Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars

Book excerpt: Since the 1990s, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have intervened in civil wars around the globe. However, reports that such contractors have been responsible for human rights abuses have spurred the need to evaluate the industry's impact on conflicts. This book identifies two market forces that impact PMSCs' military effectiveness: local or conflict-level competition and global or industry-level competition. The book argues that competitive market pressure creates a strong monitoring system and that the company's corporate structure and external competitive environment in a given conflict help to explain the variance in accountability to clients. Including an analysis of data on international PMSCs' interventions in civil wars from 1990-2008, Seden Akcinaroglu and Elizabeth Radziszewski show the impact of competition on companies' contribution to the termination of different types of civil wars.