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Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa
e-ISSN: 1647-7251
Vol. 10, Nº. 2 (November 2019-April 2020), pp. 68-81
GLOBAL SECURITY ASSEMBLAGES: MAPPING THE FIELD
Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito
jovanaranito@gmail.com
Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Porto and External Examiner for Diploma Program
in Global Politics at the International Baccalaureate Organization. She holds PhD in international
politics and conflict resolution from the University of Coimbra. Her area of expertise includes
private security governance, regulation of private security contractors, and dynamics between
public and private security/military forces. Her most recent publication is Regulating US Private
Security Contractors, published in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract
Global security assemblages’ concept, in a decade of its existence, has been a useful tool to
explain a lot of atypical security collaboration between private and public entities. It has
greatly improved understanding of collaboration between public and private security forces,
which, until then, mostly ha0s been seen through the civil-military paradigm. Through the
expansion of scenarios where private security forces have been observed (to include
environments not considered either at war or in peace, but somewhere in between) global
security assemblages demonstrated, on numerous occasions, examples that cooperation
between private and public forces may contribute to the improvement of the global security
environment.
Hence, how far can we stretch this concept? Private entities operate at numerous places and
contexts and the concept may be a limited tool to understand their input in achieving a more
stable environment. It has been set to apply in peaceful settings, but would it be possible to
extend its application in unstable environments, within unpredictable security settings? This
paper looks at how the concept has been used and applied so far, the scope where it can and
has been applied, and draw the limitations to its use.
Keywords
Global security assemblages; private security; conflict; civil-military relations; public-private
relations
How to cite this article
Ranito, Jovana Jezdimirovic (2019). "Global Security Assemblages: mapping the field".
JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 10, N.º 2, November 2019-April 2020.
Consulted [online] on the date of the last visit, https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.10.2.5
Article received on November 29, 2018 and accepted for publication on May 17, 2019
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Global Security Assemblages: mapping the field
Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito
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GLOBAL SECURITY ASSEMBLAGES: MAPPING THE FIELD
1
Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito
Global security assemblages’ concept arose as a response to the long quest for a suitable
framework under which cooperation and dynamics between private and public actors
providing security can be studied. Strong reintroduction of use of private security in
mainstream policies by states since the beginning of the century, aside from their ever-
growing use by the private sector, caused serious difficulties in studying dynamics
between new actors and their interactions with state forces and/or institutions. The first
wave of literature sought historical references on how to address these new actors, and
found fertile ground in comparison to mercenaries, after some of the more serious
incidents caused by those forces under government contracts (Fidler, 2007; Pelton,
2007; Singer, 2004). The mostly unknown mode (to the general public) in which they
are employed, rules of their engagement, and limited institutional and legal frameworks
under which these new actors would be categorized, caused hitches in their better
understanding (Silverstein, 1997; Brooks, 2000; Singer, 2003; Kinsey, 2005; Krahmann,
2005a). The misunderstanding of the evolution of the private security industry - and the
perception by the general public that they are mercenaries - was the principal challenge
faced in the early years. On the one hand, Silverstein (1997), Brooks (2000) and Singer
(2003) contributed by shedding a light on the industry and the new contexts within which
they are employed. On the other hand, Kinsey (2005) and Krahmann (2005a) highlighted
the inadequate legal framework to deal with the private security industry, instead of
mercenaries.
Security governance literature has addressed aspects of the inclusion of non-state actors
(and particularly private security companies) in the institutional framework (Bryden &
Caparini, 2006; Bures & Carrapico, 2017; Krahmann, 2010). However, few options were
available to observe everyday dynamics between state and private security actors.
Certainly, the most problematic issue for academics was the approach used to accomplish
it; namely, after the expansion of the use of private security to stability operations and
post-conflict setting. Avant (2004, 2005) addressed the power exchange issue by looking
at how effectively on the ground and in the decision-making process power related to
security decisions previously monopolized by states has been influenced by the private
security companies working for them. She acknowledged difficulties in applying any IR
approaches to issues associated with private security companies, since those actors and
interactions represent new realities that we have not seen before (Avant, 2006). Another
commonly used approach to address cooperation between private security forces and
state institutions is through civil-military relations/cooperation. From looking how these
1
Special issue of articles presented at the 1st International Conference on Conflict Resolution and Peace
Studies that took place at UAL on the 29
th
and 30
th
of November 2018.
