries
examined in this book embarked upon processes of European integration, they
came to be deeply affected by EU legislation and specific accession/partnership
conditionality, including in the field of security.
We noted above that at the heart of the reconstruction of public power in the
field of security in Eastern Europe has been the reconstitution of private security
companies as partial agents of public power. This has continued—indeed, in
many ways has accelerated—in the context of Europeanization and growing
integration into global circuits. Consequently, many PSCs, both international and
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national, have come to be increasingly recognized as legitimate participants in
the provision of public security. What is different from the early years of post-
communism is the definition of desirable attributes and types of resources
associated with legitimate participation in the provision of public security. New
legislation and institutional reforms have presented powerful incentives for
many national private security providers to restructure themselves and seek to
distance themselves from some of the abusive practices of the early days of post-
communism.
In many ways, the process of European integration has served to reinforce
global norms and dynamics in Eastern Europe. For instance, in the process of
preparing their countries for accession to the EU, countries like Bulgaria and
Romania have come under pressure to liberalize their economies—in part by
opening up their security markets to international competition, including
multinational PSCs. The process of European integration has also translated into
greater EU pressure on East European countries to strengthen the rule of law
and fight corruption and organized crime—including in the field of security. In
that context, East European governments have adopted a series of legislative
measures that have addressed, or at least minimized, some of the abuses
associated with security provision in the first years of post-communism.20 In a
broader perspective, the process of European integration has enhanced the
credibility of East Europeans in the eyes of international business, leading to a
growing influx of global corporations—especially financial institutions—into
countries like Bulgaria and Romania. In turn, this development has further
reinforced the position of global PSCs: as many of the international banks and
multinational corporations required Western (p.25) standards of security
provision, upon arriving in Eastern Europe they generally hired global, rather
than national, PSCs—at least for some of their operations.
Under these circumstances, by the mid-2000s, international actors had come to
occupy far more important positions in the field of security than they had held in
the early years of post-communism. Particularly important, as Chapter 3 shows,
has been the connection between the development of the banking sector
(especially via the influx of international banks) and the growing presence and
power of global PSCs in Eastern Europe. In addition, the chapter explores the
ways in which dynamics of Europeanization and globalization have generated
new opportunities for reshaping the field of security for a series of domestic
actors engaged in performing security. For instance, via the involvement of PSCs
from former communist states in the Confederation of European Security
Services (CoESS), which represents a powerful corporatist professional alliance
at the European level, the private security industry has sought to enhance its
legitimacy and power in the national arenas, and has sought to secure more
rights and protections for security workers in their countries.
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Chapter 4 continues the exploration of practices of insertion of East European
polities in the European field of security. Here, the focus is on the bigger picture
of European security governance. Specifically, the chapter explores practices
through which private security actors—including, increasingly, PSCs from
former communist countries—seek to enhance their power and enact more
prominent roles in European security governance. In recent years, one of the
most interesting developments in the European field of security has been the
growing mobilization of the private security industry—again, especially within
the framework of CoESS—in an effort to enhance its role in security governance
and provision. One of the key aims of these campaigns has been to contest what
the private industry perceives as a move by European institutions to maintain
and reproduce a clear hierarchy between public and private security providers.
In particular, the industry has sought to challenge specific aspects of the
conventional definition upheld by public actors—namely, those aspects that
marginalize or exclude PSCs from certain areas of security provision.
In essence, while PSCs collaborate extensively with EU officials and public
institutions, they are also engaged in what could be called battles with them
over the definition of the “rules of the game” of security provision and, more
broadly, over the restructuring of the field of security. Thus, on the one hand,
one could point to a shared sense between EU officials and PSCs that a partial
commodification of security is both acceptable and desirable, that the principle
of market efficiency is also relevant in the sphere of security, and that in a
complex world of multiple risks and reduced budgets private actors need to (p.
26) play significant roles—in partnership with public institutions—in security
provision. All these ideas are largely uncontested by public and private security
actors alike. On the other hand, however, what is being struggled over is the
limit of expansion of the right of private security actors to be recognized as
legitimate producers of knowledge about dangers/risks and solutions to address
those risks, and legitimate participants in the implementation of those solutions.
