The Routledge Research Companion to Security Outsourcing

Conveniently structured into five sections, The Routledge Research Companion to Outsourcing Security offers an overview of the different ways in which states have come to rely on private contractors to support interventions.

Part One puts into context the evolution of outsourcing in Western states that are actively involved in expeditionary operations as well as the rise of the commercial security sector in Afghanistan. To explain the various theoretical frameworks that students can use to study security/military outsourcing, Part Two outlines the theories behind security outsourcing. Part Three examines the law and ethics surrounding the outsourcing of security by focusing on how states might monitor contractor behaviour, hold them to account and prosecute them where their behaviour warrants such action. The drivers, politics and consequences of outsourcing foreign policy are covered in Part Four, which is divided into two sections: section one is concerned with armed contractors (providing the provision of private security with the main driver being a capability gap on the part of the military/law enforcement agencies), and section two looks at military contractors (supporting military operations right back to antiquity, less controversial politically and often technologically driven). The final Part takes into consideration emerging perspectives, exploring areas such as gender, feminist methodology, maritime security and the impact of private security on the military profession.

This book will be of much interest to students of military and security studies, foreign policy and International Relations.

Introduction, Joakim Berndtsson and Christopher Kinsey

Part I: The Outsourcing Context: the Evolution of Security Outsourcing

1. Supporting the Troops: Military Contracting in the United States, Martha Lizabeth Phelps

2. Outsourcing Military Logistics and Security Services: the Case of the UK, Christopher Kinsey

3.Dissecting Military and Security Outsourcing in Canada’s Expeditionary Culture: Afghanistan and the Future, Christopher Spearin

4. Coercion and Capital in Afghanistan: The Rise, Transformation and Fall of the Afghan Commercial Security Sector, Christian Olsson

5. A "Pacifist" Approach to Military Contracting: How German History Explains its Limited Use of Private Security Companies, Birthe Anders

Part II: Theorising Security Outsourcing

6. The Evolution of Private Force, Sean McFate

7. Money for nothing? Contractor Support from an Economic Perspective, Eugenio Cusumano

8. Critical Perspectives on Military Markets, Anna Leander

9. Outsourcing and Risk: From the Known to the Unknown, Elke Krahmann

10. Merchants of Security: Private Security Companies, Strategy and the Quest for Power, Marcus Mohlin

Part III: The Law, Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility of Outsourcing Security

11. Contractors and the Law of Armed Conflict, Malcolm H Patterson

12. Contract Law as Cover: Curtailing the Scope of Private Military and Security Contractor Responsibilities, Hin-Yan Liu

13. Socially Responsible Security Providers? Analysing Norm Internalisation among Private Security Providers, Aileen Acheson

14. Regulating Human Rights in the Context of Outsourcing Military Logistics and Armed Security, Sorcha MacLeod

15. Democratic States, War and Private Security Companies: The Ethical Puzzles, Mervyn Frost

16. The Contractor as the New Cosmopolitan Soldier, Andreas Krieg

17. Is it Ethical for States to Prevent their Citizens from Working as TCN Military and Security Contractors?, Deane-Peter Baker

Part IV: Armed Security Contractors and Military Contractors: Drivers, Politics and Consequences

18. What is driving the Outsourcing of Diplomatic Security?, Eugenio Cusumano and Christopher Kinsey

19. Reconfiguring Power and Insecurity in the Afghan context: The Consequences of Outsourcing Security in High Risk Societies, Ase Gilje Østensen

20. Industry and Support to UK Contemporary Military Operations: A Practitioner’s Strategic Military Perspective, David Shouesmith

21. The Politics of Outsourcing Military Support Services, Mark Erbel

22. The Consequences of Outsourcing Military Support Functions, Molly Dunigan

Part V: Emerging Perspectives: Issues of Gender, Military Professionals, and Maritime Private Security

23. The Culture of Whiteness in Private Security, Amanda Chisholm

24. The Issue of Gender and Armed Contractors, Jutta Joachim and Andrea Schneiker

25. Security Outsourcing And Critical Feminist Inquiry: Taking Stock and Looking Forward, Maria Stern

26. Private Maritime Security: Assemblage in a Space of Exception, Alexander Gould

27. Private Security, Military Professionals and the State, Joakim Berndtsson

Conclusion, Joakim Berndtsson and Christopher Kinsey

Joakim Berndtsson is a Associate Professor at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Christopher Kinsey is Reader in Business & International Security at Kings College London, UK.