Distinctions, Distinctions: 'Public' and 'Private' Force?

Author(s): Patricia Owens

Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 84, No. 5 (Sep.
, 2008), pp. 977-990
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Distinctions,distinctions:
'public' and 'private7force?

PATRICIA
OWENS
Historically and conceptually, the distinctions between the domestic and the
to how we
foreign, and between the public and the private, have been crucial
have understood the functioning of modern government and the mobilization

of resources to fight in 'national' armies. Home police forces were tasked with
enforcing law and order in the domestic sphere; only in national emergencies and in

was the army to assist in these functions.1 It is now well known

European empires
thatpolicing and security institutions aremerging, and that the distinction between
external and internal isblurring, as soldiers take on policing activity and vice versa.2
to offer
'private' security industry able
highly trained combatants, equipment

and
and

now

training

transnational

works

within

military

and

and

across

economic

state

boundaries,

interests.

'Private'

protecting

national

corporations

engage

in a variety of classical military and domestic security operations,

providing skills,
strategic planning, intelligence and much more. They even possess their own trade

organization, the International Peace Operations Association. According to P.W.

a
diffused across a number
Singer, 'the responsibility for public end?security?is

of actors, public and private'. Public and private are not what they used to be: 'the
... which was once
solidly fixed, is now under siege'.3
public?private dichotomy
The
ways
feature

idea

that

that merge
of

recent

security
the

and

internal

literature

insecurity

and
on

the

external,
changing

are

the

now

public

character

experienced
and

private,
of war
and

in
practised
is an
important
are
We
security.4
and

frequently told that the state, the privileged public realm in themodern imaginary,
is under threat as the primary provider of military and economic security in the

face of military globalization and neo-liberal capitalism. The scale of involve

ment of commercial firms in the business of security is vast, and the
challenges
they pose to existing domestic and international law, civil?military relations
and political accountability are huge.5 Wealthy individuals, gated communities,
1

Mathieu Deflem, Volicing world society:historical

foundations of international
police cooperation(Oxford: Oxford
Press, 2003).
2 University
David H. Bayley, Changing theguard: developingdemocraticpolice abroad (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006).
3 P.W.
Singer, Corporatewarriors,2nd edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), pp. 220, 8.
4 For a
thorough review, see Ian Loader and Neil Walker, Civilizing security(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007).
5 Caroline
Holmqvist,

'Private security companies: the case for regulation', SIPRI policypaper 9, 2005.

International
Affairs 84: 5 (2008) 977-990
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Patricia Owens
states

multinationals,

insurgents,

in

strategic

for oil,

competition

and

intergovern

mental organizations all increasingly purchase 'security' in themarket for force.6

In 2007 nearly 180,000 'private' security contractors were employed by theUnited
States government in Iraq?20,000 more than the total of designated US 'national'
troops.

At

the

time

of writing,

none

of

these

contractors,

these

'victims,

soldiers,

and torturers',7 has been prosecuted for a single war crime on the battlefield of
L. Paul Bremer, while head of the Coalition Provisional
Iraq.8 The signature of
them
from national or international regulation.
Authority, exempted
Important debates about the consequences of the so-called 'privatization' of

force are taking place. Are these firms simply corporate versions of the older
'whores of war', mercenaries with better PR? Given falling budgets, rising costs
and overstretch, is it not simply rational for statemilitaries to turn to private
solutions for new global problems and new markets? Should commercial firms take
over the
training of friendly foreign armies if domestic political pressures make
it unfeasible or unattractive for armed forces of the national

state to intervene

to defeat the government themore intense

directly?9 (Insurgencies
likely
themilitary actions ofthe outside state supporting the struggling government.10)
aremore

Do

global

corporate

warriors

represent

'the "new

face"

of neo-colonialism',

making

Africa's strategicminerals 'safe for investment'?11After all,many are hired in return

for diamond, oil and mining concessions sometimes made available through the
resources still in the hands of rebels. Or is the rise of
'strategic privatization' of
these firms simply an inevitable and legitimate by-product of the need to protect
an era of
private property rights and open markets in
globalization? Might private

contractors step in
quickly and efficientlywhere theUN fails and actually halt
a repeat of Rwanda or
some of the
genocides of the future?12What ifpreventing
Darfur was amatter not of political will, but of simply finding the cash?
The majority of this article does not engage directly with these important polit
ical debates. Moreover, the question at hand isnot whether we should be optimistic

or

pessimistic

about

the more

open

turn

towards

corporate

firms

organizing

and

of violence. It is easy to be ambivalent, rather than just

providing
critical, about the commercialization of war in the face of the grossly inadequate
response by governments and their international organizations to genocide. The
not 'between private financing and/or
meaningful comparison today is perhaps
the means

It
delivery of security and the financing and/or delivery of security by states'.13
6

Deborah D. Avant, The marketforforce: theconsequencesofprivatizing security(Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2005).
7 Anna
Leander, 'The power to construct international security: on the significance of private military compa
nies',Millennium: fournal ofInternationalStudies 33: 3, 2005, p. 805.
Singer, Corporate warriors, pp. 245, 251.
9 One
use of commercial firms in 'Plan Colombia' with a cost to theUnited States of between
example is the
$770 million and $1.3 billion. See Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 211.
10
Max G. Manwaring
and John T. Fishel, 'Insurgency and counter-insurgency: toward a new analytical
SmallWars and Insurgencies3: 3, 1992, pp. 272-310.
approach',
11
David Francis, 'Mercenary intervention in Sierra Leone: providing national security or international exploita
tion?', ThirdWorld Quarterly 20: 2, 1999, pp. 319, 323.
12
David Shearer, Private armies andmilitary intervention,Adelphi Paper316 (London: International Institute for
Strategic Studies, 1998).
13
Avant, The market for force, p. 26.

