Following independence a number of African states were content to seek protection under the security umbrella of an external power. The end of the cold war has called this clientelism sharply into question, facilitating a variety of challenges to the political hegemony of the state and the emergence at the same time of new and diffuse forms of force, wielded by private as well as official entrepreneurs of violence. Liberalisation and state weakness have encouraged a growing private market in security, making possible novel ways of articulating political, commercial, and military agendas. The resulting "crisis of security" is forcing both state and non-state, domestic and external actors to rethink security concepts and architectures, in cooperation as well as competition with each other.
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