Locally Owned Private Security Companies in Overlapping Markets The Case of KASS in South Sudan

Abstract

What type of markets for private security are created in personalist autocracies with large international sectors? Are locally owned private security companies (PSCs) likely competitors to transnational PSCs in these markets? The proliferation of locally owned PSCs in Africa remains obscured by the presence of high-capacity Western firms and state-sponsored entities originating in Russia and China.
Rarely have scholars considered how locally owned PSCs compete with transnational PSCs in domestic markets across the continent, much less how regime type influences the market for force. Seeking to broaden explanations of private security contracting in complex domestic marketplaces, this article argues that locally owned PSCs are dependent on relationships with political elites in the overlapping market structures found in personalist autocracies that house peacekeeping economies. The article is organized as a case study of South Sudan’s capital Juba, where a market for security services centered on a UN peacekeeping mission operates alongside a state-centered market where the government is both a buyer and provider of private security. In the 2010s, the locally owned firm
Kerbino Agok Security Services (KASS) earned UN contracts while navigating international accreditation standards; however, KASS was later shut down by the government’s National Security Service (NSS). The compulsory authority of the state ultimately determines the fate of local initiatives, especially when political elites exercise their licensing and sanctioning authority to favor state-sponsored entities.