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Distinctions, distinctions: 'public and 'privateforce?

may be the different, albeit much more difficult to measure, contrast between
expressions of force that increase global social and economic inequality and the
likelihood of genocide, and those that do not.
This article offers an evaluation of the underlying conceptualization within

(IR) of what it is for force to be 'privatized'. Much of the

in
this field suffersfrom a fundamental flaw in its understanding of the
literature
an important
'grand dichotomy' between public and private, and hence misses
element of the changing character of war.14 The public?private distinction is one
of the primary mechanisms, if not theprimary mechanism, for organizing polit
International Relations

ical,

economic

and,

therefore,

military

power.15

The

dichotomy

structures

virtu

western
ally the entire tradition of
political thought and practice. Yet it remains
in the relevant literatureswithin IR. For
undertheorized
example,
surprisingly
most work on
in this field accepts an ideological construct
'privatized' violence
war and peace on the
as real and
to
proceeds
analyse contemporary patterns of
basis of amisunderstanding about what the public?private distinction actually is in
modern society?an exercise inpolitical legitimation underpinned by an ideology.
The distinction has never been 'solidly fixed'.1 The identity of these spheres shifts
and changes as away of organizing power. In other words, there is no such thing as
or
private violence. There is only violence that ismade 'public' and violence
public
that

is made

'private'.

substantiate these claims, the article describes inmore detail the principal
in
which post-Cold War armed conflict is imagined to have changed in
ways
the IR literature on 'private force' with implications forwhat are assumed to be
older and more stable distinctions between public and private. It suggests that the
can be accounted for, in
part,
conceptual weaknesses of much of this literature
a
of
the
historical
and sociological importance of theway
by misunderstanding
To

power is organized and legitimated through shifts in the public?private distinc

tion. In themodern period, what is normally described as 'public'?government
administration?is

largely

a function

of

the private.

Moreover,

the classical

image

of the state as the possessor of the legitimate monopoly of the 'public' use of force
in its borders (capable of mobilizing resources from within the
state)was never a

plausible reflection of reality. Indeed, there isnothing essential inCarl von Clause
witz's political understanding of the phenomenology of war thatmeans we must
define war itself as an act carried on by a public authority as understood inmuch
of the literature. The article concludes by arguing that, for the sake of historical
accuracy and conceptual integrity, scholars should abandon the terminology of
'public' and 'private' force, but not the distinctions between war, violence and
politics. Tracing how public-private distinctions shift and change as an effect of
a
political power is joint task for historical sociology and international political
theory.

14

Weintraub and Kristin Kumar, eds, Public andprivate in thoughtand practice:perspectiveson a

Jeff
grand dichotomy
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997).
15Michael
Warner, 'Public and private', inPublics and counterpublics(New York: Zone Books, 2002), pp. 21-63.
16
Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 8.

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Patricia Owens

The changing character of public and private

is an almost unlimited resource of examples and themes thatmay be used
to illustrate the
significance of the public?private distinction. For example, in
democratic Athens, the difference between private and public corresponded to
that between the household and the political realm, between activities related
to maintaining the necessities of life and those related to a common world.17

There

the private realm of the household tended to the needs of 'life',

the biological processes of the human body. The common world was under
stood as the space for politics, the public realm inwhich those permitted to enter

Labour within

could freely debate their affairs and initiate political action in concert. The social
conditions enabling thismodel of political conduct were related to the form of

warfare practised and the inter-polis system.Hoplite armies and small-scale fighting
made possible the Greek ideal and practice of the citizen-soldier and manly
warrior.1

was

That

the

ideal.

But

in

reality,

of

course,

ancient

armies

Greek

also

hired non-citizens.19 The distinction between public and private served the inter
were
to enter the public
ests of the slave-holding
permitted
patriarchs who alone
were catered for
necessities
of
the
which
realm. Unbound
maintaining life,
by
women and slaves, Greek citizens exercised their freedom in
public. Privacy
by
a
man who lived
was understood to be
meant to be
life'
'A
only private
deprived.
'not fully human'.20
In themodern period, the classical distinction between public and private has
become blurred with the emergence of a realm that can be called the 'social'.21 This

realm is neither public nor private in the classical sense, although modern 'society'
is still structured through a variety of such distinctions; only themeanings of the
terms

have

changed.

