Investigates the implications of the globalization of private security for politics, security, and international relations.

Introduction; 1. The untold story: the globalization of private security; 2. Late modernity and the rise of private security; 3. Power and governance: global assemblages and the security field; 4. Of oil and diamonds: global security assemblages in resource extraction; 5. Safer cities or cities of walls? The politics of urban global security assemblages; 6. Security, politics, and global assemblages.

Rita Abrahamsen is Associate Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She has lectured and published widely on African politics, and is currently joint-editor of the journal African Affairs. She is the author of Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa.