DRAFT: NOT FOR CITATION

The final version can be found in the December 2014 issue of Politics & Policy

Doppelgangers of the State: Private Security and Transferable Legitimacy

Martha Lizabeth Phelps

phelps@umiami.edu

The United States national military hires private security

companies (PSCs) to operate in zones of conflict. This article
introduces the concept of a legitimacy transfer mechanism to
answer the question of how non-national providers of military
support can be considered legitimate actors in areas of conflict.
Private security companies borrow legitimacy from the state that
contracts the firm. Private firms do not operate alone; they are
hired and, at least marginally, directed by a state. By using the
established legitimacy of industrialized states these firms are able
to find legitimacy in Western security culture. In order to
maintain future business, private security is forced to obey the
security culture of the hiring state. More so, the firm will mimic
the goals and policy of the hiring state in an attempt to build its
own, independent, sense of legitimacy.

Keywords: Private security companies, PSC, PMSC, mercenaries, legitimacy, transfer of

legitimacy

Introduction1
In return for monetary compensation, private security has assisted in stabilizing states,
stopping humanitarian crises, overthrowing dictators, and supporting lawful governments. In the
United States, private security companies (PSCs2) support or directly maintain almost every
aspect of military deployments that do not involve discharging a firearm in combat.3 Examples
of contractor support include logistics such as base building or transport, providing medical
assistance, training police, and guarding embassies (Davis 2003, 30). American PSCs conduct
support operations overseas and train the Reserve Officer Training Corps at home (Wayne 2002)
(Uesseler 2008, 70).4 PSCs built and manage the second biggest computer network in the world
(behind the internet), the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (Hewlett Packard 2014).5 While these
firms are extensively used by the United States and its allies, the question remains: Are these
firms legitimate actors in battlespace?

This article is dedicated to my mentor and friend, Roger Kanet. My sincerest appreciation to Jeff Del Col, Hope
Bringhurst, Devin Johnson, Kyle Jordan, Melanie Goulding, James Hickman, and Genevieve Podleski. Partial
funding was graciously provided by the Adam M Phelps Foundation. All errors are my own.
2
There are various acronyms used to refer to these companies. For some scholars, there is a clear divide between
what type of firm should be considered a PMC (a firm who provides direct support for force) and a PSC (a firm who
supports the military in means other than direct support of force.) British scholars have shown a preference for
PMSC (private military and security company.) A search of the United States Government Printing office with the
terms contractor PSC Afghanistan returned over 170 hits, while the terms contractor PMC Afghanistan returned
59 (US Government Printing Office n.d.). For this study the term PSC is used; however, the reader should be aware
of the ongoing debate in terminology within the field.
3
PSCs are fully capable of carrying weapons. USCENTCOM Area of Responsibilitys Combatant Commander
decreed that private security contractor personnel are authorized to use deadly force only when necessary and that
contractors must be licensed by both the host state and the United States Armed Forces (United States Central
Command 2013).
4
This study uses the term American PSCs to refer to firms that are based inside of the United States. Firms such as
Academi (formerly Blackwater) have hired South American third country nationals (TNCs) from Chile to support
contracts abroad (Franklin 2004). The colloquial usage of American is not intended to discount the impact or
contributions of Central or South America.
5
There has been excellent work done to explore the bureaucratic aspect of outsourcing (Alison Stangers One
Nation Under Contract), the legal aspects of PSC use (Paul Verkuils Outsourcing Sovereignty), the history of
private force (Sarah Percys Mercenaries and Janice Thomsons Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns), and the
impact of contractors on military effectiveness (Molly Dunigans Victory for Hire.) Ulrich Petersohns recent article
in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, The Other Side of the COIN: Private Security Companies and
Counterinsurgency Operations, provides a relevant snapshot of this dependency.

The answer is complicated, and requires the assumption that states are legitimate actors in
warfare. When an established, legitimate, state uses PSCs to support its military operations,
these firms mirror the states legitimacy to act in zones of conflict. There is an extensive
literature that traces the establishment of states gaining monopoly over the use of force and how
it is the norm of modern states to maintain direct, national, control over armies. This article
supports that literature, but extends the current body of knowledge by demonstrating how PSCs
use the existing legitimacy of Western states to justify the use of contractors within battlespace.
This article seeks to answer two questions in regards to PSCs: First, what gives private firms the
right to support national militaries in zones of conflict? Second, do these private security forces
act with the legitimacy of the government who hires these contractors or are they, like NGOs,
able to be considered independent, valid, actors in and around conflict? These answers provide
opportunities for policy makers to consider what responsibilities states have when contracting
private force, and also draw a separation between firms that operate in the Western ethos and
who hold to a more historical, mercenary, legacy.
Several points must be examined to determine if PSCs should be considered a legitimate
actor in zones of conflict. The difference between private security companies and traditional
mercenaries must be explored. This distinction is relevant to the conversation about private firms
mirroring the legitimacy of a hiring state. Can a contracting state project its legitimacy onto an
organized corporate firm or can individual private warrior be granted the legitimacy of the
contracting state? By examining the difference between PSCs and mercenaries, and finding that
the legitimacy of a state can be projected, the article builds its main argument: legitimizing the
use of PSCs allows private firms to be used as doppelgangers for state action.

This conclusion directly opposes James Pattisons argument that the use of PSCs (along
with child soldiers and convicts) undermines the legitimacy of an intervention (Pattison 2003).
If PSCs follow the overarching Western ethos, and are held to the laws and traditions of the
hiring state, then private companies will have a vested interest in seeing democratization and
reconstruction projects survive. Through success in areas like reconstruction, it is possible that
these firms may develop legitimacy separate from contracting states (much as NGOs, such as
Mdecins Sans Frontires and Amnesty International, maintain legitimacy separate from their
home states).6 PSCs are subject to the same failures in development as the state or international
institutions that direct PSCs. Other studies, such as William Easterlys The White Man's Burden:
Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, have done an
excellent job of explaining why the West and affiliated international financial institutions are
unlikely to succeed in developmental assistance. These critiques travel to PSCs; failures to show
progress in reconstruction do not rest with the firm, but with the neocolonial approaches to
development. Success or failure of the overarching goals does not impact PSCs attempts to
acquire legitimacy; the most important thing a firm must do to gain legitimacy is to appear as if it
has internalized the wishes of the contracting state, and acts as a doppelganger for the states
foreign policy. PSCs seek this legitimacy due to the demands of the market; trusted PSCs gain
more contracts. Deborah Avant calls this the market reputation mechanism (2005). Ulrich
Petersohns work on private force and civil wars quantitatively demonstrated the market
reputation mechanism in action. Private firms need contracts from the state (and potentially

It is noted that while most NGOs and PSCs obey laws and social norms, there are undesirable actors in every
grouping. NGOs have raised money to support terror, PSCs have committed large-scale fraud, states have violated
human rights, and the UNs history is rife with scandal. While acknowledging that immoral and illegal behavior
exists, this article speaks to the ideal-state of these agents.

