Private security, market and governmentality: the case of Eskişehir

The main purpose of this study is to discuss the conditions for the appearance of private security that is starting to become visible in almost every field as well as subjecting these processes to critical reading. In this study that adopted the qualitative research procedure, the triangulation method is selected as baseline which includes interview, observation and document research in order to collect data. The sample of the research constitutes private security service consumers and private security providers that are selected for sampling in Eskisehir. In order for reaching the sampling group, this study has made use of the snowball sampling method. As part of the study, in depth interviews are conducted between the dates of July-August 2018 with 39 people that comprised of 12 private security consumers, 5 private security companies and educational institution authorities, 22 private security guards providing service in Eskisehir in diverse fields such as facility, municipality, factory, school, site, mall, hospital and university. The finding of this study indicates that the private security in Eskisehir emerged towards the end of 1990s and aside from facing technical problems under rough employment such as low wages, long working hours, untimely and underpaid salaries, lack of job security, insufficiency and shortness of the given education, frequent job changes, limited state of organization, private security guards also encountered problems such as not having private security as a respectable job by the society, its low status and not getting respect because of all this disowning created by these conditions and underestimation. The given data on private security guards and company authorities indicate that private security does not exist neither "exactly the inside or the outside of the state" and that despite the claim that the security getting privatized and put on market paves the way for civilianization, it in fact causes the differentiation of supervision as well as deeper permeation through daily life. The findings about the private security consumers indicate that the horror culture resulted from the unpredictable risks in today's risk society pushes participants to buy the products offered by the private security industry, that the private security services which are offered only to those who buy them create a class difference as a meta obtained through individual enterprise and that the participants living in sites protected by private security see private guards as a shield between inside and outside, signifying in this respect the fact that private security guard works up and consolidates social disintegration.