Intermediating Between Conflict and Security: Private Security Companies as Infrastructures of Security in Post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

South Africa is often viewed as a post-conflict society. It can, however, also be viewed as a terrain of enduring conflict characterised by numerous divisions. Some of these divisions are new, but others are inextricable iterations of historical fault-lines. As an infrastructure of security, the role of the South African police has always been contentious. It has gone from the enforcer of a racist government to a service perceived by many citizens as corrupt and incompetent. Crime levels, including theft, robbery, housebreaking and violent crimes have increased significantly since the advent of democracy. In this context, private security companies specialising in guarding and armed response have become a key security infrastructure working for those who can afford it. It draws on primary data gathered from private policing services and the public to interpret the meaning of private security firms in the post-apartheid polity. The argument pursued is that private security companies intermediate between populations of different strata and in the process, between conflict and security. This represents much continuity with the role of the police in the pre-democratic state. To stabilise the situation in the long run, greater desegregation/integration of adversarial population groups is required.

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented at the Peace and Conflict Studies in Social Anthropology (PACSA) meeting in Amsterdam, 28–30 August 2017. I would like to thank Andreas Langenohl, Cecile Schultz and two anonymous peer-reviewers for their valuable inputs on previous versions of this paper. Any remaining mistakes or misinterpretations are of course my own. There are no external funders to declare for this particular research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Gideon van Riet http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1482-7717

Notes

1 The RDP was the first iteration of economic policy after apartheid. This policy had a more social democratic slant compared to the policies that succeeded it. It was soon replaced by the free market macro-economic strategy Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), and associated policies, from 1996. The RDP’s housing scheme has, however, endured.