Policing Global Hubs: Balancing the Imperatives of Security and Trade

Abstract

Global hubs such as airports and maritime ports are geographical centers where immense flows converge, and are characterized by speed, time and efficiency in linking local markets and global economic trade networks. Being symbolic infrastructures of capitalism, global hubs may attract criminal exploitation and be exposed to security risks. Drawing on extensive interview material from those involved in Norwegian airport and port security, this article explores how policing agencies experience the balancing of the imperatives of security and trade. It reveals how policing agencies are affected by, and seek to adapt to, the demands for efficiency and speed intrinsic to the trade regime, thereby highlighting the importance of the temporal dimension to understanding the complexities of contemporary security governance.

Capital struggles in security networks: A theoretical framework

“…As noted in previous studies, security measures can be perceived as heavy-handed, everincreasing and burdensome by private actors, so public actors' suggestions and their own activities may face resistance (Brewer, 2014;Fosher, 2009;Nøkleberg, 2020Nøkleberg, , 2023. The interviewee from Brazilian Customs, Lúcio, points out that, added to the fact that 'unfortunately, many of them still have the view that drug trafficking is not their problem', private actors' commercial outlook leads to laxity regarding certain security measures.…”

“…Security networks are made up of formal and permanent, as well as informal and temporary relationships between and among equally numerous and diverse public and private actors specialized in authorization, delivery or both, with security as a primary or secondary function (Dupont, 2006a;Nøkleberg, 2020Nøkleberg, , 2023. Therefore, it is hard to establish their boundaries empirically.…”

“…However, as the networks 'are more incidental than teleological', according to Dupont (2006a: 168), '[t]here is no shared overall objective or value but instead there are myriad overlapping interests'. In fact, previous studies have pointed this out as one of the greatest challenges to partnerships, since ports bring together public and private actors with mentalities, rationalities or logics based on potentially contradictory principles (Brewer, 2014;Marks et al, 2013;Nøkleberg, 2020Nøkleberg, , 2023. Therefore, diverging and not always reconcilable principles coexist and compete with those of security.…”

Cocaine and the port: Utopias of security, urban relations, and displacement of policing efforts in the port of Piraeus

“…It needs to be pointed out that access to such authorities and individualsespecially customsis indeed quite unique: port authorities are hard-to-reach populations (Eski, 2022). The port environment is often a hidden enclavemainly due to securitisation (Nøkleberg, 2022), where expert interviews, purposefully sampled, require a lot of effort on the side of the researcher, in terms of access (Mason, 2002). In addition, journalists-experts in organised crime and in maritime matters were also contacted (three out of four identified were available for the interview) to obtain a more nuanced narrative of the port.…”

“…The governance of the port space is increasingly a matter of plural or hybrid policing, and of networked coordination and cooperation among various institutions involved in security-making (Brewer, 2014; Easton, 2020; Eski, 2016; Sergi et al, 2021). As argued by Nøkleberg (2022: 20) ‘the experience and understanding of security are highly sensitive to commercial interests and the temporal orientations implicated in the trade regime’. This means that a trade-off between security and trade characterises everyday practices of policing agencies in global maritime hubs and influences the ‘mentalities’ of these organisations, their subjectivity, and their operations.…”