Rethinking sovereignty: the implications of the role of private security companies in the prevention and the regulation of unauthorized flows

Abstract

The delegation of authority to private companies in the security domain has certain advantages for states. It optimizes security, lowers costs and eschews accountability. The aim of this article is to examine the implications of the increasing role of private security companies within, at and beyond the borders of state sovereignty. This article argues that the growing power of private security companies in the prevention and the regulation of unauthorized flows of people and goods produces contradictory tendencies for state sovereignty. As private security companies fulfil roles that were previously under the exclusive authority of state actors, states have lost their exclusivity with respect to their coercive and performative roles. Yet, the privatization of security is the result of the calculated decisions of state actors to increase their coercive power against unauthorized border crossers. Even though states’ sovereign exclusivity is being weakened with the privatization of the security domain, both state and private actors work towards strengthening states’ sovereign authority by excluding and deterring unauthorized movements of people and goods.

Notes

1 Unintended deaths that occur at immigration detention centres run by private companies raise the issue of states’ legal responsibility in the protection of human rights.

2 By giving private security companies the authority to apply violence when necessary, Israel differs from other countries examined through the deliberate erosion of its monopoly over violence. For example, an Israeli citizen who was attempting to climb the Erez barrier fence to reach Gaza was shot and killed by private security personnel after he ignored the calls (and subsequent warning shots) to stop (Greenberg 2009).

3 However, while the prevention and the regulation of unauthorized flows by private companies may be beneficial for states on a practical level, they may also create ethical problems, calling into question how states should fulfil their responsibilities towards citizens/non-citizens in an ethical manner. For recent works that have discussed border and migration issues from an ethical angle, see Jones (2016) and Jones (2019).