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work together on the ground and problems they face from diverse cultures they have
(Bruneau, 2011; Herbst, 2007; Holmqvist, 2005), to observing it as a governance matter
(Krahmann, 2005b), to seeking answers within network theories (Avant, 2016;
Krahmann, 2016), academics have struggled to apply knowledge from the ground to
existent frameworks.
In such settings, there was a need for another approach that would facilitate the study
of not only the military outsourced security (by some states), but also to expand analysis
on commercial security services provided globally that linked state institutions and
private actors. In 2009, Abrahamsen and Williams proposed a new tool to study the
impact of and relations between private security companies and state actors, related to
commercial use of security. Global security assemblages proposed to look at how, in
practice, private security companies may affect security settings on the ground. The
greatest innovation was the possibility to observe dynamics closely between private and
public actors and to focus on the empirical data.
A decade has passed since its first introduction and here the focus is given to the utility
of this concept so far. The contribution I seek to make is to present a balanced overview
of the last decade, examining this concept through a literature review focusing on how
the realities have become ever more complex and are not explicable by utilizing other
approaches, such as security governance of actor-network theories. I shall attempt to
demonstrate that it has gained ground on its own merit, although it has served as an
inspiration to other concepts that have derived from it. Finally, this paper will explore the
challenges that the global security assemblages concept is now facing with the growing
complexity of security environments, namely the analysis of the inclusion of new actors
like terrorists, rebels and various criminal groups.
To accomplish it, I address where this concept has been applied so far and with what
purpose. Then I draw on its limitations that have been recognized and question its
relevance a decade after being introduced. I make a critical analysis of the most
important literature published in a decade of its existence and I seek to include the wide
range of issues that have been explored. The article is divided into four parts, as follows:
In continuation, I address the concept itself and explain its main features and aims. Then,
I look at where geographically, thematically, and by which disciplines it has been used
so far. Then, I draw the limitations of the concept. Finally, I conclude that even though
there are a lot of benefits in using this approach, there are certain restrictions as well,
and recommend new research areas.
Global security assemblages concept - what it is and why we are using
it?
The concept of assemblages is not new and has been used in various disciplines through
previous decades. Originally, concept and theory of assemblages were introduced by
French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari (1987), and, after them, it has been widely
used and developed within sociology and political science. Deleuze´s contributions to
assemblage thinking have been widely accepted, but it´s rudimentary and rather
scattered thoughts rather than articulated theory have been recognized as well
(DeLanda, 2006, p. 3). Deleuze and Guattari established the concept of assemblages,
still primordial in articulation but containing three essential elements: abstract machine,
concrete element, and personae. As Nail (2017: 23–24) stressed, for Deleuze and
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Guattari assemblages are like abstract machines as they a) do not exist as a thing/object
in the world but are rather a set of external relations that surround elements and
agencies, and b) are networks of specific external relations defined by composition,
mixture, and aggregation. Assemblages also need to have a concrete element, an
existing embodiment of assemblages, as a skeletal frame or archipelago (Nail, 2017: 26).
Finally, the personae of the assemblages are agents that cannot be observed and studied
independently, as they are mobile operators that connect concrete elements together
according to their abstract relations. Deleuze and Guattari give examples of a runner or
an intercessor, stating that “persona is needed to relate concepts on the plane, just as
the plane itself needs to be laid out” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1996: 73–76).
In 2006, DeLanda presented what he considered to be an improved version of
assemblage theory, which he considered to be version 2.0 of Deleuze´s or, as he called
it, “neo-assemblage theory” (DeLanda, 2006: 4). His drive was to set assemblages theory
free of the micro-macro divide and to allow a cross-level analysis of sociological entities
and processes. The difference from the isolated concepts mentioned by Deleuze is in
collecting certain elements of assemblage thinking and making analytical sense of them.
