PRIVATE SECURITY, PUBLIC ORDER: THE OUTSOURCING OF PUBLIC SERVICES AND ITS LIMITS. Ed by Simon Chesterman and Angelina Fisher Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.com ), 2009. xiv + 247pp. ISBN 9780199574124. £70.

Pages337-339
Published date01 May 2011
Date01 May 2011
DOI10.3366/elr.2011.0052

Privatisation has been a central theme of public policy worldwide since the 1980s and, in this new age of austerity, seems likely to remain so. This edited volume concerns what might be regarded as the extreme instance of privatisation: outsourcing of military and security functions to private companies. Extreme, first, because it impinges upon the state's monopoly over the legitimate use of force and hence strikes at the core of what most people would regard as its basic function: to provide collective security. Secondly, it involves particularly high risks, not merely of inefficiency, lack of accountability, corruption and subversion of public policy, but also serious human rights abuses and even threats to security itself. Although the book focuses primarily on the United States, both supply and use of private military and security services are global phenomena, driven by common pressures to reduce the size of armed forces following the end of the Cold War, and sometimes also by the desire to avoid full accountability for military actions.

There have been occasional high profile controversies involving private military and security companies (PMSCs), such as Sandline's role in supplying arms to Sierra Leone in breach of a UN embargo, and Blackwater's involvement in prisoner abuse and civilian deaths in Iraq. Mostly, however, privatisation of military and security functions has occurred below the political and regulatory radar. Unlike other privatised functions, increased reliance on PMSCs has not been accompanied by new regulatory regimes, either domestic or international. Indeed, the most substantial regulatory efforts to date have resulted from self-regulation.

Outsourcing of military and security functions has also largely been ignored in academic discussions of privatisation. This book seeks to remedy that by situating PMSCs within the broader context of private actors performing public functions, and addresses three sets of questions, which supply its organising structure: (1) How do PMSCs fit within that broader context, and what implications does this have for the possibility of holding them to account? (2) What lessons can be learned from other cases of privatisation? (3) Should there be limits on governments' ability to outsource traditional “public” functions?

Part I opens with an interesting and wide-ranging essay by Michael Likosky exploring the history and contours of what he terms the “privatisation of violence” in both military and...

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