Security sector and construction of (in)security: Understanding a social paranoia

Abstract

This article critically assesses the relationship among security threats, security measures, and security sector. It argues that security became the organizing principle of the social and political life both at the global and domestic level, cross-cutting the private and public spheres. The article shows that the relationship between security consciousness and security threats, both at the global and domestic level, are not direct. It argues that our contemporary obsession with security should be explained by focusing on the re-organization of the security sector, rather than focusing on the presence or absence of security threats. The re-organisation of the security sector is analyzed as a two dimensional phenomena; first a large-scale privatization of supposedly state supplied security services to private companies and second the emergence of new security spheres and commodities. The reorganisation of the external military apparatus (private armies), internal policing (private security companies), and criminal justice system (private prisons) are then ana lysed as the instances in which the emerging relationship between security threats, security measures, and security sector is crystallized.