For instance, he departed from Deleuze and Guattari´s social ontology (individuals,
groups and the social field), which he considered to be primitive, and extended it to
international organizations and interpersonal networks. Also, he advances further by
showing that assemblages must be fully “independent from our minds”, calling on them
to be autonomous, mind-independent agents. He departed from the recognition that
exteriority of relations is an important assumption of assemblages. That implies
assemblages are not firm and static formation; they may be separated in functional parts
that interact with the other actors, but still, when they interact among themselves, their
interactions may result in synthesis (DeLanda, 2006: 11). Moreover, he analyzes
binomial relations between territorialization and deterritorialization and uses coding to
analyze each element of interaction among those parts that form assemblage. DeLanda
dedicated every chapter to a different kind of assemblage, to express the range of forms
they may take: social (chapter 1), linguistic (chapter 2), martial (chapter 3), scientific
practices (chapter 4), a diagrammatic of the actual and virtual (chapter 5), atomic,
genetic and chemical (chapter 6) and scientific and mathematical solutions (chapter 7).
Through time, academics have been leaving their own mark on the concept of
assemblages by extending its use and proposing new directions. The main advance from
DeLanda´s theorization is the assumption that assemblages should not be limited to
theory, but rather considered as a way of thinking. As Acuto and Curtis (2014: 3)
explained, applying a thinking tool to assemblages is “a feature that makes this approach
less of a theory and more of a repository of methods and ontological stances towards the
social”. Others have begun introducing new aspects and theories to supplement
assemblages thinking: Legg (2011) in conjunction with Foucault, Haraway with a feminist
approach (Feigenbaum, 2015), and McCann and Ward (2012) with an application to study
of policy. Even though each application has its own idiosyncrasies, assemblages thinking
would have some core characteristics, like embracement of multiplicity, focus on
practices of relation and ordering, a mixture of material and symbolic expressivity, and
simultaneity of territorialization and de-territorialization (Bureš, 2015ª: 17–18). Other
common characteristics of all assemblage thinking are methods applied to accomplish it:
ethnography, interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis (Lisle, 2014:
70).
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Global security assemblages is a concept drawn by Rita Abrahamsen and Michael Williams
(2009b) with an aim to provide a framework to learn from the practices the impact private
security companies have on security context where they operate. They departed from
the Sassen (2008) notion of state disassembly that assumed reconfiguration of the state
as we knew it before, in the western style democracies, and integration of non-state
actors as active participants. The contribution of Sassen is not solely a recognition of the
existence of non-state actors, as this had previously been done decades ago; however,
she is the first to explain that the system founded on traditional agents needs to be
disassembled and reassembled to bring in non-state actors as equal and active
participants in governance structures. From there, Abrahamsen and Williams proposed a
reassembly of how the security provision is perceived nowadays and include private
security providers as an integral part of it.
Such an approach brought into the center of analysis, when it comes to private security,
an important element that previously has been left aside: ethnography. Not limiting the
descriptive nature of the ethnographic method, but using it as a departing point of
analysis, global security assemblages’ concept focuses on the integration of data
collected from practices and its interpretation through two important – and up to then
separate – paradigms: private/public and local/global. By using Bourdieu´s concept of
field
2
, Abrahamsen and Williams (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2010) work on reassembly of
our perceptions of where the public sphere terminates and where the private begins.
They used the concept as an analytical liberation from heavy theoretical constraints and
assume that the concept is constructive and deeply interconnected with empirical findings
(2014a: 27). It steps up from the linear understanding of the place and role of actors
involved in the informal security governance (setup) in certain places, as in Africa, where
western conceptualization of how things occur is not applicable (Abrahamsen, 2017).
They made a huge step by setting aside, up to then, used network theories to explain
how security actors cooperate and work at the same place. Their conceptual set up is
leaning on Bourdieu´s concepts of capital and power, allowed both solidification of
theoretical ground and setting some conceptual boundaries, and in the same time
openness to adapt it to be applicable in the realities that are not western democracies.
Even though they admit slippages between Bourdieu´s field theory and assemblages, it
is clear that Bourdieu´s field theory is not applicable in its entirety here (Abrahamsen &
Williams, 2014b: 27). Concept of field simply is not extendable to a global scale and,
therefore, significant adjustments were necessary. However, it permitted freedom to set
non-linear, non-network sets of actors, and to admit transformational nature and
characteristics when it comes to the power they hold and capital they have.
