Security Entrepreneurs ― Performing Protection in Post-cold War Europe

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 -- and been shaped by-- the behaviour and power of regional and global actors (e.g. European institutions, regional, and global corporations) in Eastern Europe. By virtue of the fact that they combine in complex ways local, national, regional, and global dynamics and actors, processes of security commercialization in the former Eastern bloc can be seen as instances of 'glocalization'. 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 have come to be systematically involved in performing security practices traditionally associated with the state. In addition, a potent commercial logic has come to permeate public security institutions. This has led to redefinition of the relationship between the state and its population in ways that defy conventional wisdom about the role of the state, and pose difficult normative challenges. More broadly, processes of security commercialization in Eastern Europe, which involve important performative dimensions, have led to the emergence of complex, hybrid networks of security providers that transcend domestic/international, public/private boundaries and behave, in many ways, as entrepreneurs.

Alexandra Gheciu is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and Associate Director of the Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa. Her publications include The Oxford Handbook of International Security (co-edited with William Wohlforth, OUP, forthcoming), The Return of the Public in Global Governance (co-edited with Jacqueline Best, Cambridge University Press, 2014), Securing Civilization? The EU, NATO and the OSCE in the Post-9/11 World (OUP, 2008), and NATO in the 'New Europe': The Politics of International Socialization After the Cold War (Stanford University Press, 2005).