Private security companies in the Czech Republic: Rearticulating the security field and transforming politics

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the practices of private security companies (PSCs) upon the fields of security and politics in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the scandalous case of the largest Czech private security company, Agency of the White Lion (ABL)/Mark2 Corporation (M2.C), whose founder attempted to create a business-firm-party by performing a hostile takeover of an existing minor political party. By applying the global security assemblages model and drawing on the recent literature on the commodification of security, this article situates the case of ABL/M2.C within the larger socio-political-legal-economic context of the booming private security industry, whose extensive linkages with Czech politics are best characterized as a ‘reverse revolving door’ phenomenon. This phenomenon in turn suggests a possibility that the continuing absence of specific legislation to regulate the activities of PSCs is due to too much, rather than too little, political interest in the activities of these organizations. This is problematic because the practices of PSCs have already contributed to a significant rearticulation of the Czech security field by enhancing the commodification of security, while ABL’s use of security methods for political purposes has rearticulated the field of politics in a number of profoundly negative ways.