To this end, strategies are mobilized in order to accumulate enough capital to
support and enhance PSCs’ positions in the contemporary era, and to challenge
definitions of security according to which the private industry can only play
limited roles in certain sensitive areas of security governance and provision.
More broadly, significant processes of contestation have also occurred over the
definition of the meaning of European integration in the field of security. For
instance, CoESS has systematically sought to enhance the power of PSCs by
contesting the particular vision of harmonization of private security services
prescribed by the European Commission. Most notably, CoESS has opposed the
application of the Services Directive to the private security sector, arguing that,
given the very different national standards and national legislation regulating
private security services, it would lead to a premature and deeply flawed
harmonization of security across Europe. In adopting that position, CoESS has
cast itself—and has sought the EU officials’ recognition—as the sector’s
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representative and, hence, as an authoritative source of knowledge about the
logic of EU integration, the needs of the European security sector, and the best
way to address those needs. Furthermore, in an effort to protect the credibility
of the private security sector, CoESS—as the organization that portrays itself as
the voice of European private security services—has been keen to not only
secure a privileged position for PSCs in the protection of critical infrastructure,
but also to act as a gatekeeper, denying recognition and seeking to exclude from
the domain of private security providers those companies that fail to live up to
the standards of professionalism as defined by the Confederation.
Building upon the analysis of international developments in Chapter 4, Chapter 5
returns to recent developments in the national arenas of Bulgaria, Bosnia,
Romania, and Serbia. The chapter seeks to understand the fluidity and complex
mix of practices that have resulted from the growing insertion of those polities
into the European field of security in combination with the persistence of some
old actors, attitudes, and non-material resources inherited from the communist
past. By examining practices of security provision that result from the
intersection of European and global factors and actors with national players and
local dynamics, the chapter seeks to give readers a better sense of what
“glocalization” actually looks like in specific settings, at a given moment in time.
The chapter shows that, in parallel to EU-level dynamics of (p.27) cooperation
and contestation between the private security industry and European public
institutions, in each of the four polities examined in the book PSCs cooperate
with state officials, but also engage in practices of contestation over the “rules
of the game” of security provision. In the context of those contestations, all sides
mobilize a variety of material and non-material resources and seek to cooperate
with a variety of actors in order to enhance their power. The result is a fluid and
complicated political economy of security provision, in which new alliances are
forged while others are reconstituted or terminated, and competing logics of
security provision coexist—often in a problematic way.
Finally, Chapter 6 places the analysis developed in this book in a broader
normative perspective, focusing on a series of challenges and dilemmas
associated with the transformation in the logic of security provision examined in
the previous chapters. It pays special attention to the ways in which the
particular dynamics of commercialization of security provision have involved
departures from principles of transparency and democratic accountability, and
the problems associated with such departures in countries with long histories of
anti-democratic governance. Furthermore, we explore some of the dangers
involved in the creation of exclusive communities of security—that is,
communities of paying customers, who expect not only PSCs but also state
agencies involved in commercial security provision to devote more attention and
resources to them, at the expense of services provided to the general public.
Such developments could further weaken an already fragile idea of a “horizontal
community” of citizens, and—particularly in countries that have recently
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emerged from conflict, such as Bosnia—could endanger social stability. In its
concluding pages, the chapter reflects on the difficulties of promoting liberal-
democratic standards of “good governance” in contexts in which (in)security is
performed by hybrid networks of security professionals that blur the boundaries
between licit/illicit activities. In particular, the fact that a series of PSCs with
links to illicit networks continue to play powerful roles in Eastern Europe—and,
indeed, appear to have increased their power in a situation in which the global
financial crisis has strengthened the “gray economy” in the region—poses
serious challenges to the legitimacy and credibility of the state as provider of
that key public good, security.
While in many ways PSCs have come to play prominent roles in all the countries
examined in this book, we should not assume that their roles and power are now
carved in stone. On the contrary, in Romania as in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia
the field of security remains very fluid and dominated by power-filled practices.