nation-states

has

Since
been

the

seventeenth

associated

with

century,

the public

governmental

realm

in

administration

European
of

the

the right to declare itself as the primary

commonwealth. The statemonopolized
arena
to successfully represent and defend the general
through its claim
'public'
interests of those it governed. The modern state form showed itself to be themost
a
efficient and well-equipped
entity for offering way to achieve the 'firstfreedom'
as it is understood

in most

western

political

thought?'security-from-violence'.22

The Leviathan removed the individual and groups of individuals from the state of
nature. Since Hobbes, the protection and fostering of life have been understood
to submit to the
as the liberal solution to the
problem of persuading individuals
to
citizens
the
In
have
Leviathan.
expect certain
right
giving up unfettered liberty,
benefits and rewards. In exchange for obedience to the sovereign's process of power
accumulation,

the state provides a way of life inwhich

the pursuit of 'private'

17Hannah
Arendt, The human condition(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 28.
R. Claire Snyder, Citizen-soldiers and manly warriors: military serviceand gender in the civic republican tradition
(Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999).
19G. T.
Hellenistic world, new edn (Palos Heights, IL: Ares, 1997).
Griffith, The mercenariesof the
20
Arendt, The human condition,p. 38.
21
Arendt, The human condition,p. 35.
22
to
Daniel Deudney, Boundingpower: republicansecuritytheory
from thepolis theglobal village (Princeton,NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2007).

o8o
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Distinctionsj distinctions: 'public' and 'private'force?

is synonymous
compatible with the 'public' good. The 'public'
sustenance
is
its
rationale
life.
and
the
of
primary
'government'

interests ismade
with

purpose of the public realm is to foster and sustain the life

processes of humans is reflected in the literature on private force, where the term
themodern

That

is taken

'public'

to

'denote

... because

institutions

governmental

Action
public is associatedwith thepursuit of collectiveends9.23
to an end.

a means

in itself but

Governments

are deemed

the

meaning

of

in public is not an end

successful

to the extent

can

that they
simultaneously protect individuals from violent death and foster the
social and economic conditions inwhich the collective good can thrive.However,

the concept of 'collective good' is not the same as the ancient notion of the public
realm or even a republic which exists in its own right as a distinct and separate
it 'recognizes only that private individuals have
sphere. As Hannah Arendt wrote,
interests in common'.24 Rather than the concepts of 'public' and 'private' serving

two related but distinct activities?those

that relate to
distinguish between
a common world and those that relate tomaintaining life?in modern
building
society the 'public' is afunction of the 'private'; 'private interests assume public
to

significance'.25

Just as themeaning of the 'public' has shifted in themodern period, so has the
no
means to be
as
meaning of 'private'. It
longer
deprived of something, such
the ability to fully express one's humanity. Rather, autonomous, private persons
have become 'the proper site of humanity'. Individuals are understood to be in

a
'possession of publicly relevant rights by virtue of being private persons'.2 In
move thatmade an
true
the
realm
of
allegedly non-political sphere
single
liberty,
theprivate autonomy of individual rights-bearerswas created so that legal (public)
persons could exist. Privacy came to be defined by reference not to deprivation,
but to notions such as intimacy and, most importantly, wealth; and the freedom
to accumulate wealth became
inextricably linkedwith the idea of privately owned
property. Private appropriation
deemed

sufficient

'property

theworld
private

meant

to

protect

no more

or

of wealth

individual
less

than

and therefore to belong

wealth

accumulation

and relatively frequent elections are

liberty.
to have one's

In

ancient
location

Greece,
in a

to the body
politic'.27 Now

is a central

function

in contrast,

particular

of

part

the protection of

of government.

The point of this contrast between ancient and modern is to suggest that
change
in the distinction between
one
is
and
of
the
drivers
of
private
public
change in the

character

of war

and

vice

versa.

As

the next

section

will

elaborate,

the modern

way of framing the public-private distinction has grown in strength to the extent
that it correlates with the normative and material claims of themodern
capitalist
state, including how ithas prepared for and justified thewars that protect its inter
ests. In themodern
we see the emergence of an
period,
extremely stylized and
a
distinctive type ofwar 'characterized', asMary Kaldor puts it,
'by differentmode
23
Avant, The market
forforce, p. 24 (emphasis added).
24
Arendt, The human condition,p. 35.
25
Arendt, The human condition,p. 35, 69.
26
Warner, Publics and counterpublics,
p. 39.
27
Arendt, The human condition,p. 61.

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Patricia Owens
involving different types of military forces, different strategies and

of warfare,

different

techniques,

and means

relations

of warfare'.28

Private force in internationalrelations

In IR, 'soldiers of fortune' and thewide variety of other non-state fighting units
to states' efforts to achieve a
'public' monopoly
primarily understood in relation
on force and questions of what it is for a sovereign state to generate, organize and
control force. In this regard, the following comments and concerns are typical.
How do 'exports of private security services affect states' ability to control the
are

force

that

emanates
'When

powers.'

from

those

their

powers

territory'?29
are
delegated

exercises

'A government
we

to outsiders,'

are

sovereign

informed,

'the

capacity to govern is undermined.'30 The central element of the sovereign inter

over violence in
state system is broken when 'the collective
monopoly of the state

world politics' disappears.31 The assumption is that certain government functions

are inherent to sovereignty, that sovereignty
implies the ability to govern, and that
the central issue for investigation is the extent of states' 'control' of the violence
'that

emanates

from

their

territory'.32

This formulation is unsurprising, since thewestern tradition of social and polit

ical theory has defined the sovereign state as thatwhich possesses the legitimate
monopoly

on

the means

of violence

within

given

States

territory.

are

under

stood to be properly sovereign to the extent that they can achieve the 'public'
on the use of force. These assumptions about the appropriate relation
monopoly
state and non-state, dominate scholarly and
ship between public and private,
the
debate
about
'privatization' of violence and the changing character of
political
war.

