Private Military and Security Companies as Legitimate Governors

From Barricades to Boardrooms

Berenike Prem

• Publisher: Gower
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429826009
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Freedom
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the legitimation of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs), focusing on the controversy between PMSCs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

While existing studies disproportionately emphasizes the ability for companies and their clients to dominate and shape perceptions of the industry, this book offers an alternative explanation for the oft-cited normalization of PMSCs and the trend to privatize security by analyzing the changing relationship between PMSCs and NGOs. It uses the concept of 'norm entrepreneurship' to elucidate the legitimation game between these two dissimilar actors. Starting from the 1990s, the book shows that the relationship between PMSCs and NGOs has undergone a transition by literally moving from 'the barricades to the boardrooms'. After years of fierce advocacy and PR campaigns against PMSCs, today both actors increasingly collaborate in multi-stakeholder initiatives, elevating the status of PMSCs from a scorned actor to a trusted partner in the regulation of the industry. The work offers a comprehensive explanation of when and why this kind of collective norm entrepreneurship is likely to occur.

This book will be of interest to students of PMSCs, critical security studies, global governance, international norms, and International Relations.

1 Introduction

On September 16, 2007, an armed Blackwater security team escorting a convoy of State Department personnel through Baghdad turned into a busy traffic circle, known as Nisoor Square, when an approaching car brought the convoy to an unexpected halt. The guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers, killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 20 more, in what they claimed was an act of self-defense to an imminent attack, and what a federal jury found to be unprovoked manslaughter. For the critics of the private security industry, this widely publicized and condemned act of violence has become a symbol for the recklessness of private contractors, a wake-up call to remind all the yea-sayers of the sector that it was high time to re-evaluate.

One year and a day later, on September 17, 2008, government officials from 17 countries gathered on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Montreux, Switzerland, along with representatives of the industry, NGOs, and academics to endorse a document that would inform states and PMSCs of their existing legal obligations if these companies were to be used. Whatever their particular view of the industry the diverse stakeholders agreed that PMSCs were a permanent force, which had to be dealt with in a pragmatic fashion. Thus, rather than “hanging” these companies in the public square, the participants of the talks were willing to give them a seat at the negotiation table. PMSCs, it seems, have worked their way out of the “hall of shame” into the establishment. How did this happen? How have PMSCs become legitimate actors?

A promising venue to analyze the transition from “pariah” to “partner” is to approach the issue through the theoretical lens of norm entrepreneurship. An inquiry into the role of norm entrepreneurs can reveal much about how the status of PMSCs has evolved over time. It injects agency and contingency into the study of the oft-cited “normalization” of the PMSC industry. Of the various types of norm entrepreneurs, international advocacy NGOs have attracted by far the most attention (Finnemore 1999; Florini 2000; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Price 1998). They qualify as norm entrepreneurs as they seek to defend and support particular norms against deviant behavior. This watchdog role has been extensively discussed with regard to corporations. NGOs, as scholars argue, are “the arbiter of what constitutes appropriate corporate behavior” (DeWinter-Schmitt 2009: 148). They act as a “societal fever curve” (Curbach 2008: 381; author’s translation), as they inform us if companies trespass the bounds of what they and the constituencies they represent deem socially desirable. If behavior of a company is found to be in contravention of existing norms, NGOs often become the engineers of carefully crafted campaigns, targeting a critical resource upon which every company relies to a certain extent, namely its good name and reputation (den Hond and de Bakker 2007; Yaziji and Doh 2009: 60).

