Between Police and Military

Abstract

The differentiation between internal and external security, and between police and military, has been a core principle of the modern nationstate. A distinctive feature of the security landscape of the post-Cold War era, however, is that the dividing line between internal and external security has become increasingly blurred — a consequence of, inter alia, the emergence of a growing number of transnational risks and challenges. This article sheds light on a thus far somewhat neglected aspect of this convergence between the realms of internal and external security, or crime and war: the growing significance of intermediary, i.e. gendarmerie-type, or paramilitary, security forces. The main argument advanced in the following is that the post-Cold War period has witnessed not only the emergence of challenges which defy the distinction between internal and external security, but also the ascendance of agencies which are located between internal and external security forces. This development is exemplified by a discussion of two major areas of the contemporary security agenda, that of border control, where gendarmeries are being mobilized to counter various transnational challenges to security, and that of peace support operations, where they are playing an increasingly important role in post-war reconstruction efforts.

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