It is assumed

that

states'

armed

forces

generate

violence

their

from

societies

and instrumentally deploy this violence to achieve their objectives, such as the
or power. Hence the following questions
acquisition of more territory,wealth
structure
the research agenda of those within the field studying varia
typically
tion

in

expressions

of

'private'

force.

'How

did

the

state

achieve

monopoly

on

violence beyond its borders that emanates from its territory?What explains the
elimination of nonstate violence from global politics?'33 What
'type of force' do
is
it
arise
states 'choose to
since
that since
assumed
These
questions
employ'?34
as
most
citizen armies 'have been touted
the
the French Revolution
appropriate
(and effective) vehicles for generating security', signalling 'the end of hired soldiers

playing

a serious

role

in warfare,

at least

for

the next

two

centuries'.35

Mary Kaldor, New and oldwars: organizedviolence ina global era, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), p. 17.
29
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 77.
30 Paul R.
we can
Verkuil, Outsourcing sovereignty:
democracyandwhat
functions threatens
whyprivatization ofgovernment
do about it (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 1.
31
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 253 (emphasis in original).
32
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 77; Verkuil, Outsourcing sovereignty,
p. 3.
33
violence in earlymodern
Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns:state-buildingand extraterritorial
Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 3.
34 Sarah
a norm inInternationalRelations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
Percy,Mercenaries: thehistoryof
p. 4.
35
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 29; Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 31.

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Distinctions, distinctions: 'public and 'privateforce?

Under thesematerial and ideological conditions, the elimination of certain forms
of 'privately' owned means of violence would appear to be central to the rise of
European

states

as

in an

organizations

war-making

interstate

and

system

emerging

Sovereignty involved the ability to extract wealth from popula

tions through taxation and borrowing, and to regularize armed forces and policing

world market.
functions
and

by

eliminating
Through

pirates.36

that

'private',
a

slow

armies,

is, non-regular

uneven

and

process,

such

mercenaries,

as

privateers
and

privateers

out of themilitary business. It iswell known that the Thirty

edged
Years War which culminated in the Treaty ofWestphalia was fought with large
numbers of mercenaries participating for what was understood to be primarily
pirates were

financial gain. Over time, European armies comprised of soldiers of fortune

declined. By the nineteenth century, more centrally controlled people's armies
had emerged?regularized armed forces, serviced by men supposedly committed
to a national cause, not only financial gain; eventually '"good" states, as well as
successful states, fought wars using their own people'.37
There is broad agreement that, in so far aswe can describe amonopoly on the
use of force inEuropean states, itoccurred through a centuries-long dual process of
internal

and

pacification

international

war-making.

As

already

increas

indicated,

statewas
to use or threaten violence to appropriate money
permitted
ingly only the
and men.

actors

Non-state

were

less able

to

claim

successfully

the

right

to

pursue

their just cause through violence unless allowed by states. For example, violence
remained noticeably prevalent in the 'private' sphere of the household, supported
and maintained by patriarchy and assertions of the primacy of the 'public' realm,

dominated by men, and the associated denigration of women.38 'Specifically, at

the present time,' noted Max Weber, 'the right to use physical force is ascribed to
other institutions or individuals only to the extent that the state permits it. The
state

is considered

the

sole

source

relation of men dominating men

(i.e.

considered

to be

legitimate)

of

the

"right"

to use

violence

...;

the

state

is a

a
means of
legitimate
[sic], relation supported by
violence.'39

Because

the state

successfully

claimed

to represent collective interests, itwas also able to define itself as

'public', and the
arena came to be defined as the only legitimate one for the use of force.
'public'
War was for the political end of states and was justified as the legitimate means for
the pursuit of state interest. It could be distinguished from less organized 'crime'
because itwas defined as an activity carried out by a newly fashioned 'public' entity
which established the law and exceptions to the law.40The 'people', the 'army' and
the 'government' were legally separated. The legal and political category of the
36The seminalwork on this
process isThomson, Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns.
37
Percy,Mercenaries, p. 122.
3
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public man, private woman: women in social and political thought,2nd edn (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1993).
39Max
Weber, 'Politics as a vocation', inFromMax Weber: essays in sociology,trans., ed. and intr.H. H. Gerth and
C. Wright Mills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 78.
40 The formulation is taken from Charles
Tilly, 'War making and statemaking as organized crime', in Peter
B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Tbeda Skocpol, eds, Bringing thestate back in (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), pp. 169?85. On the importance of defining exceptions to the law, see Carl Schmitt,
on
trans, and intr.George Schwab; new foreword by Tracey
Political theology:
four chapters theconceptofsovereignty,
B. Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

