THINK PIECE 05 Summary • is hybridized in many post-colonial countries. Hybrid political orders are charac­terized by diverse and competing authority structures, sets of rules, and logics of order. They com­bine elements of Western models with elements stemming from local indigenous traditions and are also affected by the forces of globalization and associated societal fragmentation. • political orders differ con­siderably from the Western mod­el state and the way it operates, not least in the core domain of security. Internal security and or­der are not based on a state mo­nopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. Under conditions of hybrid security governance, there is a huge variety of peace, security, and justice providers. They straddle the state/non-state boundary and maintain complex, fluid, and constantly changing intense interactions and relation­ships. • have to take this hybridi­zation of security into account and have to explore ways of working with hybridity that could contribute to stable security and sustainable peace – if necessary beyond the state monopoly on the use of force. 1 Hybridization of Security Volker Böge The limited reach of the Weberian state The realities of many states in the post-colonial Global South are largely divorced from the Weberian ideal with its monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force. These states, however, should not be seen from the perspective of either»not yet« properly built or »already« failing or failed again, but as political entities in their own right. The import or imposition of modern Western state structures in the course of colonization and decolonization did not lead to the estab­lishment of the model modern state – as might have been expected by the former colonial powers and the indigenous political elites who steered their countries through»national liberation« and into inde­pendence. In many cases, the state was nothing more than an empty shell at the time of independence. Attempts to consolidate the for­mally established form of statehood met with manifold obstacles. The new states lacked roots in their societies, and the delivery of modern state institutions was not accompanied by the development of the economic, political, social, and cultural structures that had provided the basis and framework for an efficiently functioning and legitimate political order in the course of the emergence of the European state. 1 Although post-colonial state institutions claim authority within the boundaries of a given»state territory,« in large parts only outposts of »the state« can be found, in a societal environment that is to a large extent»stateless.« Often the state has not yet permeated society and extended its control to the whole of society. Statelessness, however, does not mean Hobbesian anarchy, nor does it imply the complete absence of institutions. In many places, customary non-state insti­tutions of governance, originating in the pre-colonial past, still play an important role in the everyday lives of people and communities. They have, of course, been subject to considerable change and have 1 Under ruthless pressure of globalization and the accompanying neoliberal agenda of the past decades, there has often even been a regression from levels of statehood achieved post-independence. A decline in the capacity, effectiveness and legitimacy of state institutions led to heightened state fragility, often in combination with the escala­tion of violent internal conflicts. This vicious circle of fragility and violence gave rise to the discourse of failing and failed states which over the past two decades or so has informed the politics and strategies of major Western donor countries and international organisations, with liberal peacebuilding and state-building at its core. The so-called fragile or conflict-affected states of the Global South have become the subject of ex­ternally driven peacebuilding and state-building, or rather peacebuilding-as-statebuil­ding, which in a sense seeks to compensate the neoliberal neglect of state institutions. State-formation processes omitted post-independence are now to be made up for by means of externally-supported state-building/peacebuilding.