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| 1 |
ID:
091376
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Private security companies' growing participation in U.S. and international military missions has raised concern about whether the private security industry is subject to sufficient controls. Industry self-regulation is often proposed as part of a multilayered framework of regulations to govern PSCs. But what can self-regulation contribute to regulation of the private security industry? This matters because privatization in the security realm has moved beyond understandings of the proper breakdown of public and private functions concerning the use of force. This article assesses what self-regulation can contribute to the control of this industry and whether the private security industry lends itself to effective self-regulation. It concludes that the private security industry does not exhibit the capacity to adopt and implement effective self-regulation on its own. If self-regulation is to complement state and international regulation, participation in the design and oversight of self-regulation must be broadened beyond private security companies alone.
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| 2 |
ID:
099510
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2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
States have increasingly replaced military personnel with armed civilian contractors. Are these civilians members of the military profession? I address this question in two ways. First, I assess whether armed contractors exhibit the characteristics of the profession of arms: expertise in the application and management of violence, provision of cost-effective solutions within the jurisdiction of warfare, legitimacy derived from the state and polity, and a recognized corporate identity. Then I assess the views of 260 elite American field grade officers. I find that armed contractors do share many of the characteristics of military professionals but that officers do not view the civilian contractors as military professionals, are uncomfortable with their intrusion into the profession of arms, and are cognizant of their negative effects but some ambivalence in their responses suggests that the boundaries of the profession of arms are being permeated by civilian contractors acting in combat roles.
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| 3 |
ID:
103185
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper analyses the industry that produces the goods and services required to protect citizens from insecurity. It presents a definition of this economic sector useful in setting its boundaries, and it briefly describes the main types of industries operating within the sector. The paper introduces some ideas for a research agenda that could assist in unveiling the main features of this industry, as well as its strengths and weaknesses, to solve the security needs of society in an efficient and effective manner. It analyses methods for gathering information regarding suppliers, customers, and other market agents. Finally, it outlines ways for assessing market performance. The rational behind the agenda, the various approaches and the potential difficulties to be faced, should the agenda be implemented, are shortly outlined.
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| 4 |
ID:
150407
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| 5 |
ID:
153108
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article takes the reader inside four border security fairs in Europe and North America to examine the knowledge practices of border security professionals. Building on the border security as practice research agenda, the analysis focuses on the production, circulation, and consumption of scarce forms of knowledge. To explore situated knowledge of border security practices, I develop an approach to multi-sited event ethnography to observe and interpret knowledge that may be hard to access at the security fairs. The analysis focuses on mechanisms for disseminating and distributing scarce forms of knowledge, technological materializations of situated knowledge, expressions of transversal knowledge of security problems, how masculinities structure knowledge in gendered ways, and how unease is expressed through imagined futures in order to anticipate emergent solutions to proposed security problems. The article concludes by reflecting on the contradictions at play at fairs and how to address such contradictions through alternative knowledges and practices.
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| 6 |
ID:
103221
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
UN peacekeeping continues to confront qualitative and quantitative difficulties. Arguments in favour of using private military and security companies (PMSCs), particularly those referring to the 1990s-era when Executive Outcomes was operating, have been aired. The article examines earlier operational arguments for PMSC participation in UN peacekeeping, which at times have been reintroduced in more recent assertions: (1) PMSCs have better organization, training, and equipment; (2) they have a heightened willingness to apply force to serve UN mandates; and (3) they enjoy enhanced readiness to respond. The article argues, however, that it would be difficult for contemporary PMSCs to respond effectively, quickly, and robustly should the UN turn to them for enforcement operations. State and market pressures have conditioned PMSCs to operate in a manner dissimilar to that in the 1990s.
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