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Patricia Owens
'civilian' emerged. 'Civil' war and other forms of partisan violence, which implied
the collapse of the state's ability to control violence, were vilified.
Given the origin of international law as an adjunct to themodern European

sovereign state, it isperhaps not surprising to find that international law is similarly
based on a variety of public-private distinctions and that these distinctions are
as an effectof
evolving
changes in global power.41Most obviously, classical interna

tional law consists of areas internal to the domestic jurisdiction of states ('private')
and issues of international concern ('public'), a distinction later codified in article
2
(7) of the UN Charter. International 'public' law concerns relations between
states and international organizations; international
to cases
'private' law applies
with an extraterritorial character regulating property, banking and currency, and
as the distinction between
to conflicts of law and state
jurisdiction. Just
public and
we
in
became
with
the
ofthe
blurred
'social'
the
modern
emergence
private
period,
have

recently

seen

the emergence

of

transnational

'public?private

partnerships',

at securing the lifeprocesses of ever

hybrid form of global governance aimed
larger
numbers of people. Often under the rubric of 'human security', governments and

international organizations work with 'private' actors to implement international

'norms and rules' and effectively co-govern in place of a sovereign state, usually in
the global South.42 Given that the rule of law is amajor technique for the establish

ment and
it isno surprise thatwe have seen efforts
regulation of public and private,
to
the
so-called
regulate
'private' military and security sectors, especially given
to
their challenge
existing but fragile international humanitarian law.43

Distinctions,distinctions
The

above

tution

of

picture
armed

of

sovereignty,
force has come

territory
under

and

sustained

so-called
assault

and consti
control
public
in recent
But
the
years.

on the organization and use

implications have not been addressed in IR literatures
to undertheorizing the public?private distinction, the
of'private force'. In addition
to underestimate the extent towhich the 'periphery' in fact
has
tended
discipline

a
plays central role in shaping global dynamics. Almost by definition, imperialism
and the imperial constitution of armed force is assumed to have relevance only
outside Europe, if it is considered to be relevant at all.44This is significant, because
the appropriation of money and men to secure the European state 'monopoly'
on violence did not emerge from
purely 'domestic' territory. The so-called
'public' monopoly

on armed force exercised

by the imperial European

state of

41

in international law', inMargaret Thornton,

Hilary Charlesworth, 'Worlds apart: public/private distinctions
ed., Public andprivate:feminist legaldebates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 243?60.
42
John Gerard Ruggie, 'Reconstituting the global public domain: issues, actors, and practices', Europeanfournal
10: 4, 2004, pp. 499?531; on human security and global governance, seeMark Duffield,
ofInternationalRelations
war: governing theworld ofpeoples (Cambridge: Polity, 2007).
Development, securityand unending
43 Simon Chesterman and Chia
Lehnardt, eds, From mercenaries tomarkets: theriseand regulationofprivate military
companies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
44 Cf. Hannah
Arendt, The originsof totalitarianism,new edn with added prefaces (New York: Harcourt Brace
on the
imperial origins of totalwar', in Between
Jovanovich, 1966); Patricia Owens, 'The boomerang effect:
war andpolitics: InternationalRelations and thethoughtofHannah Arendt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
pp. 52-71.

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Distinctions, distinctions: 'public' and 'private'force?

the nineteenth century did not 'emanate' from within state borders or even from
within Europe. The choice about what type of force states should employ was not
between

mercenaries

and

often

but

citizens,

between

citizens

mercenaries,

and

imperial troops. The mobilization of native (foreign) imperial soldiers?especially

from the nineteenth century?enabled
European states to project military power
across the
As
Tarak
Barkawi
has
shown, the alleged 'monopolies on force'
globe.
in many

European

states

'were

only

ever

achieved

in the context

of

a wider

inter

national organization offeree thatwas broadly imperial in character'.45 The armies

of Europe became 'citizen armies' while theywere expanding and policing the
our
understanding of the public
empire.4 This has important implications for
war.
distinction
the
character
of
and
private
changing
the very period when 'private' fighting units were going out of
Throughout
fashion in Europe, foreign colonial troops were being mobilized
in rapidly expanding numbers.47 This suggests that a major

by imperial states
contributory factor

in the decline of mercenary armies in some major European states is the

ability of
those states to hold overseas territorywith men and material 'recruited' from the
colonies. This, in turn, enabled the fiction of 'citizen armies' which has played a

major role in nationalist thought and the discourse of much international theory.
a
In terms ofmaterial scale, the raising of colonial armies
represented major trans
formation in theway imperial statesused force. In theBritish case,military security
as
troops,
provided bywhat has been described
'indigenous mercenaries'?local
hired hands or imperial soldiers to protect 'public' or 'private'wealth depending on
the context.4 Clearly the imperial charter companies, most famously the
English

was

East India Company,

private,

economics

mobilization

totally disrupted themodern distinctions between public and

and

politics,

state

and

non-state.49

Yet

the full

import

of

the

of imperial soldiers by both trading companies and national armies,

incredibly significant in terms of both numbers and 'control' for nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century world politics, is passed over in the largely 'normative'
explanations for the decline and delegitimization of the 'privatemilitary market'
in this period.50 This is
possible since 'the identity of colonial soldiers' is subsumed

