Description:
This article tackles the fraught relationship between security discourse, on the theoretical level, and security experience and practice on the ground. It argues that the efforts of the Kyrgyzstani authorities to reform and thus create sustainable and needs-based community security and law enforcement structures have so far largely been performative or even “virtual”, meaning that they have focused on governing, but not producing security. The argument is first developed out of literature on state building, the security sector and police reform from a global perspective and in the context of Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan, more specifically. In a second step, we draw on insights from fieldwork, professional experience and grey literature to examine Local Crime Prevention Centres (LCPCs), which are communal-level public bodies where local administrations and residents potentially co-produce needs-based forms of security. However, we also show that the work of these bodies is still dependent on international support while lacking the conditions and facilitation that only executive actors can provide.