The reassembly of our security perception extends to a distinction between a local and
global, and public and private, and the crucial point is that the traditional western-centric
definition of the state and institutions run by it have a very different version in the non-
western world; and those concepts will not do justice to analysis that is done, simply
because they are not reflecting requirements that those concepts hold in western
2
The field represents a social space that goes beyond locating objects of analysis within historical, spatial
(local, national, international), and relational context, and includes comprehension of how previous
knowledge was generated, by whom, and whose interests were served by those practices (Bourdieu, 2000a,
2000b). The analogy sometimes is given to a certain sports game field: they are shaped according to the
game that is played; it has its own rules, its own star players, histories, legends, and lore (Thompson,
2014: 67). Agents do share more than one field simultaneously, varying in generality and scope, and include
both professional and private spheres of life.
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tradition (Abrahamsen, 2017). Their examples through Africa demonstrate blurring lines
among benefits in security, considering the action of private companies and “public”
forces (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2010). The same way, those public entities are
considered local, but with input and cooperation with global security companies, the
security outputs may not be constricted on the action of either separately (Williams,
2016).
Where and how it has been employed so far?
This approach has been embraced by the academic community globally as it opened up
a space for a study of the commercial private security companies beyond conflict zones,
still in a context of public-private security provision and use as military support. Private
companies and NGOs globally have been using private security companies to secure their
operations and assets in remote and challenging environments (Avant, 2007: 457;
Omeje, 2017). The mining and gas exploration companies have been heavily using these
agents since the early 1990s and their use has exponentially grown (Börzel & Hönke,
2010; Ferguson, 2005; Kirshner & Power, 2015). The most notable outcome was an
acknowledgment that private security providers have caused some positive impact in the
communities where they conduct their operations. They introduced higher operational
standards, approximated human rights respect in local communities, and overall
increased the perception by the local population of a more secure environment
(Abrahamsen & Williams, 2007; Campbell, 2006). This was accomplished, for instance,
by providing training to local security groups (either formal or informal), transcending
the security efforts to the local community (from solely on the grounds of the contracting
company) or offering workshops to the local population on conflict resolution techniques.
The main benefit has been the ability to look at the everyday practices and dynamics
that occur between private security providers and state forces. Such benefit may be seen
in the research both in developing and developed countries, even though the concept
was set having in mind countries where western concepts were not fully applicable. As
Abrahamsen and Williams (2014a) explained, the western concepts and attempts to
apply them to underdeveloped settings have severely failed. Global security assemblages
allowed the perception of how the security sector is established and running in Africa. In
a sense, they opened up vocabulary and offered tools for western society to research and
get a grasp of workings of the security sector in Africa.
To follow the geographical focused on Africa used by Abrahamsen and Williams, the
concept was also used to demonstrate practices in Tanzania (Abrahamsen & Williams,
2017), Liberia (Abrahamsen and Williams, 2009a; Mohlin, 2017), Somalia (Cunha, 2017;
Reno, 2017; Sandor, 2016), Democratic Republic of Congo (Schouten, 2011, 2017),
Nigeria, and South Africa (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2010). Those works delved deeply
into how these interactions between private security companies and non-state local
agents serve as a substitute/supplement for public service and how they effectively
contribute to the improvement of the local security environment.
Besides across Africa, the concept has been used to study the Middle East and Europe as
well. For instance, Tholens (2017) approached how global security assemblages have
been constituted in the post-2011 the Middle East. And, Hazbun (2016) looked at the
Lebanese reality and used it to contextualize the state of the security sector in this
country. In the European settings, Bures (2015a) used it to dismantle and reassemble
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operations of the private security industry in the Czech Republic. He analyzed various
assemblages – private and public, and all in between – and shed light on the complex
world of the private security industry in a social context within one country. More
recently, Borrajo Valiña (2018) explored emergence of the European Union
comprehensive approach, based on global security assemblages, to address recent
external conflicts and crisis. Before them, Berndtsson and Stern (2011) applied it in
analysis of the operations of Stockholm airport security. Van Steden and De Waard
(2013) applied it to what they called McDonaldization of private security industry across
Europe, where commercial private security with neoliberal doctrine has been expanded
to cover the areas that state would not.