45 Tarak

Barkawi, 'State and armed force in international context', paper presented at 'Structuralisms: a
symposium in honor of Bud Duvall', University ofMinnesota, 4?5 April 2008, p. 7; Barkawi, Globalization
and war (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 53?60.
4 Of
course, there is a close relationship between the ideas and practices of European citizenship, 'citizen armies'
and imperial conquest in the nineteenth century.However, discussion of the imperial cultural context is absent
from literature on the shift away frommercenary use and 'themoral superiority of citizen soldiers'
(Percy,
reminds us, 'colonial campaigns of the nineteenth centurywere the
Mercenaries, p. 95). As JohnM. MacKenzie
subject of fiercemoralising, a particularly intense justificatory process', in part to establish the relative supe
'Introduction',
riority of different political and military actors, citizens, subjects and races. See MacKenzie,
inJohnM. MacKenzie,
ed., Popular imperialismand themilitary, 1850?1950 (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1992), p. 4.
47 V. G.
Kiernan, Colonial empiresand armies, 1815?1960 (Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1998).
4 G.
J. Bryant, 'Indigenous mercenaries in the service of European imperialists: the case of the Sepoys in the
early British Indian Army, 1750-1800', War inHistory 7:1, 2000, pp. 2-28.
49 See
Thomson, Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns,p. 32; Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 34.
50On mercenarism and
norms, see Janice E. Thomson, 'State practices, international norms, and the decline of
mercenarism', InternationalStudiesQuarterly 34: 1, 1990, pp. 23?47; Thomson, Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns;
Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 42; Percy,Mercenaries.

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Patricia Owens
'under the nationality of the imperial power'.51 Foreign imperial subjects, some
of whom were loyal and some of whom rebelled, are imagined to be
fighting for
the same 'cause' as their 'civilized' masters.52 The fact is that some
political entities
are able to mobilize armed force that can be described as
foreign and private,
or
on
and
and
domestic
domestic
and
private,
foreign
public,
public depending
the audience and/or the prevailing ideology or power.53
State control over the use of force ebbs and flows. Some states are so strong
(and
have such control) that they can allow military and security firms to operate from

their territory and mobilize

them to pursue their own ends. In these cases, the
to
not
is
undermined when certain features of 'sovereign
govern
capacity
clearly
are
That
the
United States can mobilize forces from foreign
power'
delegated.54

populations through both state and, increasingly, commercial means is a crucial

factor in its ability to defeat those insurgencies it defines as inimical to its polit
ical and economic interests. That is, it is able to participate in the 'governance'
of those territories and peoples. We can easily think of examples of covert US
as
military activity well as efforts to build local, indigenous security forces through

'public' and 'private' means.55 Itwas standard practice in the Cold War to train
and mobilize counterinsurgency forces from local and foreign
populations.56 As
to
the
States
has
been
United
this
do
already indicated,
willing
through various
combinations of 'public' and 'private' and foreign and domestic forces, depending
on
availability and need. This strategy of 'arming the freeworld' has been pursued
since the late nineteenth century and has consistently been sold as a form of democ
racy promotion.57 Needless to say,while western states today choose to distinguish
between public and private, those against whom they fight inAfghanistan and Iraq
often possess a better understanding of the function of this distinction. As many
have

noted,

it is

only

logical

goes

without

for

to

insurgents

target

contractors

for coali

working

tion forces and to view such attacks as part of a battle against a

political enemy.
State institutions are deeply shaped by relations of property ownership and
production.

It

saying

that

commercial

economic

interests

are

supported by 'privatization' and this, in turn, reconfigures political geography

and

power.5

To

define

an

economic

activity

as

'private'

liberates

processes

of

51

Barkawi, Globalization and war, p. 46; David Omissi, The Sepoy and theRaj: theIndianArmy 1860?1940 (London:
Macmillan, 1994).
52 'These
troopswere not really "foreign" in the sense that theywere considered to be part of an imperial project':
Percy,Mercenaries, pp. 164, 165.On how 'mutiny' and other rebellions shaped colonial policy and other impe
rial self-images, seeGautam Chakravarty, The IndianMutiny and theBritish imagination(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005); Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of theRaj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1997).
53
Barkawi, 'State and armed force', p. 24.
54 Cf.
on contemporary
seeDuffield,
Verkuil, Outsourcing sovereignty;
global governance,
Development, securityand
unendingwar.
55
Christopher Robbins, Air America: thetruestoryoftheCIA's mercenary
fliers in covertoperations
frompre-war China
topresentdayNicaragua, new edn (New York: Corgi, 1991).
56William H.
Mott, United Statesmilitary assistance:an empiricalperspective(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002).
57Chester
J. Pach, Jr,Arming the
free world: theoriginsoftheUnited Statesmilitaryassistanceprogram, 1945?1950 (Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
5 As Mark Duffield has
not contradict the neomedieval model of
political authority
argued, 'privatisation does
... That is, the emergence of
autonomous areas of sovereignty side by sidewith a
multiple, overlapping and
weak central competence. Inmany respects, this reflects the neo-liberal ideal of deregulated markets supported

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Distinctions, distinctions: 'public' and 'privateforce?

wealth
tion.

and circulation and separates them from democratic regula

accumulation
Similarly,

can

states

powerful

in a manner

force

organize

that

to

appears

be 'private' and/or foreign because this reduces political scrutiny. That seemingly
actors and practices aremerging and crossing territorial bound
public and private
aries

as new

is not

or as

significant

as is often

assumed.

