Privatizing security and authoritarian adaptation in the Arab region since the 2010–2011 uprisings

Abstract

ABSTRACT Some Arab countries have since 2011 experienced intense security market diversification with considerable outsourcing of domestic security and guarding services. To date, scholars and security experts predominantly conceive this development within security reform processes or as an inevitable outcome of a chaotic post-uprisings period. Instead, this article situates some Arab states’ increasing reliance on private security actors within the evolving power dynamics and diverse challenges facing ruling elites and populations alike. Addressing how privatizing security contributes to perpetuating authoritarian practices post-2010, the article argues that contemporary security privatization and outsourcing provide alternative agents and strategies for control, while offering new venues to enrich and strengthen ruling elites. Guided by critical security studies and drawing on interviews, fieldwork and official documents, the article advances three ways through which outsourcing security supports practices of authoritarian adaptation: cultivating networks of patronage, diversifying ruling elites’ bases of security, and curbing constant sources of unrest.