Age of Security

The Rise of a Global Obsession

De: Ruben Andersson

What would you give up to feel safe?

The security industry has captured our politics and our private lives. From rogue states to Ring doorbells, someone is always keeping a watchful eye – and we’re paying for it. Anthropologist Ruben Andersson shows how Big Security rose to power, generating unprecedented profits, while failing to protect us and actively making us less safe. In this page-turning dispatch from security’s frontlines – across the political right and left and global rich and poor – he tracks police chiefs in Swedish suburbs, embeds with migrants in Mexico, bunkers down with peacekeepers in Mali and dines with arms dealers in Paris.

Everywhere, he finds that our shared obsession with security is an act of retreat: high walls, constant surveillance and punitive policies offer the illusion of control while fuelling paranoia and precarity. Every tracking app installed, border fortified, or emergency law passed makes us less free and less safe. Real safety is found an open, shared society with a strong social contract, freedom of expression and a sense of positive human purpose.

We have given up so much in the name of safety and convenience. But once we see how security has trapped us, we can start to break free.

©2026 Ruben Andersson