With regards to the sectorial approach, in addition to being used as it was originally
intended and imagined within the ‘Peace’ and ‘Conflict’ audience – to explain the
dynamics between untraditional private-public and local-global actors in the developing
world – several other approaches and disciplines have also found this concept to be
useful. The range goes from the feminist perspective, over sociology, to criminology. For
instance, in the feminist perspective, research looked at how global security assemblages
affect contractors´ households (Chisholm & Eichler, 2018) and how gender is affected by
private security in global politics (Eichler, 2015). Within the sociology approach, Bongiovi
(2016) used global security assemblages to demonstrate the setup and operations of the
2012 Olympic Games in London. In criminology, it has been used to explore various
aspects of policing (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2007; Albrecht, 2017; Diphoorn, 2015).
The range of issues that are explored by this approach is wide: from looking over border
control and protection of drug trafficking (Sandor, 2016), to its application to extractive
industries (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2017), to its significance to larger security
governance around the globe (Bureš, 2015b; Cunha, 2017; Hazbun, 2016; Hönke &
Müller, 2012) or policing (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2007; Albrecht, 2017; Diphoorn,
2015), and it will be certainly expanded further.
Moreover, Abrahamsen and Williams's concept served as an inspiration for others who
adjusted it and used it in their own research within the field of security governance and
beyond. Within security governance research – while Abrahamsen and Williams
established the global security concept as a tool to distance from agent-network theories
– it is interesting to watch how Schouten (2014) departs from it to look at global security
assemblages’ broader impacts on security governance and suggests that the agent-
network theory widens the scope of what security assemblages are. Within security
studies, Collier (2018) departed from the philosophy behind the concept and adjusted it
to address cybersecurity reality. Mary Kaldor (2018) took a more sociological turn and
used it as a departure for establishing the global security culture concept.
As we could see, this concept is transversal from the point of view of disciplines,
geographical areas, and topics where it has been useful and applied. From IR, sociology,
and criminology; to overlooking Africa, Middle East and Europe; to security governance,
policing, border control, and extractive industry, the scope of the concept is wide. We
could also see that it has inspired others to adapt it and apply the same philosophy to
other areas, as in the case of cybersecurity and security cultures.
However, when working with this concept, academics recognized some constraints and
limitations to apply the concept, particularly when trying to expand on the areas that are
not security stable.
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Limitations and constraints of the concept
The last decade demonstrated that there was a dire need for a concept that will allow
looking at dynamics between private and public forces beyond beholding over power
relations but at how they impact security environments on the ground. It brought
significant empirical data to the surface and produced practical knowledge about how
those assemblages work in various points of the globe. However, some constraints of the
concept, as proposed by Abrahamsen and Williams, are becoming more visible. The use
of the concept has been stretched to accommodate diverse scenarios worldwide, as we
previously saw. The fact is that the world is more complex than it was a decade ago when
the concept was introduced. Those complexities, because of the concepts of global
security assemblages, are now more visible than they used to be. While before there was
more accent on public-private and global-local divisions, this concept allowed observing
everyday practices that show blurred lines between them. That permitted seeing more
in detail actors involved in assuring security in local communities, for example the local
private security group Sungusungu in Sierra Leone, which assumed responsibility for the
resolution of over 90% of local disputes because their coverage of local areas is much
greater than that of the public forces (Albrecht, 2017). Also, it exposed an increasing
range of actors to be considered in such assemblages, as well as complex circumstances
where there are actors in the same space providing different dynamics at different times,
as was the case of the rebel group in Kenya that originally contributed to making the
environment more volatile, but then turned into a legitimate political force who eventually
contributed to the stabilization and expanding of the security situation (Rasmussen,
2017).
Nowadays, there are many scenarios where we cannot make a simple distinction between
the commercial use of private security and military use, as a decade ago it was. In that
sense, even though Abrahamsen and Williams (2014b, p. 26) claim the concept to be
more of a descriptive term than it carries on theoretical baggage, it crosses with many
challenges to apply in more complex settings, where security may be evaluated to be
between war and peace. As the departing assumption of the concept is that public and
private local and global actors do work together (intentionally and coordinated, or not)
with an aim to accomplish more stable security environment, particularly in the
challenging place like many given examples across Africa. Hence, there are other actors
(global, local, public, and private) who might not work in such linear mode, who might
gain more from destabilization of the region that contributing to its stabilization.