Where does this leverage come from? After all, NGOs have no sovereign powers to impose their will on PMSCs. If anything, their influence is indirect (Yaziji and Doh 2009: 60). This book argues that NGOs’ key asset is their comparative “legitimacy advantage” vis-à-vis PMSCs and other actors. Even if they do not possess the decision-making and economic power usually associated with governments and corporations, they stand out as those participants in global governance that enjoy high perceptions of legitimacy. Their authority is founded to a large part on their commitment to widely accepted principles, morals, or values so that we can speak of principled authority accruing to them (Avant et al. 2010b: 13). Holzscheiter (2005: 726), for instance, argues that “[t]he grounding of their identities on non-profitable and nonviolent aims and philosophies can be seen as the main source of their authority as norm- or moral entrepreneurs.” NGOs make claims on behalf of others and are able to do so in part because no one thinks they are in it for money (Avant et al. 2010b: 13). Other than PMSCs, they are not tainted with the profit motive, but are generally perceived as acting for the public good. Thus, NGOs consistently enjoy higher approval rates than firms, governments, and the media as we can infer from the Edelman Trust Barometer which regularly asks citizens to designate which institutions and leaders they trust most (Edelman 2015). This asset can be converted into real power. By playing off their “moral edge” vis-à-vis PMSCs, NGOs are capable of “attacking the Achilles’ heel of modern corporations” (Holzer 2010: 16): their public image and legitimacy. Since public perceptions matter enormously for an industry that carries out functions intimately related to the public interest (i.e., security) and whose revenues depend in no small measure on tax payers’ money, NGO responses can be taken as an indicator of the longer term prospect of the private military and security industry. This potential impact factor makes NGOs an interesting starting point for analyzing the staying power of PMSCs.

Yet the activities of NGOs cannot be separated from the industry’s own attempts at legitimation. As Fuchs (2005: 772) and Leander (2005b, 2010a) have prominently claimed, transnational corporations (TNCs) are not only subject to demands which they merely have to follow, but are also the principal agents and architects of their fate by “offensively and defensively shaping their image as economic, political, and societal actors.” As I am going to argue throughout this book, they too exhibit qualities of norm entrepreneurship: first, by offering their own interpretation of existing norms and whether or not they conform to them; and second, by initiating or participating in processes of norm institutionalization through self- or multi-stakeholder regulation (Deitelhoff and Wolf 2013). In doing so, PMSCs help shape and relocate their normative standing in security governance which has long rested on the rejection of mercenarism and the idea that the state is the sole legitimate source of violence.

1.1 A first glance at PMSCs and legitimation and why a second is needed

Normative concerns about the legitimacy of PMSCs have figured prominently in public and academic debate. Lack of accountability, transparency, and democratic control are among the most frequently noted concerns with regard to their legitimacy (Alexandra et al. 2008; Pattison 2014; Schreier and Caparini 2005). Yet, most studies come to a similar conclusion, namely that PMSCs are increasingly seen as normal businesses whose presence is no longer questioned. Abrahamsen and Leander (2016: 1), for instance, conclude that PMSCs are “hardwired into contemporary patterns and structures of governance,” and Pattison (2014: 6) adds that “there is general acquiescence that PMSCs are here to stay and that they will continue to play a central role in the provision of military force.” Interestingly, this here-to-stay point of view has gone almost unchallenged. The existing literature has put considerable emphasis on the ability of PMSCs to dominate and shape our perception of the industry, including presentations introducing themselves as humanitarian actors, and presenting their status as recognized security experts or professional organizations (Berndtsson 2012; Joachim and Schneiker 2012b, 2018; Kruck and Spencer 2013; Leander 2005b; Østensen 2011b), while only scant attention has been given to the counter-narratives and moments of active resistance. Other studies have put forward a norm-based explanation, tracing the normalization of PMSCs to changes in the norms of anti-mercenarism and the state monopoly on violence (Krahmann 2013; Percy 2007c). While initially prohibiting all violent market actors from participating in combat, both norms have become narrower in scope so that PMSCs were ultimately exempt and legitimized (Krahmann 2013; Petersohn 2014). In yet another variant of this argument, the reasons for the industry’s increased role in security governance can be found in norms and ideas that favor private, market-based modes of governance. PMSCs, it is argued, have gained legitimacy from neoliberal, laissez-faire norms that value decentralized and entrepreneurial security arrangements as the more cost-effective way of dealing with security problems (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011: 58–69; Cutler 2010; Kruck 2014: 7–9; Leander and van Munster 2007). The permissive normative environment, as Kruck (2014) suggests, functions as a facilitating structure, a “reservoir” upon which PMSCs can draw to justify the privatized provision of security (2014: 9). Privatization-friendly norms and the existence of powerful “privatization coalitions” are mutually reinforcing (Kruck 2014). In these accounts, there is little room for contestation and the reversal of the status quo of security contracting.