other actors) to profit and so these firms are forced to comply with domestic, international, and
humanitarian law (Petersohn 2014, 28-29).
The market reputation mechanism only works to control PSC behavior if the contracting
state is sensitive to the demands of international law or the laws of the host state; otherwise, the
PSC is free to act as it will. PSCs lack internal limitations; these firms are constrained by the
market and the support of the contracting state. While some firms have called for an industry
wide code of conduct, there are no overarching norms or internalized set of restrictions outside of
the security culture of the contracting state. The International Code of Conduct for Private
Security Service Providers was adopted in 2010 by the Swiss government and has slowly gained
support. As of August 2014, there were 708 PSCs that had agreed to this code of conduct; 10%
of those were United States firms (International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service
Providers 2010). (Notably, Academi, the company formerly known as Blackwater, has been a
signatory since 2010.) While a positive start, several major PSCs have not signed on to this
document, nor is it required for firms to adopt these restrictions to be hired. In August of 2013,
the United States State Department said it was considering requiring firms to be signatories of
this code of conduct before hiring them (United States Department of State). At the time of
writing, this has not yet occurred.
This lack of universally adopted restrictions and/or laws to regulate behavior means that
purchasers of force have no reason to trust the behavior of the contracted combatants. The code
of conduct has no consequences violating any of its restrictions. The best guarantee of a
successful contract is prior experience with the firm. Previously successful contracts help
alleviate fear of bad behavior on the part of the PSC and should, thus, increase business. In order
to achieve this sense of respectability and to start the process of becoming fully integrated into

global security culture, these firms borrow, or mimic, the legitimacy of the contracting state.
This concept is called the legitimacy transfer mechanism.
Through contracting, interdependency, and the vast expansion of the military industrial
complex, PSCs have become chameleon-like in their ability to absorb the legitimacy of the
contracting state. The legitimacy transfer mechanism allows private firms to act with the
legitimacy of the contracting state, while allowing the contracting state to avoid troop
commitment, domestic backlash from a casualty-averse populace, congressional or parliamentary
oversight, and other domestic and international restraints.
PSCs as Mirrors for Governmental Action
Private security companies have participated in combat operations in diverse ways; these
firms have acted as civilian police for United Nations peace operations, worked as bodyguards
for Iraq coalition officers, run prisons, worked as interrogators, trained national militaries, and
provided tactical information and advice (Avant 2005, 265). While the majority of these
companies do not enter conflict, they assist with many other aspects of military support,
including training in military-grade weapons, tactics, modern military technology, military
intelligence support, military transport, convoy support, and logistical services. Others even
deploy medical response teams in the field, and provide overall guidance as to the development
of the military in question.
Major events that involve PSCs engaging in direct combat (Nisoor Square, Fallujah, etc.)
have changed the course of wars for the United States. In the 2000s, the use of military
contractors significantly increased due to United States deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. In
the eleven years between 2001 and 2012, the United States Department of Labor reported 1569
contractor deaths in Iraq and 1173 contractor deaths in Afghanistan (Division of Longshore and
5

Harbor Workers' Compensation 2012). This is in comparison to 4486 United States national
military deaths reported in Iraq7 and 2088 national military deaths in Afghanistan (Iraq Coalition
Casuality Count 2012). This means that 35% of people deployed by the United States who died
in Iraq were contractors, and over 56% of people deployed by United States who died in
Afghanistan were contractors. The United States declared that, in Iraq, a primary goal would
[be to] help promote transparency in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of
government, and help build national institutions that transcend regional and sectarian interests
(Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee
on Government Reform 2006, 7). Even after the troop withdrawal in Iraq, and despite US
government-supported calls for transparency, private contractors continued to be used to
obfuscate the level of Washingtons involvement. As of January 2013, the total contractor count
in Iraq was over 12,000 individuals (US Central Command 2013).8
The reluctance of the United States to deploy ground troops after the horrors of Vietnam
and Somalia led to increased dependence on PSCs (Belloni 2007, 20). During the Cold War, the
Western powers deployed troops into developing countries to hinder the Soviet Unions goals.
After the Cold War ended, major powers were slow to interfere in regional conflict;
humanitarian concerns (such as the genocide in Rwanda) have only rarely been sufficient to
prompt deployment. There was a notable security gap in the former Third World when the
stability of superpower support was withdrawn (Petersohn 2014, 19). This is not simply due to
political isolationism: When the United States took humanitarian action in Somalia in 1993 the
public backlash was so severe that, a year later, the major powers allowed genocide to continue

7
8

The Iraq count starts in 2003, while Afghanistans starts in 2001.

There were 110,000 contractors that were active in Afghanistan in 2013 (United States Central Command 2013).

in Rwanda rather than risk similar political fallout (Scheffer 2004).9 The United States turned to
PSCs because these corporate entities, in return for monetary compensation and resource
concessions, were willing to deploy into confrontations in which state actors felt unable to act
(such as Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
In order to be effective, PSCs need to cloak themselves in the legitimacy of the United
States consolidated democracy. Armed, uniformed personnel (such as contractors guarding a
convoy) raise questions regarding the legality and morality of the global security industry and
bring forth accusations that PSCs are nothing more than formalized mercenaries. There are more
questions than answers when exploring the definitions of private security and battlespace.
Mercenaries are often defined as combat-ready units that are able to provide soldiers and
equipment as well as engage in armed conflicts. It is hard to differentiate where (or whether)
modern-day PSCs fall short of this mark. Do employees need to pull a trigger on the
corporations behalf to be a mercenary, and, if so, do personal bodyguards count as mercenaries?
Or is one a mercenary if one trains someone else to pull the trigger? What if a company provides
the weapon, the training, the transportation, and the target? Does a PSC employee count as a
mercenary when he kills an attacker in a manner considered self-defense by both the host and
sender state? Is it about fault, or is it about moral intent? The global community has no clear
answers to these questions. While mercenaries have existed since ancient times, PSCs are more
professional, corporate, and hierarchical than their ancestors; and though the term mercenary
carries the emotional impact of historical use, there is some reason to question whether the
implications inextricably tied to the term are appropriate (Tickler 1987, 15).
9

See Andreas Kriegs The Impact of Casualty Aversion on Humanitarian Intervention for a more in-depth
exploration of casualty aversion on United States military decisions. Importantly, his work demonstrates how
military decisions remained risk adverse even after 9/11 and a population that supported invasion. Collateral
damage of the hostile state (ie: dead civilians) was considered more acceptable than the loss of life of United States
soldiers.

