State or private security supply? An analysis from the institutional economics perspective

The issue of domestic security has become increasingly complex over the past decades. As there is an increasing overlap between private and public provision of security, the question of how to allocate responsibility for security between the public sphere (state) and the private sphere has become important. Concepts that can provide both clarity and sufficient complexity are much needed. This article offers an institutional economics concept. This implies a method where basic elements of neoclassical public finance (e.g. differences like provision v. production or public v. private goods) are combined with explicitly institutional and security economic elements (degree of prevention, specificity, repressivity, state monopoly on the use of force). As a result, a normative distinction between state and private security responsibilities based on qualitative arguments is offered.