ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is based on semi-structured interviews with a cross-section of security stakeholders in Cameroon. It briefly explores Cameroon’s history to establish the historical, political and geopolitical context of security in Cameroon. The book introduces the state of affairs in African security scholarship, complexity science and key literature on resilience in Security Studies. It provides a detailed description of the broad categories of security provision and the individual actors within the broad categories. The book analyses societal security provision and actors such as customary, religious and civil society actors and private security companies. It also analyses modern state security provision and actors such as elected and appointed administrators, the police and the military. The book shows characteristics which are consistent with complex adaptive systems per complexity theory.