The difference, and where the point of contention continuously arises, is in the definition
of the terms mercenary and PSC. A PSC is a firm that sends military troops or any form of
military support to another actor for monetary compensation; some are willing to engage in
combat and some are not. To some, a PSC contractor becomes a mercenary when an individual
pulls the trigger. For others, a PSC contractor becomes a mercenary when s/he violates
international or state law. A third group views mercenaries as anyone affiliated with the military
industry, but not directly employed by the state.
Military contractors are often retired service personnel of a national military working in a
formalized capacity for which they have spent years training; these former soldiers work hard to
avoid the mercenary label. Much like the definition of pornography, these employees feel that
they know what an offer of mercenary work is when they see it, and once this type of work is
accepted there is little chance to redeem ones reputation. Within the industry, those who accept
the title of mercenary are often considered morally deficient individuals undeserving of respect;
those that have completely thrown away any moral compass (Davis 2003, 34). An individual
who acts as a mercenary loses legitimacy within the contracting community. James Davis, a
member of the PSC community and author of the book Fortunes Warriors, summarizes the
issue: Crossing the line separating the rest of the industry from military combat services is
much like losing your virginity. Either you are a mercenary company or you are not. Once you
take that step, there is no going back. (2003, 32). Individual contractors object to being called
a mercenary due to a belief that PSC employees are still part of the American ethos, and continue
to obey military code (Kinsey 2006, 68). Most private contractors state that the desire to serve
ones country was not been diminished by changing employers from a state military to that of a
private firm (Silverstein 2000, 157).

Private security organizations whose contractors are easily confused for national troops
occupy too complex place in the international arena to be labeled with such a simple,
normatively-charged word as mercenary. The fighters in Central America during the Reagan
Administration and in Africa in the 1960s could, perhaps, rightly be called mercenaries because
of their individualist nature, cult of personality leaders such as Mike Hoare, and violent actions
against legitimate goverments (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2002,
5). While PSCs are clearly from the same historical legacy, and bring to mind the same warnings
and concerns as the British East India Company did in eighteenth century, these firms can also
be viewed as the latest step in corporate privatization (Percy 2007) (Phelps 2014).
Corporate privatization is not mercenarism; it is important to separate the two terms. One
of the most standard definitions of mercenaries is Mercenaries are fighters who participate in
hostilities for pecuniary reward. Moreover, they are not a national of a party to the conflict, and
are not integrated into the regular armed forces (Petersohn 2014, 2) (Chojnacki, Metternich and
Mnster 2009, 5).

Therefore, mercenaries are individuals who take on contracts that have a

reasonable expectation of entering into combat, and who will halt services if direct compensation
is removed.10

PSCs are different: Private Security Corporations are corporate entities that

undertake contracts, that involve or provide support for the use of force, from reputable entities,
such as state agencies or IGOs, in return for monetary or resource compensation. PSCs manage
and regulate their employees to insure behavior within corporate culture. These firms take on
contracts that operate within battlespace, but do not carry an expectation to engage in combat.11
10

There are historical challenges to this definition, most notability the Nepalese Gurkhas, Swiss Pikemen, and
German Hessians. However, the dissolution of these nationally-identified contracted soldiers is a large part of the
story of how Western modern security culture formed. The Gurkhas, for example, are now granted British
citizenship as payment for service, making the mercenary claim moot.
11
Firms such as Sandline and Executive Outcomes fall outside the scope of this definition. These combat-based
firms were active in the ten years following the end of the Cold War but are currently extinct. Peter Singer proposed
the term Private Military Firms to describe corporations that are willing to directly engage in combat.

It is important to note the word individual (or fighter) in the definition of mercenary.
Corporations cannot be mercenaries, because corporations cannot undertake direct action. Firms
cannot fire guns, they cannot dig trenches, and, thus, they cannot be mercenaries. It is possible
to say that corporations accept contracts that require employees to undertake mercenary actions,
but, by definition, mercenarism is rooted at the level of the individual.
Corporations, including PSCs, are permanent legal structures. Capitalist firms are
invested in establishing market dominance, investor confidence, and generating profit
(Krahmann 2001, 7) (Petersohn 2014, 7). PSCs can remove the fear of contracted combatants
being mercenaries by linking employment to legal behavior and managing compensation
between the employer (the state) and the individual (the contractor.)
In a conversation centered on legitimacy, the difference of focus between the individual
and corporate is more than a matter of terminology; mercenaries conjure up an image of rag-tag
criminals who operate on an ad hoc function and who challenge law, order, and stability
(Petersohn 2014, 7). Security firms seek distance from this legacy. Therefore, semantics is
critical; legitimacy is ultimately drawn from the belief and support of the population, it is
impossible for a company which is viewed as illegitimate and criminal to foster strength and
stability in the state. It is here that work on legitimacy and PSCs intersects with that of scholars,
like James Pattison, that study the normative implications of private security.
Private firms employ retired officers who are able and willing to influence international
policy by utilizing years of well-established connections. The spokesperson for one of the most
prominent military training firms, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), made the claim
that Weve got more generals per square foot here than in the Pentagon (Singer 2004, 119).
The person quoted, Soyster, was a general himself. The overlap between public troops and

10

private contractors is where the transference of legitimacy between the state and the contracted
firm is clearest. The line between nationalized and corporate force may be as thin as a military
officer taking a six-month leave of absence to be a contractor, and then returning to the armed
forces at the end of the leave of absence. If a soldier represents the state and acts with the
legitimacy of the state, what does it mean to an occupied population when that exact same
soldier acts in the private sector? As warfare is civilianized, it is difficult to tell if an individual
in a zone of conflict is a national soldier or contractor. For example, provincial reconstruction
teams (PRT) work directly with Afghanistan villages to help build stability, while private firms
are training and equipping the police in those same locations (Commission on Wartime
Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan 2011) (United States Government Accountability Office
2010).
One of the oft discussed points regarding the responsibility to protect is that humanitarian
interventions must morally righteous and accepted by the global community. The premier
theorist on PSCs and legitimacy, James Pattison, states: When used in conjunction with
humanitarian intervention, legitimacy is used to mean that humanitarian intervention is legal,
accepted by the international community, procedurally justified, authorized by the Security
Council, and/or morally justifiable (Pattison 2003, 30). Yet, how are the locals to know that the
individuals in military gear teaching them about agriculture are national troops, and the
individuals in military gear training the police are for-profit contractors?

In Bosnia and

Herzegovina, United States PSC employees were used as United Nations police trainers, and
locals were unable to tell the difference between United States private contractor and United
Kingdom national police (Phelps 2012). In this example, PSCs were granted legitimacy through

11

the assumptions of the populace; these firms borrowed the pre-existing legitimacy of the
contracting state.
The difference between the sender states national military and private forces contracted
by the sender state may not be functionally apparent, especially to the government or citizens of
the host state. PSCs guard, supply, train, and even enter into combat on behalf of the sender state,
meaning it is likely that their theater of operation provides little clarification on if an individual is
a national or private soldier.12 The perception of the local may be that these firms are actual
members of the contracting states military, and thus given the legitimacy and authority that the
military would normally be granted. John Nagl and Richard Fontaine of the Center for New
American Security phrased it aptly: local populations draw little or no distinction between
American troops and the contractors employed by them; an act committed by one can have the
same effect on local or national opinion as an act carried out by the other (Committee on Armed
Services 2010).
The vagueness in explaining why these firms are not mercenaries is similar to the
difficulty of defining what contracts it is legitimate for these firms to undertake. It is here that the
argument regarding private forces construction of legitimacy begins: Do these private firms
have their own validity and reasons that are acceptable to the population to be involved in zones
of conflict or must that validity and reasons be borrowed from the contracting state? As
previously stated, legitimacy exists in the collective awareness of the population; therefore, for
private firms to be successful, it is critical that PSCs are recognized as legitimate by the

12

The United States is not the only state that projects military power using private firms; the United Kingdom,
South Africa, and to a lesser degree, France, has activated military contractors in foreign theaters as well. South
Africas flourishing PSC market is illegal under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. The first case
was prosecuted in 2003. Despite the illegal nature of operating a PSC out of South Africa, Deborah Avant found
evidence of South African PSCs active in Iraq. The United States is home to the majority of PSCs (Avant 2005, 167
- 175).