This is unfortunate because legitimation is an inherently interactive and political process (Reus-Smit 2007: 159; Suchman 1995: 574). In other words, PMSCs can merely claim that their undertakings are legitimate, but these claims do not by themselves confer legitimacy upon them:

[…] an actor can jump up and down, declaring loudly that his or her actions are legitimate, but if nobody accepts this, then they are not correctly described as such, even if he or she is making a legitimacy claim.

(Reus-Smit 2007: 159)

Instead, legitimacy is a quality that is dependent upon social recognition from PMSCs’ external audiences who have a say in the legitimation process. From all relevant “audiences” in PMSCs’ external environment, states and their dealings with PMSCs have received by far the most attention in private security studies (for two notable exceptions see Kruck and Spencer 2013; and Joachim and Schneiker 2015; Schneiker and Joachim 2012). This strong focus on the state use of PMSCs has important implications for our understanding of the industry and the idea that PMSCs are here to stay. If we look at PMSCs exclusively through the lens of states as most studies have (Avant 2005; Dunigan 2011; Krahmann 2013; Kruck 2014; Leander 2013; Spearin 2017), particularly of prolific users such as the US and UK which are faced with heavy demands for military and security support services, it is no wonder that we arrive at such conclusions. States’ heavy reliance on PMSCs has turned the industry “into a social reality,” a fact of international life, which contributes strongly to their perception as “normal” and legitimate security actors (Kruck 2014: 24). The “pro-privatization” bias is, therefore, reflective of a dearth of empirical studies about how actors other than states have responded to the growth of PMSCs.

The neglect of alternative voices has a strong depoliticizing effect. It overlooks that the trajectory of the industry from rough to respectable was by no means natural or inevitable, but the product of struggles between actors with competing interests and notions of appropriateness. As Leander (2010a: 69) has rightly pointed out, the rapidly expanding body of academic research on security commercialization has been prone to overstate the “inevitability and irreversibility of private companies in the global governance of security.” What is missing is a systematic account of the potential limits to the power of PMSCs. This book ventures precisely into those limits by following up on Cutler’s (2010: 179) call to explore the “possibilities for NGO counter-expertise to function as a limitation on the authority of [PMSCs],” tracing the industry’s legitimation through an account of PMSC-NGO relations. More specifically, the model suggested here combines an interest in the role of governance actors in the legitimation process (agency) and the importance of norms (structures). In doing so, it makes two claims. First, the normative structure is not reducible to a “reservoir of privatisation-friendly ideas” (Kruck 2014). It also imposes constraints on what is permissible or doable for PMSCs, the anti-mercenary norm being but one example of the broader normative environment in which the industry navigates. Second, norms do not speak for themselves, but they have to be articulated and enacted by actors with a will to actively promote their ideas to become accepted as a valid standard of behavior (Petersohn 2014). In the literature on norms, such agency is captured by the concept of norm entrepreneurship (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Payne 2001; Risse 2000; Wunderlich 2013). While usually reserved for NGOs, my book extends this notion to PMSCs. Just as NGOs hold these companies up to high moral standards and admonish transgressive behavior, PMSCs have to justify their involvement in the realm of security with regard to certain norms if they want to be recognized as proper, appropriate, or desirable in the eyes of their various stakeholders.

The concept of norm entrepreneurship acknowledges the contingent nature of the legitimation process. It brings politics (back) into the analysis by drawing our attention to the struggles and maneuvers that have contributed to the seemingly unchallenged authority of PMSCs in security governance. Building on the norm evolution literature, it is argued that these dynamics are observable in at least two ways: (1) through ongoing debates over the application of a norm to a new actor (PMSCs) or practice (private provision of security) ( framing); and (2) attempts to codify and thereby “harden” existing norms (legalization), which may themselves be highly contested.

1.2 Alternative approaches

While the concept of norm entrepreneurship seems ideally suited for an analysis of the relations between PMSCs and NGOs and the presumed normalization of the industry, there are at least four alternative approaches, which might help to describe and explain how PMSCs became legitimate: political corporate social responsibility (CSR), orchestration, a genealogical approach, and practice theory. In explaining some of the problems with these three approaches as well as the common ground they share with the norm entrepreneurship model, I will situate the present study in the broader International Relations (IR) literature.