That is the situation that Didier Bigo (2014: 208) identified as “messiness of the world”
and called on impossibilities to establish clear and absolute boundaries. He insists on the
claim that divisions as war and crime, violence, and security not only are not helpful for
the understanding of the current practices that occur around the globe, but they are, in
fact, harmful. Division of the agents and their role to a certain scenario, i.e., the police
is dealing with internal treats vs army that deals with threats across the border are
refuted by practices as invalid. Moreover, the gains and risk that certain agents represent
in the broader understanding of security in certain regions may be misleading if the risk
assessment does not include crime and corruption as well. While Abrahamsen and
Williams looked exactly in overcoming some divisions (public-private and global-local),
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their focus was on how those dynamics work with the final aim to see benefits for a local
security context.
In a line with Bigo´s concerns, Doucet (2016) recognizes the merits of the global security
concept but demonstrates that such a concept is limited in the analysis of more complex
realities, such as modern-day interventions. Because of the multiplication of the agents
(both commercial and military use) involved and trying to use the concept in the areas
where stability is still volatile (as post-conflict or stability operations), the concept has
been stretched to its limits. It was not drawn to cover those circumstances, yet its core
philosophy would be adequate for thinking about how those assemblages do work.
Even when considering somewhat stable environments, there are new hybrid forms of
assemblages that go beyond private companies and public institutions and call on the
importance of traditional leaders or locally organized security groups, considered non-
state actors, as the crucial part of the local security dynamics in the developing world.
Peter Albrecht (2017) demonstrated the weight such non-state actors carried in the
Sierra Leone where the private security actor Sungusungu assumed informal
responsibility for the resolution of community conflicts where there was an absence of
public forces. Those actors, by being involved in such hybrid assemblages, may gain the
political significance they previously did not possess, as happened in Kenya where the
rebel group evolved into a legitimate political force (Rasmussen, 2017).
There is a growing literature on the other actors – such as terrorists, rebels, warlords,
and other criminal groups – that turn security analysis even more complex (Varin &
Abubakar, 2017). The exclusion of the terror-crime nexus when analyzing security
assemblage at certain locations can cause significant alteration of the results and limit
understanding of dynamics and actors relevant in certain security contexts. For instance,
Frowd and Sandor (2018) demonstrated this to be relevant in the Sahel case, but
certainly, this is applicable in many others. As mentioned above, expansion of what is
considered a relevant private actor (i.e., commercial private security company) a decade
ago, is much wider now when there are, besides local groups and traditional leaders, also
other groups that contribute – positively and/or negatively – to the security environment
locally. There are global actors, such as radicalized and extremist groups that contribute
to alterations in security dynamics in certain regions that cannot/should not be dismissed.
Difficulties to include such groups within analysis provided by global security assemblages
is noticed (Ismail, 2013).
Finally, the dificulty of the global security assemblages’ concept is in considering all these
dynamics and acknowledging the complexity of the input of various actors involved.
Some of those actors may contribute positively at one time, while negatively at other.
Also, there may exist a number of positive and negative inputs at the same time that
would not necessarily result in a stable local security environment.
Conclusions
This article presented a literature review of a global security concept. After explaining its
origins and aims, it explored its space within various disciplines, from political science,
over sociology, to criminology. The use of the concept has been diverse, both from the
point of the view of the topics and geographically. It has been employed to address issues
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so distinct as policing, border control, extractive industry, gender roles, and security
governance. Geographically, it covered Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
We presented the benefits of using this approach as an alternative to actor-network
theories and security governance approaches that have dominated academic literature
concerning the analysis of private security actors. It provided the openness to study
dynamics of private and public actors and their practices, to learn from empirical data,
and to go beyond power relations analysis and set aside private-public and global-local
divisions, just some to name. In a decade of its use, it is a valuable tool academics use
to think about relations of private security at places that defy previously established
concepts and dichotomies.
The concept as a thinking tool has been useful as an inspiration to others to set their own
adaptations, like Kaldor’s global security cultures or Collier’s global cyber security
assemblages.
Hence, there are some challenges it has come across, as every growing complexity of
actors, dynamics, and settings in which we can observe security assemblages, such as
more hybrid forms, which include other non-state actors, the change of dynamics within
and between them, as well as more volatile settings are just some of them. Those
challenges represent a window of opportunity to explore further options as an inspiration
to others to look at it as a departing thinking tool to form perhaps the possibility to study
those adding complexities in the future.
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