12

population. For firms to be considered legitimate on their own merits, rather than the transfer of
legitimacy from the state, keeping distance from the normatively charged phrasing of
mercenary is critical for the company to succeed. The reverse is also true; if legitimacy is
transferred to the firm through the state via contract, then it is critical for the state that the
contractors avoid the term mercenary.13

The previously introduced market reputation

mechanism keeps these firms in check and, in the Western tradition of economic liberalism,
provides private security firms with the semblance of legitimacy. It is assumed that if a firm is
bad meaning either incompetent or morally despicable - its reputation will be permanently
stained and the reputation mechanism will punish the firm by dwindling profits and lack of
contracts (Percy 2007, 53) (Petersohn 2014, 10).Private Security and Transferable Legitimacy
Governments directly benefit by using private firms. US PSCs are not subject to the same
congressional oversight that national troops are. As such, the state can engage in cases of postconflict reconstruction or state stabilization with lower political commitment and less need for
interagency cooperation (Avant 2005, 133). The casualty aversion of the American populace
also encourages the government to hire private force. The public is rarely made aware of
contractor deaths, so politicians do not risk the same sort of constituency backlash they would
face visvis the death of a national soldier (Pattison 2003, 209) (Krahmann 2001, 260).
The State Department or Pentagon is able to have its in-theater goals met while avoiding
domestic oversight and repercussions. PSCs are contracted using discretionary funding; there is
no line-item for PMCs. This allows organizational structures like the State Department, the

13

When PSCs have misbehaved and acted in a mercenary manner it captured the attention of both the media and
the legislative branch. There have been multiple meetings in Congress that explore the activities of contractors and
try to break through the obfuscation these firms create. The birth of SIGIR, SIGAR, and multiple CRS reports have
allowed for information about contractor activities to become accessible. However, without the active and tenacious
inquiries from the Senate Armed Forces Committees, it is unlikely much of this information would have come to
light.

13

Pentagon, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) can hire these
contractors without congressional approval. Private security provides the opportunity for the
Pentagon and/or the executive branch to bypass legislative controls (Frost 2008, 43).
Governmental benefits of using PSCs occur partly because of transferred legitimacy from the
US; these firms mimic state actors, without exposing the state to risk. The transference of
legitimacy allows the state to achieve its foreign policy goals while installing a buffer against
political backlash.
When the United States Congress forbids deployment and/or limits on the troop count (as
they did regarding the Bosnia Herzegovina conflict in 1995), the Department of Defense is still
allowed to outsource, and thus the Pentagon can hire contractors to undertake missions Congress
has otherwise prohibited (Wulf 2005, 61). Further, because of the separation between the
restrictions on military action versus military spending, PSCs can act where the national military
cannot. In the case of Croatia, the United States needed to appear neutral because of its
involvement in IFOR (the NATO-led implementation force). Therefore, the United States could
not send troops to support Croatias military directly. However, the United States was able, as a
nonmilitary action, to hire a private firm to train and professionalize Croatian national forces;
they did so, effectively strengthening the Croatian forces without openly violating international
agreements (Jefferies 2002, 114).
The transfer of legitimacy between employer and contractor is not limited to states.
Private security firms have offered their services to the United Nations (UN) when member
states failed to supply troops. Although it has been discussed, the Security Council has vetoed
hiring private firms (Wulf 2005, xi). The idea that private security could achieve legitimacy
without state backing is validated when the United Nations considers using these firms for

14

peacekeeping. If the United Nations contracted private force to run a peacekeeping mission,
there would be no state to transfer sovereignty, and no mirror of state-based legitimacy. The firm
would be contracted by and reporting directly to an international organization with a large
bureaucracy and internal competing, divergent, interests. While a situation where the state is so
completely removed from international peacekeeping may be unlikely, it begs the question: At
what point does the firm become a legitimate actor, rather than simply being a tool wielded by
the contracting state (or organization)?
PSC advocates contend that this line has already been crossed, and these firms should be
able to undertake missions through the United Nations or other humanitarian agency. The
argument for PSCs being contracted by the United Nations is, at its core, that private sectors
involvement in humanitarian missions would be worth the risk and lack of oversight, even if the
contracting agencies find the idea of contracted combatants are morally distasteful. Too often
policy recommendations are based on idealism and utopian theories. Bad policy
recommendations in peace operations, as opposed to most other fields of research, cost lives.
Critics of private-sector involvement should keep this reality in mind (Brooks and Chorev 2008,
127). The Department of Defenses Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of African Affairs,
James Woods, believe[s] that privatized security efforts can help relieve anarchy and chaos,
keep local security disruptions from spreading, and provide sound defense against outside threat
(Wulf 2005, 181).
Transferable Legitimacy as a Replacement for Goodwill
Political scientists, beginning with Enlightenment philosophers John Locke, Thomas
Hobbes, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, have attempted to answer the question of legitimacy with
the idea of the social contract (Stillman 1974, 33). The moral remnants of thinkers like Locke

15

and Rousseau is apparent in most modern definitions of legitimacy; Vivien Collingwood

highlights this Enlightenment legacy by making the linkage between claims of legitimacy and
norms of correctness: Legitimate behaviour is rightful behaviour: undertaken by the appropriate
authority, in line with an agreed set of rules, and with appropriate or intended effects (2006,
444). Bruce Gilley expands upon these Enlightenment ideals by expressing legitimacy in terms
that are dependent on a citizens recognition of the states right to hold political authority and an
acceptance, at least in general, to be bound to obey the decisions that result (2006, 503). These
definitions of legitimacy place the emphasis on perception. The uniform, the symbols of the
state, are trusted. When the populace cannot tell the difference between a national soldier and a
contractor, the legitimacy of the state covers both sets of actors.
The idea that any intervening force, including PSCs, need to be viewed as legitimate by
the host population is also supported by David Edelstein. Edelstein gives three ways that a
successful occupation is possible: These are: 1) recognition by the occupied population that there
is a need for occupation, 2) all states involved in the conflict must perceive a common threat to
the occupied territory, and 3) and the occupying power makes a credible guarantee that it will
withdraw and return controlin a timely manner (2004).
Edelsteins idea of returning control is critical, especially when examining how private
actors can achieve legitimacy without being dependent on a state. For PSCs to carry its own
legitimacy, rather than hide in the cloak of its contracting state, the lines of control over these
firms must be clear. If a member of an NGO is accused of a crime while working abroad, there
is an established understanding of how the various judicial systems will unfold. However, the
protections afforded PSCs by the contracting state, and the legal complications of if they are
members of an armed force or civilians, can obfuscate and impede justice. As long as this