The first approach, which is referred to as the “political” perspective of CSR or political CSR, shares many of the core premises advanced in this book, particularly its concern to “describe and explain […] the political duties and activities of corporations” (Whelan 2012: 711). While there is no single accepted definition or theory of political CSR (for an overview see Bures 2015; Frynas and Stephens 2015), most scholars in this field of research concur that political CSR describes an extended model of governance, in which business firms increasingly take over traditional governance tasks by contributing to global regulation and the provision of public goods, including health, education, and even security (Bures 2015; Deitelhoff and Wolf 2010; Frynas and Stephens 2015: 484; Scherer and Palazzo 2011: 901). The new political role of corporations has led scholars to pay closer attention to the role of NGOs and their interaction with corporations (den Hond and de Bakker 2007; Teegen et al. 2004; van Huijstee and Glasbergen 2010; Yaziji and Doh 2009). This interest reflects two closely related developments. First, corporations that were once considered politically neutral have become more politicized, i.e., their activities are now “morally scrutinized” and “loaded with more and more public demands” (Palazzo and Scherer 2006: 68). In particular, NGOs that were once focused on pressing governments began targeting business actors to make them more responsive to their social and political responsibilities (Scherer and Palazzo 2011: 903). Second and somewhat related, scholars such as Scherer and Palazzo (2007; Palazzo and Scherer 2006; Yaziji and Doh 2009) see the legitimacy of corporations at stake. They suggest that corporations need to engage in public deliberations with NGOs (and other stakeholders) if they are to legitimize their new political role and increase their social acceptance.

As in Palazzo and Scherer’s work, this study is premised on the idea that legitimacy can be discursively constructed. However, it departs from the authors’ narrow understanding of political CSR as the exclusive domain of reasoned arguing. As Frynas and Stephens (2015: 485) observe, “[a] key challenge of political CSR research is […] the attempt of a few key authors to appropriate the meaning of the term ‘political CSR’ for a narrow research agenda that postulates normative theory to the exclusion of descriptive theory.” Following the Habermasian concept of discourse ethics, Palazzo and Scherer argue that legitimacy results from “the force of the better argument” and not from symbolic activities or public relations efforts (Palazzo and Scherer 2006: 79). This understanding of political CSR overlooks that the new political role or authority of private actors may also hinge upon the ability to manipulate meanings and perceptions (Payne 2001). The literature on norm entrepreneurship has made this abundantly clear. These actors frequently engage in processes of “strategic social construction” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 888); they can reframe an activity to align it with already accepted norms and make it appear as an “acceptable” practice (Petersohn 2014: 478). They can even reshape the normative criteria they are evoking.¹ These realities can be more accurately reflected and accommodated within the analytical framework of norm entrepreneurship.

Another approach, which puts the relationships among governance actors center stage is the concept of orchestration. Orchestration denotes an indirect mode of governance in which an actor (O) works through intermediaries (I) to address another target actor (T) in pursuit of his or her governance goals (Abbott et al. 2015). Orchestration is of particular value to actors with limited organizational resources such as information, technical expertise, enforcement capacity, material resources, legitimacy, and direct access to targets (Abbott et al. 2015: 6). The use of intermediaries can compensate for the missing capabilities. While originally applied to international organizations (IOs), the concept of orchestration may be also extendable to NGOs in their dealings with PMSCs. Not unlike IOs, NGOs have “ambitious governance goals but moderate governance capacity” (Abbott et al. 2015: 3). They engineer anti-corporate campaigns to change business practices for the better – toward compliance with principles and norms, which they deem worthy of protection. Yet as secondary stakeholders, NGOs have only indirect influence on PMSCs, whose organizational s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 PMSC-NGO interactions, legitimation, and norm entrepreneurship
• 3 The “first” PMSCs: just warriors or just mercenaries?
• 4 NGO discourse: the good, the bad, and the ugly
• 5 Business discourse: (re)framing PMSCs
• 6 Norm entrepreneurship in the Swiss Initiative: from accounts to accountability
• 7 Norm entrepreneurship in the International Code of Conduct and the International Code of Conduct Association
• 8 Explaining norm entrepreneurship in multi-stakeholder initiatives
• 9 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index