The Handbook of Global Security Policy

Chapter 28 Corporate Actors

Shantanu Chakrabarti

Introduction

One issue on which social scientists across the spectrum mostly agree is that, while human organizations and systems are becoming more complex in nature, institutional structures, such as government, are failing to cope with these complexities (Foster, 1994, pp. 4–5). This has accelerated a trend towards denationalization and privatization, leading to the private actors becoming involved in diverse fields like legitimatization of standards; provision of social welfare; enforcement of contracts; and even provision of security (Biersteker and Hall, 2002, p. 203). Ensuring security, in particular, considered for long as one of the principal tasks of the post-Westphalian state, has also been affected by the myriad challenges affecting the state in recent times. The New Security Dilemma (NSD), it has been argued, significantly reduces the effectiveness of traditional state-based and state-systemic approaches to international politics as a range of transnational and subnational actors and structures are forging alliances beyond state determined boundaries (Cerny, 2000, p. 645). This, however, does not mean, as several analysts have suggested, the complete loss of state monopoly, or even loss of its status as the leading security actor resulting from globalization-induced pressure to outsource essential elements of governance, including security provision. In reality, a more appropriate explanation would suggest creation ...