16

obfuscation of justice continues, PSCs can only exist as agents for the hiring state. A system of
control and oversight is required for PCSs to achieve legitimacy separate from a contracting
state.
In the case of the United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, this complicated mirror of legitimacy allowed crimes by contractors to occur
without repercussion. Washington hired a US-based firm, DynCorp, to represent the United
States in the IPTF mission. These contractors, who were United States citizens, looked identical
to other IPTF national police forces. While these contractors were in theater they confiscated
womens passports, kept them as personal sex slaves, and distributed videos of the women being
raped. (Capps 2002) (Bolkovac and Lynn 2011, 190) (Singer 2004, 222).

The United States

Justice Department ruled that these United States contractors serving on this United Nations
mission were outside the reach of United States law (United States Insitute of Peace 2004). The
United Nations said it did not have the authority to prosecute the contractors since they were
employed by the US. Even today, when the United Nations is implicated in trafficking and sex
crimes, the IPTF case quickly rises to the surface (MacFaquhar 2011). The United States hired
DynCorp to work for the UN, yet the United Nations faces the blame for the firms actions. The
private actor is seen as nothing more than an extension of its controlling organization.
The critical aspect of legitimacy remains at the level of the population. In order for PSCs
to achieve acceptance separate from a state, the population needs to believe that there is effective
control and oversight of firms. Crimes by NGO employees have certainly fallen through the
cracks, but the perception of the American population is that NGOs are accredited, honorable,
and accountable. Hugo Slims discussion of legitimacy and NGOs is relevant. He points out
that non-state legitimacy comes from two sources: morality and law, and is generated by

17

tangible support and more intangible goodwill (2002 ). PSCs lack an intangible goodwill
throughout the American population. Policy decisions show this difference as well. In DoD
Instruction 3020.50, Private Security Contractors (PSCs) Operating in Contingency Operations,
Humanitarian or Peace Operations, or Other Military Operations or Exercises, there is a specific
exemption allowing area commanders to grant exceptions for NGOs (Department of Defense
2011).
Barry Buzans definition of the state focuses on a governments domination over political
allegiance and authority, command over instruments of force, a physical base of population and
territory, institutions to govern the population, a sense of legitimacy from its constituency, and
sovereignty (1991, 58 - 66). The difference between NGOs and PSCs can be placed within this
definition that prioritizes the ideals of the populace: there is a collective belief that many NGOs
are attempting to benefit the world in some way. This idea that NGOs intend to do good in the
world is acknowledged even by those tracing the harm or missteps that neo-colonial foreign aid
has created.14 These organizations have been granted the normative support of their home states,
and perhaps, in the case of Mdecins Sans Frontires and the International Red Cross, the
international community. Private security is not seen through the same form of altruistic lens,
forcing legitimacy to be borrowed from the contracting state.
Private security firms borrow the legitimacy of the state to act where states cannot. I
argue that this transfer of legitimacy can exist on a larger scale than state actors. Any actor can
transfer its authority to a PSC if that organization has both a recognizable visual identity and that
the international community grants normative acceptance to act in humanitarian or foreign

14

The paper archive of conferences held by the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) gives an
overview of the challenges faced by NGOs seeking to be a force of good while not succumbing to neocolonialism or
being white saviors.

18

interventions.15 These legitimacy-granting organizations can be as disparate as Germany, the

UN, or Mdecins Sans Frontires.
If it is accepted that the provision of subsistence-level security stabilizes states, and
private security can provide such logistics, then it is logical for organizations such as the United
Nations turn to private security. The United Nations faces challenges getting member states to
donate troops, and has proposed that PSCs could provide such personnel. In 1995, Kofi Annan
sought proposals from Defense Systems Limited to guard Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire
(Select Committee on Foreign Affairs 2002). While the United Nations chose to not move
forward with DSL, this provides an example where private security has been seriously
considered as a way to intervene in humanitarian situations. An examination of the United
Nations approved vendor list shows that the harbinger of international law and holder of
normative global behavior is no stranger to private contractors. Names like Aegis Defense
Services, Defense Systems Limited, G4S, Control Risks, DynCorp, Fluor, L3 (MPRIs parent
company), and Brown & Root appear next to the expected financial services and medical
suppliers (United Nations Office of Central Support Services 2013). The United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Mercenaries, Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, expressed concerns that this trend of
acceptance and the broadening of PSCs powers will lead to an overall weakening of state
sovereignty and human rights. Ballesteros fears that, as more companies become involved, PSCs
will become a legitimate part of the accepted global culture; this will endanger nascent states
security obligations and the citizens guarantee of human rights (Granelli 1997).
15

This idea of a visual identity could further be expanded to explore the visual culture of contracted combatants.
Mitchell explains visual culture as follows: vision is (as we say) a cultural construction, that it is learned and
cultivated, not simply given by nature; that therefore it might have a history related in some yet to be determined
way to the history of arts, technologies, media, and social practices of display and spectatorship; and (finally) that it
is deeply involved with human societies, with the ethics and politics, aesthetics and epistemology of seeing and
being seen (Mitchell 2002, 166) The discussion of showing and seeing visvis private security firms would be
a fascinating one which deserves further exploration.

19

Transfer of Legitimacy as a Theoretical Mechanism

In the case of the US, the growth of the military industrial complex and increased reliance
on outsourcing has granted contractors de facto legitimacy16. Contractors are active everywhere
in the Department of Defense; they can be found in the soup kitchens to supply chains to
working checkpoints. Contractors repair and operate highly complex equipment (Singer 2004,
64). Private firms are so integrated in the United States militarys day-to-day operations that
some have speculated that they are now necessary for military operation (Wayne 2002). Within
the US, contractors are granted legitimacy because they are intrinsic to the system. Through
perception that United States contractors work under the umbrella of United States legitimacy,
thus the ability for contractors to operate in theaters of conflict is transferred from the state, and
allows PSCs to act in the military arena.
Contracting is an accepted tool of foreign policy because PSCs borrow the legitimacy of
the sender state. In the case of the US, contractors have moved past simply mirroring the
legitimacy of the state and have become doppelgangers of national soldiers. When private
contractors are so deeply imbedded that PSCs are involved in training the United States Reserve
Officer Training Corps, it is nearly impossible to separate private from public actor.17 This does

