ABSTRACT
It can be said that since Buzan’s (1991) inclusion of the societal sector in security sectors, there has been an increase in literature which emphasises the importance of societal factors to the production of security. Scholars have argued for the broadening of ‘doing security’ out of the state sector to the societal (Collier 2010; Fukuyama 1995). Specifically for Cameroon, it has been argued that to understand politics in Cameroon one must understand the ‘oral traditions, traditional religions, beliefs, traditional power structures, ways in which power is exercised, forms of physical as well as physiological coercion’ in addition to the modern state structures introduced through colonisation (Hansen 2003, 222). There essence of this chapter is, therefore, to investigate the societal actors engaged in security provision in Cameroon. It uncovers their nature and the role played in security provision. This lays the foundation for the analysis that follows in subsequent chapters.
