1 Research Proposal:- ‘What Roles Do Non-State Actors Play in the Provision of Security in Ghana?’. Research Aim In a lot of developing countries, including Ghana, due to inability or unwillingness, formal state security systems are unable to meet the security needs of a majority of citizens, particularly the poor. Consequently, a lot of these poor people depend on non-state actors for their security needs, with both positive and negative effects. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the role that non-state actors play in the provision of security in Ghana, and thus help contribute to thinking on security provision in the country. Background Security is an important condition for development, and states have traditionally provided it to citizens. However, an increasing phenomenon is the provision of security functions by private actors to states, private organizations and individuals. Security privatisation is, however, not a new phenomenon; it dates back to the early Greek, and Roman armies.1 Contemporary private security has two broad forms, one formalized and consisting of individuals and organizations structured along corporate lines and providing services independent of the state.2 The second form consists of non-state actors who provide security, usually to the poor and marginalized in developing countries who are unable to procure the services of commercial security. They include individual security provisioning, neighborhood watch committees and vigilantes among others. The state- non-state taxonomy is preferred to the formal-informal taxonomy common in discourses on private security. This is because some non-state security arrangements are quite formal in organization; they are not ad ho...