16

A thorough examination of United States outsourcing can be found in Allison Stangers One Nation Under
Contract.
17
The following is text from the ROTC contractors website: Team Engility mission is to provide highly qualified
and motivated contract employees who are focused on enhancing the United States Army Cadet Commands
mission of recruiting, training, retaining, and commissioning the Army's future leaders at over 270 colleges and
universities across the country. Engility is the prime contract holder and is supported by the following partner
companies: Able Forces, Communication Technologies, OnPoint Performance Solutions, Prairie Quest Corporation,
and The Ventura Group. Team Engility supports the U.S. Army Cadet Command (USACC) and its subordinate
Brigades and Battalions in achieving objectives related to recruitment, administration, training, retention, and
commissioning of Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) Cadets. Team Engility provides command-wide
specialized support in the functional areas of Cadet Recruitment, Military Science Instruction, Retention and
Training, Military Science Field Training, administrative, and logistical services support. We are placing Army
Retired, Reserve, National Guard, IRR Officers and NCOs, and those leaders separated honorably within five years
into ROTC units at colleges and universities across the United States. Team Engility offers opportunities with a
robust compensation and benefits package. Contracted positions include Senior Military Science Instructor (SMSI),

20

not mean that PSCs can act separately from the state. While challenging the legitimacy of
private force at the global and local levels, there are aspects of democratic military force that
remain solely the realm of the state. James Pattison points out that [PSCs] are likely to lack
many of the other qualities of effectiveness necessary for successful intervention, such as nonmilitary resources, a suitable post-war strategy for building and maintaining a peaceful resolution
to the crisis (2003, 209).
Carl von Clausewitzs definition of war as the continuation of politics by other means
now confronts the use of private actors (Avant 2005, 3).18 While the civilianization of force is a
matter of privatization and deliberate outsourcing in the developed world, the developing world
is plagued by insurgent groups, ethnic conflicts, and civilian lawlessness. In both cases, there is
no longer a state monopoly on the means of coercion, as private actors are frequently central to
contemporary warfare and peacekeeping (Singer 2004, 65). The security void created by the
decline of troop count after the Cold War, coupled with the belief in neo-liberal economics,
legitimatized military privatization. Contractors are in use, and they carry the legitimacy of the
government that hires them. This places the responsibility for oversight and control firmly with
the hiring state. As Alison Stanger states in her aptly named book, One Nation Under Contract:
contractors arent the problem; the problem is the loss of good government (2009, 11).
The use of private force in support of United States military operations has become
routine. Both Iraq and Afghanistan saw more contractors in theater than national troops. In
Afghanistan, the percentage of the workforce that was contracted by the Department of Defense
from PSCs was as high as 69% (Isenberg 2010). War is always difficult on a population, but the

Military Science Instructor (MSI), Administrative Technician (Admin), and Administrative Support for Logistical
and Operation Actions also known as Staff Specialist (SS). http://www.goarmyrotc.com/aboutus.html
18
For Clausewitzs idealization of the theory of war by continuation of politics by other means see Keegan, John. A
History of Warfare. New York: Knopf. 1993.

21

situation in Afghanistan was particularly brutal. The reconstruction proceeded slowly and often
unsuccessfully, civilian deaths were high, human rights violations were rampant, and the most
visible form of PSC activity training the police was an absolute disaster (Marsden 2009, 163)
(Barfield 2010, 277). The PSCs lack of legitimacy in this scenario cannot be viewed as a
counterargument to the idea that private firms carry the host states legitimacy. Robert Tucker
and David Hendrickson believe that there are four pillars of legitimacy, and when these are
violated, national troops will have no claim to validity nor find acceptance from the population.
This applies to PSCs as well. Tucker and Hendricksons four pillars of legitimacy are [the US]
commitment to international law, its acceptance of consensual decision-making, its reputation for
moderation, and its identification with the preservation of peace (2004). When legitimacy is
transferred from the host state to a PSC, these four pillars must be maintained to uphold the
populations belief that contractors are legitimate actors.
The populace of the host state, as well as the international community, judges a
government by its adherence to the rule of law. Therefore, the use of PSCs must take place
within a conflict that is perceived as righteous. The current assumption is that the state must be
viewed as the holder of the principal means of coercion, and the principle enforcer of justice and
punishment. However, the continual use of PSCs by the US, the United Kingdom, France, and
NATO has given these firms the appearance, if not the actuality, of legitimacy.
The interaction between private force and legitimacy operates in a three-tiered process.
First, in order to be effective, PSCs must be considered legitimate by the host population (even if
they do not know the individuals are contractors). PSCs could either gain legitimacy on its own
merit, e.g. private firms are valid for use in post-conflict reconstruction, or they could piggyback on the legitimacy of the hiring state. PSCs have been mistaken for American troops in-

22

theater; there is no reason to assume that the umbrella of the United States armed forces does not
apply to contractors as well. Second, it is critically important for private contractors to separate
themselves from the phrase mercenary. If PSCs hold to a mercenary legacy, they will be
unable to forge a sense of legitimacy with the host population. In addition, if the contracting
states population views these firms as mercenaries, the contracting states government (in this
case the US) will face skepticism and inquiry from its constituency. Lastly, the struggle for
legitimacy exists within the contracting community itself. There is a stark difference between a
professional, well-executed company like MPRI and a company like Custer Battles that is
accused of war profiteering (Schorn 2006).
If the state, as Christopher Pierson suggests, is something that is intrinsically identified
then the legitimate use of force can fall under the same criteria (2011). Like pornography, or the
state, the metric of I know it when I see it is being applied to determine if the use of private
force is legitimate or not. This, in and of itself, means that the idea of private force is becoming
more accepted. It is necessary to understand how the legitimacy of private force is created, and
to show how these firms are becoming an integrated and vital part of Western security culture.
Private force undertakes foreign policy by proxy, and mirrors the legitimacy of the contracting
state.
Conclusion
The legitimacy transfer mechanism allows United States PSCs to participate in Westernled military deployments.

While private force has a long history within Western state

development, the resurgence of contractors as a means to support military deployments has

flourished since the Cold War. This is partly due to a belief that contracting with private
industry would be cheaper than public control, and partly due to the rapid decline in troop count

23

once the USSR was no longer perceived as a threat. These two things created a situation in
which contractors were increasingly used to support United States military operations, became
integrated into the military industrial complex, and became an intrinsic part of the United States
security culture. Private firms were born through long-term decisions to embrace the tenets of
economic liberalism and privatize non-essential government functions.

Contractor support

personnel are now an intrinsic part of the military industrial complex.

The increased use of privatized military support has created a situation where it is often
difficult to differentiate between national soldiers and contractors.

