Transgressive security markets: A contested commodity and its market practices

Este artículo plantea que los esfuerzos para comprender, dar forma y regular los mercados de seguridad privada y sus implicaciones podrían mejorarse enormemente con una mejor conceptualización del mercado de la seguridad privada. Si bien la literatura académica más importante y el debate práctico en torno a la seguridad privada admiten que la mercantilización de la seguridad es controvertida, no reconocen completamente la profundidad de dicha disputa o sus implicaciones. La seguridad pertenece al ámbito de las mercancías en disputa, esto es, a la categoría de cosas que algunos consideran que no pueden o no deben ser mercantilizadas. Esto tiene profundas consecuencias para las prácticas de mercado y, por tanto, para la forma del propio mercado. Más específicamente, como muestra el artículo haciendo referencia a lo acontecido en Europa Occidental, Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido, las prácticas de mercado eluden la polémica minimizando su importancia y oscureciéndolas. El artículo analiza cómo se lleva a cabo este proceso en relación a tres nodos centrales de disputa, a saber, al monopolio por parte del estado del uso de la fuerza, los mercenarios y el riesgo de inseguridad descontrolada. Y muestra cómo dicho proceso adopta una forma peculiar de mercado transgresor que supera las divisiones público-privado, interno-externo, y seguridad-amenaza. El artículo concluye insistiendo en que la consecuencia directa consiste en que los mercados de seguridad no son simplemente privados. Abandonar esta perspectiva proporciona un punto de partida más claro para aquellos que intenten comprender, dar forma o regular los mercados de seguridadThis article argues that the efforts to understand, shape and regulate private security markets and their implications could be greatly enhanced by a better conceptualization of what kind of market the private security market is. While the momentous scholarly literature and practical discussion about private security acknowledges that the commodification of security is contested, it does not fully acknowledge the depth of this contestation or its implications. Security belongs to the “contested commodities” that is to the category of things that some think cannot or should not be commodified. This has far reaching consequences for market practices and hence for the shape the market takes. More specifically as the article shows with reference to the developments in Western Europe and the USA/UK, market practices circumvent the contestation by minimizing its salience and obfuscating the market. The article looks at how they do this in relation to three core nodes of contestation surrounding the state monopoly on legitimate use of force, mercenarism, and the risk for rampant insecurity. It shows how the result is a peculiar form of market spanning the public-private; inside-outside and the safety-threat divides; a “transgressive” market. The article concludes insisting that the direct implication is that security markets are not simply “private”. Departing from this insight will provide a clearer point of departure for those trying to understand, shape, or regulate security market

Mercados transgresores de seguridad: una mercancía en disputa y sus prácticas de mercado

Este artículo plantea que los esfuerzos para comprender, dar forma y regular los mercados de seguridad privada y sus implicaciones podrían mejorarse enormemente con una mejor conceptualización del mercado de la seguridad privada. Si bien la literatura académica más importante y el debate práctico en torno a la seguridad privada admiten que la mercantilización de la seguridad es controvertida, no reconocen completamente la profundidad de dicha disputa o sus implicaciones. La seguridad pertenece al ámbito de las mercancías en disputa, esto es, a la categoría de cosas que algunos consideran que no pueden o no deben ser mercantilizadas. Esto tiene profundas consecuencias para las prácticas de mercado y, por tanto, para la forma del propio mercado. Más específicamente, como muestra el artículo haciendo referencia a lo acontecido en Europa Occidental, Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido, las prácticas de mercado eluden la polémica minimizando su importancia y oscureciéndolas. El artículo analiza cómo se lleva a cabo este proceso en relación a tres nodos centrales de disputa, a saber, al monopolio por parte del estado del uso de la fuerza, los mercenarios y el riesgo de inseguridad descontrolada. Y muestra cómo dicho proceso adopta una forma peculiar de mercado transgresor que supera las divisiones público-privado, interno-externo, y seguridad-amenaza. El artículo concluye insistiendo en que la consecuencia directa consiste en que los mercados de seguridad no son simplemente privados. Abandonar esta perspectiva proporciona un punto de partida más claro para aquellos que intenten comprender, dar forma o regular los mercados de seguridad

Reflecting and Reinforcing Neo-Liberal Governmentality

This article argues that the role of Private Security Contractors in Darfur reflects and reinforces neo-liberal governmentality in contemporary security governance. It is an argument (in line with other articles in this special issue) which is more interested in discussing how the privatization of security alters security practices (including those involving states) than in thinking about their impact on an idealised public monopoly on the use of force. To make its point, the article begins by drawing on Foucauldian work to clarify the meaning of neo-liberal governmentality in security. It underlines that governance is increasingly taking place through a set of (quasi-) markets, it is marked by entrepreneurial values, and a hands off approach to governance. We then discuss the way this overall change is reflected in and reinforced by the role of private security contractors in Darfur. Drawing on a framework of analysis inspired by Bourdieu, we show that neo-liberal governmentality is reflected in the dispositions of security actors as well as in their relative positions. The resulting security practices reinforce dispositions and positions that reproduce neo-liberal governmentality. Looking at these processes is necessary to understand the role of private security contractors in Darfur. But more than this, practices in Darfur entrench neo-liberal governmentality in security more generally. The managerial and ‘de-politicizing’ approach to security in Darfur displaces alternative views not only in the Darfuri context. It is taken into other contexts where it bolsters neo-liberal governmentality. This spiralling neo-liberal governmentality rather than diminished state control and authority is, we argue, the most significant consequence of the presence of private security contractors in Darfur

