Governing airport security between the market and the public good

Airport security is increasingly governed in liberal ways, allowing for flexibilized and marketized ways of outsourcing and contracting service provisions to the private sector. This article draws on expert interviews from the aviation sector, finding that liberal security governance at German airports enables public bodies not only to cut costs through competitive tendering practices, but also to re-locate accountability for security provision to private companies. The role of the public sector subsequently becomes one of managerialism and audits. However, there is a considerable downside to the promises of market regulation, putting severe hardships on the private security workforce and potentially undermining the quality of service provision. Thus, this article ultimately claims that public bodies should choose not to marketize security, as the value of security itself could be substantially undermined by neoliberal logics.