This obfuscation is an

example of how legitimacy is smoothly transferred between the state and a private actor. The
perception of the populace allows the PSC to hide behind the state, rather than needing its own
legitimacy to be in theater. Unlike NGOs, PSCs do not carry their own sense of legitimacy. One
of the ways NGOs have built legitimacy is through having an altruistic mission and being
granted global goodwill. Until populations see PSCs as a needed and welcome part of outside
assistance, PSCs will not be able to be considered independent, valid, actors in and around
conflict.
In order to examine under what conditions PSCs can gain legitimacy, the difference
between mercenaries and private firms must be determined. Mercenaries are individuals, while
PSCs are corporations. While this may seem trivial, corporations are not individuals, and cannot
undertake action. A mercenary can shoot a person, a contractor can dig a ditch, but a company
can do neither, and so cannot carry the blame for an action. This difference addresses the
overarching points that are normally presented when trying to delineate PSCs from mercenaries.
PSCs are professional, government-contracted, organized firms, while mercenaries are rag-tag

24

outlaws. PSCs can benefit from the legitimacy transfer mechanism, while private individuals
cannot.
Currently the legitimacy transfer mechanism only occurs from the state to private firms.
This mechanism could be expanded to include other internationally legitimate actors; IGOs and
well-regarded NGOs could acquire the power to grant legitimacy as well. To restate, I claim that
any actor can transfer its authority to a PSC if that organization has both a recognizable visual
identity and a normative acceptance from the international community, which grants it
permission to act in humanitarian or foreign interventions. These firms are limited by the market
reputation mechanism and the need to borrow legitimacy from the contracting agency. In order
to be granted legitimacy and continue receiving contracts, PSCs must internalize the goals and
desires of their employers. In this way, a PSC acts as a doppelganger for the contracting agency.
If PSCs hope to gain independent legitimacy and grow to act without state backing, these firms
must be perceived to obey laws, maintain a positive, or at least neutral, reputation with the
population, and be seen as trying to achieve a positive goal, that is, one that assists the
population.
This idea of perception and law impacts states as well. In the Cold War, the United States
clothed itself in an altruistic framework based on freedom and democracy. This dominant
paradigm created the idea of the West as a benevolent force. The United States has legitimacy to
transfer to PSCs because it has lingering good will with the world. It remains to be seen if the
USs crumbling soft power will allow the legitimacy transfer mechanism to continue. The
perception of the USs home population may also change; topics such as the militarization of
policing and crimes by private contractors may create a tipping point against the privatization of
force. A decline in the legitimacy of the hiring actor means that the transfer of legitimacy to a

25

private firm will be less successful. If the state does not have sufficient standing to be in a zone
of conflict, then it lacks the ability to transfer legitimacy to a PSC.
In a case like Afghanistan, the international community and the American population
supported the United States use of force, but the Afghan community did not. Here the use of
PSCs has the same impact as the use of United States troops; the host population considers
neither a legitimate actor. However, the United States is joined in Afghanistan by other Western
powers, which view the use of PSCs as part of the military system. The only way to challenge
the legitimacy transfer mechanism is through an agent that can impact the perception of a
legitimate deployment. The Afghan population has had little say in the occupation of their
country; it is the Western populations that hold the power to impact PSCs transferred
legitimacy.
It is necessary to understand how the legitimacy of private force is created, and to show
how these firms are an integrated and vital part of Western security culture. Even if the transfer
of legitimacy between state and private firm originally occurred organically, understanding that
the state allows these firms act with its own legitimacy demonstrates a urgent need for proper
regulation and oversight. When a firm misbehaves, it damages the standing of the actor that
hired the firm.

This was clearly shown when DynCorp committed crimes in Bosnia and

Herzegovina. DynCorp was contracted by the United States to fulfill a United States manpower
promise to the UN. While working for the UN, DynCorp contractors kidnapped and raped
underage girls (Bolkovac and Lynn 2011). The crimes committed still stain the UNs reputation.
There is a deeper question of whether private firms should be present in zones of conflict
at all.

This debate continues in many forms, from the philosophy of just war theory, to

humanitarian interventions, to repeating patterns in history, to military analysis. The analysis of

26

the legitimacy transfer mechanism is separate from the debate of whether contractors should be
used, and focuses on teasing out the reasons behind why contractors are accepted at all in zones
of conflict.
Future research is needed to explore the mechanism of PSC legitimacy outside of states
that obey a Western ethos. It seems likely that the legitimacy transfer mechanism would not
hold up in non-democracies, but case studies could prove enlightening.

Are PSCs from

developing states as welcomed, well behaved, and effective as Western PSCs? If they are, why?
Third country nationals are hired by Western PSCs, so perhaps the lessons taught by exposure to
Western security culture will return with those contracted individuals and new, local, firms will
be created. Or perhaps different systems of law and culture will produce different results; what
would a PSC look like whose contracting state obeyed Sharia law?
The other area that is worth investigation is the difference in legitimacy between
corporations and individuals. The United States transfers its legitimacy for PSCs to act in zones
of conflict. Does the legitimacy transfer mechanism require a firm, or can this transfer of
legitimacy occur on an individual basis? It seems unlikely that a private individual would be
directly contracted by the United States and be seen by the population as representing the
interests of the US. If this is true, then why are corporations different, and why is legitimacy
able to be passed to firms but not individuals? This area of inquiry becomes more interesting
when adding the fact that third country nationals are used by United States PSCs. Does that
impact the transfer of legitimacy between state and firm, and, if so, how?
PSCs can be legitimate actors in zones of conflict when supported by internationally
recognized organizations that follow a Western ethos.

This is achieved by transferring

legitimacy from the state to the private firm. It is in the best interest of the firm to uphold and act

27

in accordance with the legitimacy of the state, in order for the firm to secure additional contracts.
Together, the market reputation mechanism and the transfer of legitimacy mechanism have
created a space in Western security culture where private force has blossomed.

28

Works Cited
Avant, Deborah. The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2010.
Barnett, Michael. "Building a Republican Peace: Stabilizing States after War." International
Security 30, no. 4 (Spring 2006): 87 -112
Belloni, Roberto. State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia. New York: Routledge,
2007.
Bolkovac, Kathryn, and Cari Lynn. The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficing, Military Contrators, and
One Woman's Fight for Justice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Brooks, Doug, and Matan Chorev. "Ruthless Humanitarism." In Private Military and Security
Companies: Ethics, Policies and Civil-Military Relations, by Alexandra Andrew, DeanePeter Baker and Marina Caparini. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Buzan, Barry. People, States and Fear. Bolder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991.
Capps, Robert. "Outside the Law." Salon.com . June 26, 2002.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/26/bosnia/print.html (accessed April 9,
2011).
Chojnacki, Sven, Nils Metternich, and Johannes Mnster. "Mercenaries in Civil Wars, 19502000 ." Wissenschaftszentrum, 2009. http://bibliothek.wz-berlin.de/pdf/2009/ii09-05.pdf.
Collingwood, Vivien. "Non-governmental Organisations, Power and Legitimacy in International
Society ." Review of International Studies, 2006: 439-454.
Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Transforming Wartime
Contracting: Controlling Costs, Reducing Risks. Final Report to Congress, Washington
DC: Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2011.
Committee on Armed Services. Contracting in a Counterinsurgency: An Examination of the
Blackwater-Paravant Contract and the Need for Oversight. S. HRG. 111571, United
States Senate, Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 2010.
Davis, James. Fortune's Warriors: Private Armies and the New World Order. Vancouver:
Douglas & Mcintyre Ltd, 2003.
Department of Defense. 3020.50 Private Security Contractors (PSCs) Operating in Contingency
Operations, Humanitarian or Peace Operations, or Other Military Operations or
Exercises. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2011.
Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation. Defense Base Act Case Summary by
Nation. Washington, DC: United States Department of Labor, 2012.
http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/dbaallnation.htm
Dunigan, Molly. Victory for Hire: Private Security Companies Impact on Military
Effectiveness. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Easterly, William. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done
So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin Books, 2007.
Edelstein, David. "Occupational Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail."
International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 49 - 91.
Franklin, Jonathan. "US Contractor Recruits Guards for Iraq in Chile." The Guardian, March 4,
2004: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/05/iraq.chile.
29

