States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security

Recent years have seen a growing role for private military contractors in national and international security. To understand the reasons for this, Elke Krahmann examines changing models of the state, the citizen and the soldier in the UK, the US and Germany. She focuses on both the national differences with regard to the outsourcing of military services to private companies and their specific consequences for the democratic control over the legitimate use of armed force. Tracing developments and debates from the late eighteenth century to the present, she explains the transition from the centralized warfare state of the Cold War era to the privatized and fragmented security governance, and the different national attitudes to the privatization of force.

'Elke Krahmann breaks new ground in analyzing the privatization of security. Looking through the lens of the social contract provides a fresh theoretical perspective and comparing not just the United States and Britain but also Germany offers novel empirics. Her thoughtful argument should be of interest to both academic and policy audiences.' Deborah Avant, University of California, Irvine, 'Amidst the growing number of studies on the privatization of security, Dr. Krahmann's book stands out as a unique and special contribution. Through its utilization of political theory, the book identifies the sometimes troubling implications posed by the privatization of security to the democratic control of armed force. What is more, these implications, in their scope and nature, vary from state to state as made clear in the book's emphasis on relevant case studies.' Christopher Spearin, Canadian Forces College, 'In probing the paradoxes surrounding the democratic control of armed forces with specific regard to the proliferating use of private military forces in Europe and North America, this important work manages to shed new light on the transforming relationships among states, soldiers, and citizens and to induce readers to rethink their most fundamental assumptions about the nature of security on the contemporary world.' Robert Mandel, Professor of International Affairs, Lewis & Clark College

Elke Krahmann is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Bristol. Her previous publications include New Threats and New Actors in International Security (2005) and Multilevel Networks in European Foreign Policy (2003).