This chapter discusses the normative complexity of private security. It critically debates the stigmatization of private security companies and the limitations of legal regulation, and highlights the role of self-regulation in the form of corporate ethics and (international) branch standards. Based on a review of scholarly literature, (inter)national cases, and examples from fieldwork in South Africa, the chapter captures the growing plurality of actors and voices in a vastly diversifying private security sector. In order to overcome the traditional bias towards private security and its corporate sector, it advocates an organizational anthropological approach to uncover regulatory alternatives and the ethical and normative diversity that is essential to a comprehensive understanding of the privatization of security.
Noortmann, MathKoning, Juliette
Oxford Brookes Business School
Year of publication: 2020Date of RADAR deposit: 2020-06-23
This is a draft of a chapter/article that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology / edited by Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale, Maria Sapignoli, Olaf Zenker, published in 2021.