Oxford University Press Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars: Competition and Market Accountability

Since the 1990s, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have intervened in civil wars around the globe. International, legally registered corporate actors have assisted governments with a myriad of tasks including combat support, logistics, army and police training, intelligence analysis, and guard services. However, reports that such contractors have been responsible for human rights abuses have spurred the need to evaluate the industry's impact on conflicts. Are these contractors effective in curbing violence or does emphasis on profit and lack of accountability get in the way? And how can governments improve PMSCs' commitment to contractual obligations, including adherence to international humanitarian laws? This book identifies two market forces that impact PMSCs' military effectiveness: local or conflict-level competition and global or industry-level competition. Specifically, Seden Akcinaroglu and Elizabeth Radziszewski challenge the assumption that interventions by profit-driven coporations are likely to destabilize areas engaged in war, and provide data that private contractors do contribute to conflict termination under certain circumstances. They argue that competitive market pressure creates a strong monitoring system and that the company's corporate structure and external competitive environment in a given conflict help to explain the variance in accountability to clients. Including an analysis of data on international PMSCs' interventions in civil wars from 1990-2008, Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski show the impact of competition on companies' contribution to the termination of different types of civil wars. Review Though scholars, practitioners, and industry officials alike have increasingly paid attention to the modern use of civilian contractors on the battlefield for much of the past two decades, until now we have lacked a systematic, large-n data-driven analysis of whether, how, and to what extent private military and security contractors can help to end wars. In this book, Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski do just that, highlighting that PMSCs can positively contribute to conflict termination through multiple mechanisms. A must-read for those interested in conflict dynamics and the future global security landscape. ― Molly Dunigan, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation, and Lecturer, Carnegie Mellon UniversityIn their incisive book, Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski examine a little studied, but historically pervasive, phenomenon of civil war ― the role of mercenary armies. Considering these organizations in their modern guise as private military and security companies, the authors formulate an innovative market-based model of PMSCs grounded in the level of global competition in the PMSC industry, as well as local competition between PMSCs in a conflict zone. The book is a must-read for scholars interested in the role of non-state actors on conflict dynamics, precisely because it corrects for the contemporary over-emphasis on rebel groups. ― Andrew J. Enterline, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North TexasThis book is a much needed corrective from the frequently sensationalistic treatment of private military and security companies. By providing novel insights on the role of competition on the market for force, introducing an original dataset and employing rigorous statistical tools, Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski provide a compelling analysis of PMSCs' contribution to conflict termination and prompt the reader to rethink the relationship between commercial actors and civil war. ― Ulrich Petersohn, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in International Politics, University of Liverpool About the Author Seden Akcinaroglu is an Associate Professor at Binghamton University. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Battle for Allegiance Governments, Terrorist Groups, and Constituencies in Conflict (University of Michigan Press). Her research