Description
The first book dedicated to the sociology of privatized security, this collection studies the important global trend of shifting security from public to private hands and the associated rise of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) and their contractors. The volume first explores the trend itself, making important historical and theoretical revisions to the existing social science of private security. These chapters discuss why rulers buy, rent and create private militaries, why mercenaries have become private patriots, and why the legitimacy of military missions is undermined by the use of contractors. The next section challenges the idea that states have a monopoly on legitimate violence and questions our legal and economic assumptions about private security. The collection concludes with a discussion of the contractors themselves, focusing on gender, race, ethnicity, and other demographic factors. Featuring a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and a range of theoretical and methodological innovations, this book will inspire sociologists to examine, with fresh eyes, the behind-the-scenes tension between the high drama of war and conflict and the mundane realities of privatized security contractors and their everyday lives.
Table of Contents
Introduction. Sociology and the Privatization of Security and Military Affairs; Thomas Crosbie, University of Maryland, College Park, USA and Ori Swed, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Part I. Examining the Trend
1. Why Privatize: The Reasons to Buy, Rent, or Create Private Militaries From Feudal Europe to the Era of American Decline; Richard Lachmann, SUNY Albany, USA
2. From Mercenaries to Private Patriots: Nationalism and the Private Military Contractors; Siniša Malešević, University College, Dublin, Ireland
3. Limited Commitments and the Limits of Legitimacy: Examining the Social Positions of Private Military and Security Companies; Eric Schoon, Ohio State University, USA, and Michael T. Englehart, Ohio State University, USA
Part II. Privatization and the State’s Monopoly on Violence
4. The Expansion of the U.S. Military’s Civilian Periphery and Corresponding Changes in U.S. Military Law; Daniel Alton Burland, The University of Saint Mary, USA
5. Reserves Forces as the ‘Privatization’ of the Military by the Nation State; K. Neil Jenkings, Newcastle University, Australia, Antonia Dawes, University of Bristol, UK, Timothy Edmunds, University of Bristol, UK, Paul Higate, University of Bristol, UK, Rachel Woodward, Newcastle University, Australia
6. Making Markets Responsible: The Regulation of the Use of Force in Global Conflicts; Anna Leander, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Part III: The State and the Contractors
7. Gendered Companies, Gendered Security; Lisa A. Leitz, Chapman University, USA
8. ‘We guard billions but we are paid peanuts’: Black workers in the South African Private Security Industry; Andy Clarno, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
9. Who are the Contractors?; Bryan Stephens, University of Texas at Austin, USA, John Sibley Butler, University of Texas at Austin, USA
10. Trendlines: Privatization and the Future of War and Security; Ori Swed, University of Texas at Austin, USA and Thomas Crosbie, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