This dynamism and related power-filled practices—which are both affected by
and, in turn, shape other social fields (particularly the economic field)—are
dominant features of the contemporary logic of security provision. Under these
circumstances, it is impossible to predict (p.28) what security provision in
those countries will look like in another twenty-five years. What is both possible
and highly important, however, is to understand what has happened in the
previous quarter of century, how a new political economy of security provision
has emerged and constantly evolves, and how that has a profound impact not
only on East European polities but also on processes of European integration
and globalization that transcend the boundaries of the former communist bloc.
This is what this book sets out to do.
Notes:
(1.) Interview conducted in Sofia, June 15, 2012.
(2.) See in particular the Special Issue on “Norm Diffusion, Contestation and
Localisation in the Western Balkans,” Journal of International Relations and
Development, 18(3), July 2015: 249–382. Also relevant are: Acharya 2004;
Flockhart 2006; Mac Ginty 2010; Millar et al. 2013; Noutcheva 2009; Perdan
2008.
(3.) My focus is on non-military, everyday security provision to individuals and
businesses, though the phenomenon of commodification of security has also
affected the military aspects of security provision (see, for instance, Percy 2007;
Singer 2004, 2008; Leander 2013; Leander and Van Munster 2007).
(4.) I use the concept of capital in a Bourdieusian way: capital refers to the
resources that actors can mobilize in order to act successfully in a given field of
activity. More on this in the next chapters.
(5.) Macdonald 2008: 548.
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(6.) Macdonald 2008: 548.
(7.) Macdonald 2010.
(8.) In addressing this, I am building on a body of literature that challenges
conventional understandings of the role of the state. For a particularly
interesting analysis see Abrahamsen and Williams 2011. See also Sklansky 2006
and Loader and Walker 2007.
(9.) I borrow this term from Vadim Volkov (2002).
(10.) In employing the phrase “new political economy of security,” I follow Adam
White (2012). The phrase helps us understand how both the economic context
and the political context shape the conduct of contemporary security providers.
(11.) This is similar to the analysis of “nodal governance” in the field of security
(Wood and Shearing 2006; Loader and Walker 2007). The broad context in which
nodal security governance emerges is the diversification and fragmentation of
the security field (Krahmann 2007). As a corollary to this, the nodal security
literature suggests that the various nodes can be seen as sites of knowledge,
capacity, and resources that function as governance providers (Johnston 2006:
34). For the most part, advocates of this approach do not grant conceptual
priority to any particular node. Instead, the particular nature of governance and
the contribution of the various nodes to it are regarded as open questions, to be
answered via careful empirical investigations (Shearing and Wood 2003b: 404).
(12.) See Ganev 2009.
(13.) Weber 1994: 104.
(14.) As noted above, there are certain similarities between the phenomena that
occurred in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s and the violent privatization of
security that occurred in post-communist Russia (Volkov 2002). Yet—again, as
noted above and as examined in the next chapters—violence was only one aspect
of a much more complex set of processes of security privatization.
(15.) For other interesting accounts of the role of performances in social life,
see, for example, Bell 1997; Carlson 2004; Denzin 2008; Jeffrey 2012.
(16.) I draw here on Hajer’s and Alexander’s analyses of the ways in which
actors mobilize “dramaturgical tools” to get audiences to see things in a certain
light. These include discursive tools (such as metaphors or story-telling) as well
as “stock practices” (or routinized ways of acting) to create historic chains of
meaning that seek to legitimize their proposed courses of action. See Hajer
2009; Alexander et al. 2006; Alexander 2011.
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Access brought to you by:
(17.) In discussing the ways in which actors employ performances as a way to
collectively (re)imagine their identity, I draw on Ringmar 2017. On the nature of
—and efforts to transcend—the stigma related to the private security industry,
see also Herbst 2013; Löfstrand et al. 2016; and Thumala et al. 2011.
(18.) Weber 1994: 104.
(19.) Weber 1994: 104.
(20.) Yet, one should not assume that the EU and, more broadly, the international
community has always had a positive impact on the evolution of East European
polities. For instance, as we shall see, in post-Dayton Bosnia the presence of the
EU and global actors has facilitated illicit activities, and strengthened links
between the licit economy and organized crime. We shall revisit this issue in the
next chapters.
