Governance for security - Essay Example

Yet, the State inherently cannot exist outside of a belief system in the mind – it is a psychological or ideological concept. Thus, Weber provides the justification for behavior going beyond common morality and the State itself is the reason that justifies the transgression. Historically, Weber’s theory is positioned at a time when the modern State was first mobilizing its police force on military organization patterns in the defense of domestic security. Private armies related to landlords and capitalist groups were also common internationally previous to this.

Understanding the difference between these three types of armies is important, for the distinctions still drive the system of conflict, civil war, and failed States worldwide today. The State security forces can be categorized as domestic and related to police forces or international and related to military forces. In addition to this, there can be seen private armies and “warlords” that operate on a local basis within the State on behalf of either minority ownership interests in capitalism or on an ideological basis.

Also existing outside of the State monopoly are local insurrectionist groups and Marxist forces that seek to seize power or resources through violent means. The majority of conflicts in the 20th Century can be related to these three types of organized political violence. The State seeks to provide security to all equally, the private armies of capitalism seek to preserve minority concentrations of wealth, and popular liberation armies organize against capitalist interests. The Marxist-Capitalist duality in violence is shaken in some ways by violent ideologies like Islamic groups who organize around different fundamental philosophies.

Similarly, there is a division of violence that is represented by crime that is different than these forms of political violence. Private security forces may inherently target crime as a motive for operation rather than to combat the threat of political violence. Part of the Marxist critique is based upon the collusion of State power with capitalist interests that produce a non-egalitarian social policy or inherently impoverish vast segments of the population so that wealth can be concentrated in luxury, status, power, etc.

With the disappearance of an “armed” Marxism with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into a capitalist economy, the status quo is increasingly shattered by terrorism as it represents the “third force” of Islamic fundamentalism. This terrorism acts on a different ideology than Marxist insurrectionist violence, though both challenge the hegemony of capitalism as it aligns with the State in military power and international law. Private security by nature is an attempt to protect and perpetuate vast differences in wealth, status, and power, for by definition the masses cannot afford it.

The modern democratic State is seen as being tasked with the protection of domestic freedom, yet in doing so often contradicts its vey purpose in violating individual civil rights and liberties. In this manner, post-Marxism the target of the State security apparatus is crime and terrorism primarily rather than the spread of State socialism or