Surrendering Sovereignty. The Private Military Industry, the State, and the Ideology of Outsourcing

Abstract

In the globalized world of the twenty first century, the modern nation state has been revolutionized, resulting in progressively changing perceptions of the extent of state involvement in the lives of its citizens. Functions once assumed to be the preserve of the public sector have, in the neo-liberal era, been increasingly farmed out to the private sector. The running of hospitals, prisons and transport systems are increasingly subject to outsourcing and privatization. The trend has also been extended to the once sacrosanct territory of warfare, where private soldiers for hire play an increasing role in the military capability of the state. This has potentially far reaching consequences for one of the time honoured sovereign principles of the nation state, the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The rise to prominence of private military firms (P.M.F.s) has not happened in isolation. It is one of a myriad of increasingly powerful non-state actors that have thrived in our contemporary neo-liberal environment. Their increasingly competitive relationship with national governments is creating a more complex, less state-centred international system which, some theorists argue, undermines the authority of the state and the democratic systems of control and public accountability that underpin it.