Private Military and Security Companies, Territoriality and the Transformation of Western Security Governance

Abstract

The field of security governance holds a special place within the context of the debate over the diffusion of power from state to non-state actors, from national to international authorities and from governments to markets in Western democracies. Not only has the provision of the ‘public good’ security been considered one of the main functions of government, but also it has played a major role in justifying the centralization of power and authority within and by the nation-state (Leander, 2006; Krahmann, 2010). The contemporary proliferation of private military and security companies, that is, companies that sell armed and non-armed security services to public and private customers, poses a particular challenge to state-centric notions of national and global governance. Of course, commercial security providers are not new. Businesses have always played a role in national and international security, whether as mercenaries, armaments producers or logistics suppliers in major conflicts. The increasingly global scale of the private military and security industry, its functional expansion into areas previously considered to be ‘inherently governmental’ as well as their growing use by private individuals and business customers, however, suggest a significant transformation in security governance since the ‘golden age’ of the Western nation-state in the mid-twentieth century (Leibfried et al., 2008; also Hogan, 2000; Edgerton, 2006). Notably, 80 per cent of their customers are individuals and corporations, suggesting significant private power over the provision of security.