Private security and national security: The case of Estonia

Abstract

Most studies of private security postulate exclusively internal, primarily economic, causes of the industry's growth and regulation. In contrast, based on the case of post-Soviet Estonia, we investigate how a state's external security environment influences private security. Estonia's tense relations with Russia generated several policies through which private security evolved from a lawless industry to a modest, lightly regulated one: (1) the exclusion of public police from private security; (2) an effective campaign against organized crime; (3) free-trade policies that permitted western companies to acquire Estonian security firms; and (4) state–civil society security cooperation. Estonia thus clarifies how high politics shapes private security, while also revealing the factors that make the industry relatively uncontentious in most industrialized democracies.