Seen

in this

light,

contem

porary military and security firms are not so radically different from the trading
are often
companies of old. Contemporary military companies
distinguished from
traditional soldiers of fortune because they have a 'diverse clientele' (not just states
and intergovernmental organizations); they have been
but multinationals, NGOs
structures (which means
'corporatized' into hierarchical businesses with proper
can compete in the
and
they operate openly with proper
they
global marketplace);
licences to provide a service (which means they have the blessing of powerful
are more successful and
are
states).59These
descriptions of how corporate bodies
efficient at organizing and justifying their expressions of force than their forebears.

Taken

character

together, however,

a
they do not amount to qualitative difference in the

of force.
some

Similarly,

are better

governments

than others

at

achieving

collective

ends

such aswealth and security because they possess greater 'capacity and legitimacy'.60
Advanced industrial countries appear to be betterat providing wealth and security
formore people. Again, this is not a qualitative difference. 'Treating the state as the
Weintraub puts it, 'maybe combined with arguments
locus ofthe "public"', as Jeff
for the openness or "publicity" of state actions; but it has been at least equally
common
"state

to claim
secrets"

that,

and

have

to advance

in order
recourse

to

the

the
rulers must maintain
interest,
public
l
arcana
state in advanced
The
imperii.'

industrial countries, the so-called 'public' realm, still largely remains a function
of interests properly understood as rooted in something else. Recall the previous
discussion

of

the main

purpose

of modern

European

governments,

to sustain

and

foster the lifeprocesses of their subjects. The 'national' administrative state proved
itself the best-equipped vehicle for pursuing this task through the accumulation of
wealth and the prosecution of war. The very meaning of theword 'public' came
to be redefined as the state's
'pursuit of collective ends'.62 The concepts of 'public'
and 'private' no longer served to distinguish between distinct activities?those
that
relate to building a common world and those that relate tomaintaining and securing
life. In modern society's blurring of the older distinction, the private assumes an
3
overwhelming 'public' significance. In pursuit of security from violence and the
freedom

to accumulate

wealth,

modern

states

fight

modern

wars.

a
by facilitator state':Duffield, 'Post-modern conflict:warlords, post-adjustment states and private protection',
Civil Wars i: i, 1998, p. 88.
59
warriors,pp. 44?7.
60 Singer, Corporate
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 24.
1
Weintraub, 'The theory and politics of the public/private distinction', inWeintraub and Kumar, eds, Public
Jeff
andprivate, p. 5.
2
Avant, The marketforforce, p. 24. Loader andWalker also present 'the state as being formed by equals towhom
the state promises equal protection' and what is being competed for in themarket for force as the
ability 'to
promise security to citizens': Civilizing security,pp. 75, 24.
63
Arendt, The human condition,p. 35.

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Patricia Owens
reasons for historical
are strong
sociological and political-economic
variations in the organization of forcewhich are reflected in the normative under
4 IR
has not been very good on
standings and legal regulation of military power.
the history and theory of the public?private distinction or at conceptualizing how
force is constituted transnationally, that is, in a manner not captured by notions
There

of sovereignty, territory and so-called 'public' control and constitution of armed

force.Rather, the field accepts a historically inaccurate model of territory,popula
tion and force (state?non-state and public?private, as they are articulated by the

It reiterates an ideological, rather than empirical, distinc

Westphalian model).
tion between public and private. The organization of force is only superficially
understood when conceptualized thisway, and international theory is hindered
in its ability to understand the changing character of war as a result. The current
are more

transformations
of

de-staticization

or

accurately,

the

albeit

less

commercialization

attractively,

of war,

and

classed
not

as

process

'privatization'.

After all, we are describing a transformation in the contemporary socialization

and organization of force.We ought to speak of the rise of contract, not 'private',
armies,

for

these

are not

are

'private

actors

operating

in the

public

realm

of warfare'.

in the social and political realm ofwar, much

They
simply actors operating
the privateers and mercantile companies before them.

like

Conclusion
as an effect of
political power. Inter
Public?private distinctions shiftand change
of how power is organized
national theory needs a better conceptualization
of those distinctions is one
through those distinctions and how the transformation
of

the drivers

of

change

in the character

of war.

