New Authorities: Relating State and Non-State Security Auspices in South African Improvement Districts

Abstract

Disciplines engaged in governance studies have increasingly recognised the pluralistic nature of governance practices, involving both the state and non-state operating as auspices and providers in local and global settings. Security governance developments, in particular, have resulted in security provision being undertaken outside of state processes by the non-state in new power formations. Drawing on the work of the Ostroms and adopting a nodal analysis, this paper locates, within this context, the widespread emergence of ‘Improvement Districts’ as a new authority in hybrid, polycentric security governance arrangements. The paper seeks to highlight the process by which Improvement Districts are created and organised; how they assert authority on public spaces and how they impact on security networks. The main argument is that Improvement Districts constitute a site in which there are multiple, shifting sites of authority and that this has implications for security provision in terms of effectiveness, regulation and power.

Keywords: security; South Africa