Changing nature of State security.
The traditional approach
to security threat as either external or internal in nature has been challenged
by time and occurrences around the world that shaped political responses to
these particular threats. The problems faced by states are now more intertwined
as states evolved over the years and new challenges emerged as a result of
these interactions. Once state’s major threat was external military attack,
currently it's home grown terrorists, the role of police was internal
peacekeeping and order, now its pursuing domestic drug dealers and unlike outside state borders, on the other hand military’s tasks not only resemble
that of internal security, but the rules of deployment has also been modified
by international law. Additionally, the provision of services that were once
entrusted to states, like security, has been delegated by states to private
security providers instead. All these changes did not occur in vacuum, it has
been aided by major developments in the global system, for example the collapse
of USSR, increased globalisation, and 9/11 attack in the US.
First, to understand the
division of external/internal dimension in the field of security, one has to go
back to historical sociology of state and security, and understand its
evolution. States security problem has two faces, external and internal
irrespective of its economic, social and political composition (Buzan 1995).
States can be highly disrupted by its internal contradictions as much as
external forces. These two may function separately, for example a state might
be destabilised by outside forces e.g. Britain vs. NAZI Germany, or it might
equally disintegrate into chaos due to its internal failures and weakness e.g.
Somalia, additionally, it might work together, where internal divisions
provides an opportunity to external forces to intervene.
By looking at state’s
domestic evolution over the millennia, it can be noted that it has achieved
higher internal cohesion and integration, which was mainly about territorial
control, and later evolved into current day states through developments of
bureaucracy, rise of commercial class, nationalism and finally, introduction of
democracy. (Buzan 2005, pg123). Internally, modern states have undergone
changes that has strengthened it, made it more coherent, powerful and
legitimate in the face of its citizens and with this emerged a more
comprehensive security agenda, where unlike the medieval era, where it worried
about security of the ruling families, its focus now shifted to climate change,
and technology.
One of the reason of the
shift from internal to external dimension of state’s outlook is the fact that
while the states were evolving, the environment in which it conducts its
business/activities was continuously changing as well. According to Buzan(1995)
there are two features that aided the
this rapid evolution, and it is interaction capacity of the system and
international society(pg124). International society emerged as a counter to the
anarchy and disorder created by increase in interaction capacity, and in many
ways it supports state security as it provides greater assurance of stability.
Due to increased globalisation and interdependence amongst states this internal/external division is
currently ambiguous and blurred. It is undeniable that states need some sort of
internal security to survive in this complex system, however, when it comes to
threats, territorial integrity and political autonomy is the major concern of
all states irrespective of its internal construction. With this complex
intertwined system, there is a common threat of international terrorism,
climate change that is faced by all states emerging from within and outside
states jurisdiction. And to challenge these new threats, private security is used
to reduce their threat. Wealthy states like the US, rely on PSC due to domestic
political reasons, fear of domestic scrutiny over death of soldiers, while poor
countries in the periphery will use PSC as they lack highly trained and
equipped soldiers for counter-terrorism, and drug trafficking rings.
Security, which is pursuit
of states, is about being freedom from threats, maintenance of its identity,
and protection against forces of change perceived as a hostile, basically,
security is about survival. States as units has come together, opened up to
other states and formed regional and international organisations where their interests
are protected from threats. They have formed a society of states in response to
the system which is inherent in the interactions of states (Woods 2010). This
is because states recognise importance of their interdependence and work out
rules and regulations to facilitate desired relations and curb unwanted
conflicts.
According to Bigo (1999),
trans-nationalism and internationalism has blurred the division between
external and internal, the notion of border is slowly fading, giving way to
regions and fronts. He further highlights that trans-nationalism, especially of security, has created a situation
where one doesn’t know whether they are inside or outside. Additionally, there are changes in the
provision and working of security from the cold war period. Internal and
external securities are merging, unlike pre-cold war, where they had little in
common especially among the developed world. After the end of bipolarity, the
army are looking inside the state borders in search of enemy from outside,
while the police are going beyond borders looking for their internal enemies as
they handle network of crimes related to drug trafficking and human
trafficking. It might not be correct to state that there is convergence of
internal and external security; however, through management of fear and control
of power, links are made between military and police. (Bigo 2000)
Collapse of USSR saw increase in number of intra-state conflict,
violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide, which led to questioning of what
exactly the new global security entails. As security paradigm shifted,
international community witnessed violence within states and less inter-state
wars. This shift required international community to come up with terms on how
to deal with new security environment. This blurred the line between external
and internal, as one state’s internal failures can eventually affect global
security, by either providing ground for growth network of terrorism, operating
within the country one but involved in other states as well e.g. Taliban,
Al-Qaeda.
According to Abrahamsen
&Williams (2009), privatisation of security is not a new trend; it has existed
as far as 9th century when mercenaries were used. However, according
to neo-liberal thinking its proliferation is linked to increased role of corporate capitalism, private coercion, globalisation, post 9/11, and increase in crime. Additionally,
governments have tried to tighten and streamline budget by outsourcing and
privatisation which led to shift from bureaucratic and state-centric service
provider to a more diverse one. This transformation of relationship between
private and public authority and power has led to assembly of global security,
an environment where national and global, public and private security agents,
interact, compete, and engage in and practice different forms of security governance.
Abrahamsen &Williams (2009), Current global operations of private security
shows that security governance is beyond state monopoly as a result of
intertwined global/ local and public/private relations in the operations of
global capital. These private firms provide and analyse intelligence,
translate, and train e.g. involvement of Titan in Abu Ghuraib. By focusing more
on security discourses and less on politics, these firms are actually
technically and cost effective than they are given credit for.
The merging of
inside/outside, private/public in security practices, have shown that state
borders are challenged by movement of goods, ideas and people (Bigo, pg112).
Embedding of internal and external has led to emergence of “enemy within”,
usually an immigrant, minority, making the outsider, insider, blurring the line
of who is to be controlled. Secondly, looking at regions like EU, where norms
of human rights compete with closed nationalism of neighbouring states (Bigo pg
112), and domination of EU borders over national as barriers is a challenge to
security agencies as the EU keeps expanding, today’s external becomes
tomorrow’s internal.
Immigration has increased
due to freedom of movement, but this freedom is later overshadowed by
monitoring of minority. Since territorial fences have been relaxed, a new form
of barrier is created based on identity that is socially constructed to control
minorities. This is problematic when it comes to enforcing it, as it is hard to
filter people based on identity (Bigo pg115). On private security, the market
for force has loosened states monopoly over force, but it does not mean that
the state is less important, this has provided for platform where states and
other actors can interact in controlling force on international stage.
you can read the rest of here!!
Buzan, Barry
(1995) `Security, the State, the “New World Order”, and
Beyond', in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.) On Security, pp. 187-211. New York,
NY: Columbia press
J Woods (2010) ‘Medieval security in modern Europe’. Space and Polity, Vol. 14, No. 3, 251–269,
Routledge & Taylor: Pennsylvania State
University Press
Bigo, Didier (2000). ‘When
Two Become One: Internal and External Securitisations in Europe’. International
Relations Theory and The Politics of European Integration. Power, Security and
Community. M. Kelstrup and M. Williams. London, Routledge, pp. 171-204
Bigo, Didier (2001).
Internal and External Security(ies): The Möbius Ribbon. Identities, Borders,
Orders. M. Albert, D. Jacobson and Y. Lapid. Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, pp. 91-116.
Abrahamsen, R and , "Security Beyond the
State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics", International Political Sociology, 3(1) pg 1-17
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