Private Military and Security Companies: Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects

Front Matter....Pages 1-9
Overseas Trade in Early Modernity and the Emergence of Embryonic Private Military Companies....Pages 11-22
Does History Repeat Itself? A Comparative Analysis of Private Military Entities....Pages 23-35
The Privatization of Military Affairs: A Historical Look into the Evolution of the Private Military Industry....Pages 37-53
The Private Military Company: An Entity at the Center of Overlapping Spheres of Commercial Activity and Responsibility....Pages 55-68
Soldiers of Misfortune: Is the Demise of National Armed Forces a Core Contributing Factor in the Rise of Private Security Companies?....Pages 69-85
Private Security Companies: Agents of Democracy or Simply Mercenaries?....Pages 87-104
Searching for Resources, Offering Security ... Private Military Companies in Sierra Leone....Pages 105-120
Contracting in the Fog of War ... Private Security Providers in Iraq: A Principal-Agent Analysis....Pages 121-134
Privatization of Maritime Security in Southeast Asia....Pages 135-148
No Contractors on the Battlefield: The Dutch Military’s Reluctance to Outsource....Pages 149-164
Privatization in the German Armed Forces....Pages 165-176
The Private Security Industry in Kenya: Issues and Challenges....Pages 177-201
Private Security Guards as a Socio-Professional Group in Bulgaria....Pages 203-212
The Civilianization of the US Military: Army and Navy Case Studies of the Effects of Civilian Integration on Military Personnel....Pages 213-239
Human Rights and Private Military Companies: A Double-Edged Sword too Dangerous to Use?....Pages 241-258
Liaisons Dangereuses: The Cooperation between Private Security Companies and Humanitarian Aid Agencies....Pages 259-272
Private Security Companies and Civil-Military Cooperation....Pages 273-291
Effective Peacekeeping and the Privatization of Security....Pages 293-306
Norms versus Rationality: Why Democracies Use Private Military Companies in Civil Wars....Pages 307-320
Back to the Future: Private Military Contractors and Political Theory in the Modern Democratic State....Pages 321-329
Private Military Companies: The New Mercenaries? — An International Law Analysis....Pages 331-343
Private Security and Military Companies under the International Law of Armed Conflict....Pages 345-360
The Notion of ‘Direct Participation in Hostilities’ and Its Implications on the Use of Private Contractors under International Humanitarian Law....Pages 361-376
Who is Responsible? The Use of PMCs in Armed Conflict and International Law....Pages 377-393
Private Military Companies and Domestic Law in South Africa....Pages 395-405
National Regulatory Regimes for PSMCs and their Activities: Benefits and Shortcomings....Pages 407-418
Selling Security: Trade-Offs in State Regulation of the Private Security Industry....Pages 419-442
Informal Regulation: An Economic Perspective on the Private Security Industry....Pages 443-455
PSMCs: Lessons Learned and Where to Go from here....Pages 457-462
Back Matter....Pages 463-502