1st Edition

Transnational Companies and Security Governance Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World

By Jana Hönke Copyright 2013
248 Pages
by Routledge

248 Pages
by Routledge

248 Pages
by Routledge

This book investigates governance practiced by non-state actors. It analyses how multinational mining companies protect their sites in fragile contexts and what that tells us about political ordering 'beyond' the state.  Based on extensive primary research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Europe and North America, the book compares companies' political role in the 19th... Read more

1. Introduction  2. Engaging Hybrid Security Governance  3. Transnationalised Business Spaces in a Postcolonial World  4. Practicing Hybrid Security: Multinational Companies and Hybrid Security Practices, post-1995 5. Understanding Hybrid Security Practices: Transnational Meaning Systems, post-1995 6. Companies, Security Governance and Change: Practicing Transnational Meaning Systems, 1890s-1920s 7. Conclusion

Biography

Jana Hönke is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. She is also a senior research associate with the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 700 at Freie Universität Berlin.

"The unique strength of Hönke’s argument lies, perhaps paradoxically, in refusing to attribute to multinational corporations a straightforward role in local security governance in contexts of weak statehood. Showing how local security managers combine different globally circulating security discourses and translate them into hybrid local security strategies renders corporations more ‘real’ (one could say more ‘human’) than studies that grant seemingly unified global discourses unlimited power over local practices. This means that her nuanced analysis of the security practices of mining companies helps to dispel many prevailing myths, and is therefore a must-read for scholars who wish to understand the complexity of the role of multinational corporations in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the careful interdisciplinary heuristic analytical framework that Hönke applies to her case studies makes this book more generally of interest to anyone concerned with studying contemporary governance beyond the state in terms of the interrelations between global discourses and local practices." - Peer Schouten. School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg