The spectre of security is haunting politics. In ‘north’ and ‘south’, on left and right, security is replacing neoliberalism as a dominant political logic. Despite a wealth of securitisation studies, we have not yet fully grasped this shift and its political ramifications. Here we consider security’s rise to dominance in three contexts: first, the “postsocialist transition” in Latvia and the demise of Soviet socialism, which facilitated the wider neoliberal takeover. Second, Swedish social democracy, which soon succumbed. Third, Anglo-Saxon university culture, where many of the resultant political struggles played out. In all cases, a form of security “protectionism” stepped in as a solution to neoliberal malaise: yet in practice it has offered an even more far-reaching shift in power relations than neoliberalism before it.