There

is clear

historical

and

socio

to support the conceptual claim of this article that a variety of

logical evidence
aremade and remade during war. The development of
public?private distinctions
the distinction within and across states shapes and conditions how political debate

occurs about different forms of violence; how the subjects of international politics
are constituted; and how political communities form. This process ought not to

in terms of the conceptually simplistic and historically inaccurate

state?non-state dichotomy or themodern public?private binary. Rather, it should
be understood historically as part of the transnational constitution and circulation
7
ofmilitary and economic power. To conceptualize thisprocess properly is a joint
task for historical sociology and international political theory.
be understood

4 See
'The flow and ebb of privatised seaborne violence in global poli
e.g. Alejandro Colas and Bryan Mabee,
tics: lessons from theAtlantic world, 1689-1815', paper presented atworkshop on 'Pirates,bandits, mercenaries
and terrorists:privatised violence in historical context', Queen Mary, University of London, 23May 2008.
65Herfried Miinkler ismore accurate when he writes of the staticization and de-staticization ofwar,
although he
does turn to the terminology of 'private' firms as evidence of de-staticization: Miinkler, The new wars, trans.
Patrick Camiller (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), pp. 16-22.
66
Singer, Corporatewarriors,p. 217.
7 For an
important early statement, seeTarak Barkawi andMark Laffey, 'The imperial peace: democracy, force
and globalization', European fournal of InternationalRelations 5: 4, 1999, pp. 403-34. More recently, see Tarak
Barkawi andMark Laffey, 'The postcolonial moment in security studies', Review ofInternationalStudies 32: 2,
2006, pp. 329-52.

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Distinctions, distinctions: 'public' and 'private'force?

idealizations and abstractions of liberal political theory have led to some
estrangement between these sub-fields in the study of war and international
The

move
we can
beyond the liberal tradition, then historical
politics. But if
properly
can
seen
as
and
be
sociology
political theory
complementary, not antagonistic, in
the study of the public?private distinction. As Michael Warner has put it, 'most
of themajor figures of our time on the subject of public and private have reacted
against the liberal tradition'.69 In IR, historical sociology begins with the relation
we are
to understand the
fully
ship between state-making and war-making. But if
structuring effectof public?private distinctions we may need to begin somewhere
else. State-building expresses the intensification of the territorialization of polit
ical power and the effortof groups and classes to achieve security from violence.

The meaning of this process is properly captured in the registers of both historical
are ideal
categories and
sociology and political theory. The public and the private
normative models of democratic critique. But they are also historical-sociological
descriptions of processes central to the development ofmodern interstate relations
and modern political relations in flux.

The central argument of this article, that the identity of public and private
shifts and changes as a way of organizing power, has implications for how we
war from the more
distinguish the specific activity of
general phenomenon of

violence. Violence can be distinguished fromwar, but not on the basis thatwar is
conducted by a public authority, as is assumed inmuch of the literature on 'private'
force. Following Clausewitz, war is an act of force to compel our opponent to do
our will; it is the clash of armed forces,
on between
organized violence carried
two or more
entities.
is
War
continuation
the
of
the
political
policy of these
entities through themeans of violence.70 In Clausewitz's day, thiswas the
policy
of

national-state

European

in

governments

competition

with

each

other.

It goes

saying thatwarring political entities need not correspond to themodel

of the sovereign state thatwe have inherited from European history, and neither

without
should

our

categories

for

analysing

is not

force. War

'public'

It is

activity.

politi

cal.71 The public and the political are not the same.
The distinction between 'public' and 'private' force is untenable. This does not
mean we should abandon the distinction between war and
politics. We need no
more

Marxist
accept
vulgar
a function
or
of economics,

only

varying

degrees

or
that

of violence,

post-structuralist
there can be
than we

the commonwealth is synonymous with

that

assumptions
no

accept

such

thing

the view

as
that

the

all

is

politics

public

realm,
or

'government'

the 'public'. To borrow from Clausewitz

These approaches are often presented as antagonistic by Barkawi. But for diverse and
sophisticated work on
the public-private distinction, see Arendt, The human condition;Hannah Arendt, The
promise ofpolitics (New
York: Schocken, 2005); Richard Sennett, The fall ofpublic man (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
1976); Elshtain, Public man, private woman; JiirgenHabermas, The structuraltransformation
of thepublic sphere
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991);Warner, 'Public and private'.
69
Warner, 'Public and private', p. 43.
70 Carl von
Clausewitz, On war (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 75.
71
According toAvant, 'Clausewitz's conception reflected the emerging view in thewest that the state?or the
"public" sphere?was the institution throughwhich the use of violence could be most effectively linked to
endeavors endorsed by a collective': The marketforforce, p. 3. In fact,Clausewitz possessed amore
far-reaching
understanding of the need for political groups to subordinate war to their goals.

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Patricia Owens
but also depart from his meaning, the 'grammar' and 'logic' of politics and war
are
is an act of force. Itsmeaning is coercion and
fundamentally distinct.72War
or conquest. The
meaning of politics, if it
being coerced, and its end is security
is to have a meaning at all, is the freedom to act in concert with plural equals to
build a common public world. Some forms of violence are made public and others
are made private
through historically varying ways of organizing and justifying
force. There is no such thing as public violence or private violence. There is only

violence

that ismade public or private through political struggle and definition.

72 See
Arendt, 'Introduction intopolities', in The promise ofpolitics,pp. 93-200.

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