Existing International Instruments and Mechanisms

As the scale and scope private military and security companies (PMSCs) are rapidly expanding internationally, the question of their regulation is evermore pressing. Although credible exact figures on the activities of the companies are not available, there is ample indication that the companies play a central role around the world. In Iraq, a Department of Defense survey estimates that there are some 180.000 contractors compared to 160.000 U.S. troops (Singer, 2007: 2). In Nigeria some 1000 registered security companies constitute the second economic sector in the economy after oil (Abrahamsen and Williams, 2006a). Moreover, the scope of PMSC activity is steadily expanding. The trend to privatize and outsource a growing range of activities places PMSCs in charge of an ever growing range of formerly military or policing tasks. The predictable consequence is that PMSCs are increasingly visible and controversial. Incidences such as that in the Nisour square Baghdad where Blackwater contractors were involved in an incident leaving 17 dead civilians on 16th of September 2007 focus attention around the regulatory context of PMSC work. This presentation discusses one aspect of that regulatory context, namely the existing international regulation

A Contested Commodity

This paper argues that security belongs to a specific category of commodities: “contested commodities” around which there is an ongoing and unsettled symbolic struggle over whether or not they can and should be though of as commodities (section 1). The contested nature of commodification has implications for how markets function; market practices tend to be defined and organized in ways that minimize their contentiousness and obfuscate their expansion. The paper looks at the implications of this argument for the conceptualization of the security. It focuses on the three central articulations of contestation: the discussion about whether the use of force can be left to the market, whether it can be so in the international realm and the discussion about whether or not markets trigger increased insecurity. It shows how this specific articulation of contestation has produced markets where the practice/definition of security is as public rather than private (section 2), as inside rather than outside (section 3) and as a responsible reaction to a threat rather than as something contributing to the constitution of threats (section 4). Conceptualizations of private security consequently have to be devised to capture these practical consequences of contested commodification; they need to capture the private in the public, the inside in the outside and the securitizing in the response to threats

Essential and Embattled Expertise: Knowledge/Expert/Policy Nexus around the Sarin Gas attack in Syria

This article argues that expertise has continued to hold an absolutely essential and profoundly embattled position in the knowledge/expertise/policy nexus. More than this, it suggests that this duality of the and – (rather than the clarity of the either or) is to be welcomed. is argument is made with reference to the controversies surrounding the sarin gas attack on Ghouta Damascus 21 August 2013. e article rst argues that expertise continues to be essential in the sense that it is integral to contemporary policy-controversies. As the discussion around the sarin gas attack shows expertise is both constituted through controversies and at the same time constituting them. e article proceeds to suggest that precisely because this is the case, it is important that expertise also remains embattled. As shown with reference to the sarin gas attack controversies, it is only through contestation that the role of expertise in the controversy can possibly be checked. As this shows, the argument put forward in this article has much in common with Bruno Latour’s recent insistence on the importance of not allowing experts to turn matters of concern into matters of fact. e argu- ment hence distances itself from those who strive to reestablish the authority of expertise by in various ways re ning our understanding of science and its relation to practice; that is from what Collins and Evans term the „third wave“ in the social studies of science. However, this article diverges from Latour in suggesting that for expertise to remain contested requires more than attention to hybrid agency and actants. It suggests that it also requires enrolling arguments from the „critical“ approaches that Latour rejects. e article insists on the integration of three such „critical“ arguments: the critique of markets for ideas, of technological politics, and of regulatory processes.

Sign Wars: Hollywood Documentaries Branding Politics

This paper analyses one influential Hollywood documentary, Edward Zwick’s movie Blood Diamond as if it were an advertising campaign. Drawing on a business school textbook: Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, it poses the kinds of question an advertiser would: namely how the brand image is established, how it is made superior to other images and how good it is at capturing would-be-consumers. The paper suggests that Blood Diamond fares well on all three accounts and it traces why this is so. Specifically, it emphasizes the extent to which the film has contributed to establish and solidify the link between blood and diamonds in a process of "cultural cannibalism”. Second, it underlines role of "Hollywood authenticity” in establishing its very particular picture of politics as superior to alternatives. This certainly is more an unintended "collateral damage” than a part the producers’/directors’ intention. Finally, the last section suggests that Blood Diamond effectively captures the spectator by the reassuring, but illusive, plurality of images and by its visual fetichism

Regulating the Role of PMCs in Shaping Security and Politics

This paper focuses on the way PMCs shape security policies and more generally political priorities. Linking up with classical thinking about "civil-military relations", it suggests that preoccupation with security professionals’ role in shaping politics is as important when these professionals are privately organised in PMCs as it is when they are enrolled in public armed forces. The paper shows that existing regulation has not been adjusted to account for this fact and that the significance of regulating PMCs’ role in shaping politics is profoundly underestimated. It therefore argues that putting the issue of regulating "civil-PMCs relations" on the agenda is essential

Practices Providing Order: The Private Military/Security Business and Global Security Governance

This paper explains, or perhaps better rationalizes, why I have ended up thinking that so called "practice” theory provides the most adequate entry point for theorizing about business in/and global governance.1 But more than this the key ambition is to spell out what it means to work with practice theory and what kind of leverage it gives for understanding the role of business in global governance. The paper therefore begins by an account of two major difficulties thinking in terms of practices are useful for circumventing. The general thrust of that section is to underline why it may be useful to think in terms of practices in the first place rather than sticking with some of its admittedly more parsimonious and less labor intense alternatives. The rest of the paper then tries to outline what it means (in my view) to work with practices. The second section focuses on how we know whose/what practices matter. It emphasizes the importance of allowing for contextual differentiation when mapping activities and their hierarchies. It also underscores the significance of remaining open about who and what is important. It points to the centrality of different forms of capital (economic, social, cultural and symbolic) in defining whose activities matter. But even more strongly it links up with actor-network-theory’s insight that also objects and technologies "act” in social relations