Frost, Mervyn. "Regulating Anarchy: The ethics of PMCs in global Civil Society?" In Private
Military and Security Companies: Ethics, policies and civil-military relations, by Andrew
Alexandra, Deane-Peter Baker and Marina Caparini. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Gilley, Bruce. "The Meaning and Measure of State Legitimacy: Results for 72 Countries."
European Journal of Political Research, 2006: 499-525.
Granelli, Marco. "United Nations Said To Probe Executive Outcomes' Mercenary Activity."
Saturday Star, November 23, 1997.
Hewlett Packard. "The Future of Navy IT Today." Navy Marine Corps Intranet. 2014.
http://h10131.www1.hp.com/public/nmci/about-nmci/ (accessed July 7, 2014).
International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers. "International Code of
Conduct for Private Security Service Providers." Nov 09, 2010. http://www.icocpsp.org/uploads/Signatory_Companies_-_September_2013_-_Composite_List-1.pdf
(accessed June 28, 2014).
Iraq Coalition Casuality Count. Operation Enduring Freedom. icasualties.org, 2012.
Isenberg, David. "Private Military Contractors as Buzz Lightyear: To Afghanistan and Beyond."
Huffington Post, March 11, 2010: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11441.
Jefferies, Ian. "Private Military Companies A Positive Role to Play in Todays International
System." The Quarterly Journal 1, no. 4 (December 2002): 103 - 125.
Krieg, Andreas. The Impact of Casualty Aversion on Humanitarian Intervention. Publications
in Contemporary Affairs, 2010.
Kinsey, Christopher. Corporate Soldiers and International Security. New York : Routledge,
2006.
Krahmann, Elke. States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security. New York: Cambridge, 2001.
MacFaquhar, Neil. "Peacekeepers Sex Scandals Linger, On Screen and Off." New York Times,
September 7, 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/08nations.html
Marsden, Peter. Afghanistan: Aid, Armies & Empires. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Mitchell, W.J.T. "Showing Seeing: a Critique of Visual Culture ." Journal of Visual Culture 1,
no. 2 (August 2002): 165-181.
Pattison, James. Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should
Intervene? . New York: Oxford Press, 2003.
Percy, Sarah. Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007.
Petersohn, Ulrich. "The Impact of Mercenaries and Private Military and Security Companies on
Civil War Severity between 1946 and 2002." International Interactions: Empirical and
Theoretical Research in International Relations 40, no. 2 (March 2014): 191 - 215.
. "The Other Side of the COIN: Private Security Companies and Counterinsurgency
Operations." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 43, no. 10. (October 2011): 782 - 801.
Phelps, Martha L. "Private Warriors As State Builders? The Tally on Charles Tilly and Private
Security." Conference presentation. International Studies Association, 2014.
. "Failure to Protect and Serve: Private Police in Bosnia Herzegovina." Conference
presentation. International Studies Association, 2012.
Pierson, Christopher. The Modern State. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Scheffer, David. "Lessons from the Rwandan Genocide." Georgetown Journal of International
Affairs 5, (2004): 125-132.
Schorn, Daniel. Billions Wasted in Iraq. Produced by CBS News. Performed by 60 Minutes.
2006.
30

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. Minutes of Evidence . London: House of Commons, 2002.
http://www.parliament.the-stationeryoffice.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmfaff/922/2061313.htm
Silverstein, Ken. Private Warriors . New York: Verso, 2000.
Singer, Peter. Corporate Warriors, The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2004.
Slim, Hugo. "By What Authority? The Legitimacy and Accountability of Non-Governmental
Organisations ." International Council of Human Rights Policy, 2002 .
Stanger, Alison. One Nation Under Contract. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Stillman, Peter. "The Concept of Legitimacy." Polity, 7, no 1. (Autumn 1974): 32-56.
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee
on Government Reform. Rebuilding Iraq: More Comprehensive National Strategy
Needed to Help Achieve U.S. Goals and Overcome Challenges. Washington DC: United
States Government Accountability Office, 2006:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06953t.pdf
Thomson, Janice E. Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-building and Extraterritorial
Violence in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1994.
Tickler, Peter. The Modern Mercenary: Dog of War, or Soldier of Honour? New York: Sterling
Publishing Company, 1987.
Tucker, Robert W, and David C Hendrickson. "The Sources of American Legitimacy." Foreign
Affairs 83, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2004): http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/60262/robert-wtucker-and-david-c-hendrickson/the-sources-of-american-legitimacy
Uesseler, Rolf. Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict.
Translated by Jefferson Chase. Berkley: Soft Skull Press, 2008.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Fact Sheet No. 28, The
Impact of Mercenary Activities on the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination. New York:
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2002:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/479477460.html
United Nations Office of Central Support Services. "List of Approved Vendors by Country of
Origin." 2013. http://www.un.org/depts/ptd/pdf/vendors.pdf (accessed October 5, 2013).
United States Central Command. Contractor Support of US Operations in the USCENTCOM
Area of Responsibiilty to Include Iraq and Afghanistan. Department of Defense, 2013:
http://psm.du.edu/media/documents/reports_and_stats/us_data/dod_quarterly_census/dod
_quarterly_census_jan_2013.pdf
United States Department of State. State Department to Incorporate International Code of
Conduct into Worldwide Protective Services Contracts. Press Release, August 16, 2013.
United States Government Accountability Office. Improvements Needed in Management of
Contractors Supporting Contract and Grant Administration in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Report to Congressional Committees GAO-10-357, Washington DC: United States
Government Accountability Office, 2010.
United States Government Printing Office. FDSys Search Results. n.d.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/search.action (accessed January 28, 2012).
United States Insitute of Peace. Building Civilian Capacity for U.S. Stability Operations The
Rule of Law Component. Special Report 118, Washington DC: United States Insitute of
Peace, 2004.
31

Verkuil, Paul. Outsourcing Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Wayne, Leslie. "America's For-Profit Secret Army." New York Times, October 12, 2002.
Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Berkley: University of California Press, 1979.
Wulf, Herbert. Internationalizing and Privatizing War and Peace. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005.

32