| Summary/Abstract |
Since the 1990s, military support and security services in hostile environments have been increasingly traded on the market for force. Surprisingly, how exchange is organised on the market for force remains predominantly focused on the neoclassical model, which assumes anonymous exchange, and sellers compete through price and quality of product for customers. However, the model seems to be incomplete as it describes some empirical patterns, yet not others. Why are service backgrounds clustered together and why do specific nationalities dominate the market in the Iraq and Afghanistan war? Why are they not distributed evenly as price and quality competition would suggest? The argument here is that social factors need to be taken in to account, i.e. personal relationships. The logic being that sellers and customers trade through existing relationships, and familiarity is the dealmaker, rather than price. The article takes on the challenge to develop a sociological conceptualisation of the market able to integrate both logics. Finally, the approach is put to the test on the labour market for Western security operators. The results demonstrate that personal relationships play a significant role to explain exchange on the market for force, yet co-existence with the neoclassical logic.
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