Chapter 7 analyses how actors frequently mix forms of ordering within their actions and by collaborating with other actors. Mixing ordering can bridge the difference between centre and periphery as well as inner and outer circle by using appropriate forms for each – centres and inner circles lend themselves more to stable and peripheries and outer circles to fluid ordering. Actors also collaborate or compete among each other based on their different forms of ordering. When actors see the use of other forms of ordering than their own as threatening, security quickly deteriorates, while security improvements can be achieved through collaboration of differently ordering actors. Security is thus not the outcome of one form of ordering but of the complementarity of ordering within the security arena.

Chapter 4 focusses on the local level in order to examine the way different parts of arenas lend themselves to varying forms of ordering. Within an inner circle, actors engage more regularly, revealing themselves to one another and thereby creating pressure for a stable order. An outer circle is more illegible, diffuse, and widespread, which allows actors to use it as a refuge for fluid ordering. The shape of an arena is not a deterministic structure but rather one that actors deliberately mould to support the forms of ordering that benefit them most. This line of research ascertains (1) why, how, and where actors create the dividing line between an inner and outer circle (drawing the line), (2) why and how actors enter or leave an inner circle (crossing the line), and (3) what forms of interactions make a line obsolete between inner- and outer-circle actors (erasing the line).

The Conclusion sums up by establishing patterns of how actors order different parts of an arena and create security. It presents the key findings along the four dimensions of the historical legacies of centre–periphery relations, distinctions between inner and outer circles, competition or complementation between stable and fluid ordering forms, and embedding or detaching interventions. My analysis contributes novel answers to questions about local security in conflict-affected countries and an original framework capable of facilitating future comparative analyses on the matter.

The labels ‘state fragility’ and ‘civil war’ suggest that security in several African countries has broken down. While people do experience insecurity in some parts of conflict-affected countries, in other areas they live in relative security. Between 2014 and 2018, the author travelled to South Sudan and the Central African Republic during their ongoing civil wars and into Somalia’s breakaway state of Somaliland to gain insights from the people whose security is at stake. He develops the concept of a ‘security arena’, wherein he investigate security as the outcome of actors’ local political-ordering struggles on a fluidity–stability spectrum. He finds that neither stable nor fluid ordering per se creates security or insecurity. Security improves when actors seek to cohabit all parts of arenas by using varying ordering forms in a complementary fashion.

Chapter 1 provides the research framing of this book. First, it discusses relevant academic works on arenas and combines them with the author’s own empirical insights. It defines ‘security’ and describes the two key dimensions of actors and their interactions. Second, descriptive commonalities and differences in ordering practices in the local security arena lead to analytical insights that call for more in-depth investigation – namely, the respective roles and interactions of state, non-state, and international actors; the dividing lines between inner and outer circles in the local arena; and different relations between peripheral local cases and their respective centres. In the methodological section, the chapter explains the selection of these three countries and the local arenas within them, how data was gathered through an explorative mix of methods, and its analysis through process tracing and the Comparative Area Studies approach.