New narratives of international security governance: the shift from global interventionism to global self-policing

This article examines the transformation in the narratives of the international governance of security over the past two decades. It suggests that there has been a major shift from governing interventions designed to address the causes of security problems to the regulation of the effects of these problems. In re-articulating the goals of international actors, the means and mechanisms of security governance have also changed, no longer focused on the universal application of Western knowledge and resources but rather on the unique local and organic processes at work in societies that bear the brunt of these problems. This transformation takes the conceptualisation of security governance out of the traditional terminological lexicon of security expertise and universal solutions and instead articulates the problematic of security and the policing of global risks in terms of local management processes, suggesting that decentralised coping strategies and self-policing are more effective and sustainable solutions.