Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Private Security/Private Military: One Phenomenon or Two?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Handbook of Security

  • 1113 Accesses

Abstract

The terms ‘private security’ and ‘private military’ have become commonplace in the disciplines of criminology and international relations. However, the use of these terms is not always clear cut. Sometimes they refer to separate phenomenon—private security to the commercial delivery of police-like services in the domestic sphere, private military to the commercial delivery of military-like services in the international sphere. Other times they concern the same broad phenomenon—the global market for protective services. It can therefore be difficult to make sense of the literature surrounding these terms. The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on how and why these terms run parallel to and intersect with one another. It does so by illustrating how three prominent contextual factors—growth patterns, market structure and regulation—each gives rise to ‘one phenomenon or two’ narratives. While this does not resolve the ambiguity encircling these terms, it does offer a road map for navigating through them.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    www.g4s.com/who-we-are/our-history.

  2. 2.

    www.g4s.com/news-and-insights/news/2008/05/07/g4s-completes-acquisition-of-armorgroup-international-plc.

  3. 3.

    In March 2021, G4S agreed to a £3.8 billion takeover by the US-based private security company Allied Universal, creating a new global market leader in the sector, employing 750,000 staff across 80 countries (Plimmer and Wiggins 2021).

  4. 4.

    The 43 countries are as follows (by region). Europe: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. North America: Canada (British Columbia, Ontario); the United States (California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Washington State). South America: Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay. Australasia: Australia (New South Wales, Victoria). Africa: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. Asia: Japan, Israel, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

  5. 5.

    www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Mercenaries/WGMercenaries.

References

  • Abrahamsen, R. and Williams, M. (2011) Security beyond the state: Private security in international politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Avant, D. (2016) ‘Pragmatic Networks and Transnational Governance of Private Military and Security Services’, International Studies Quarterly 60(2), 330–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • BBC (2004) ‘Security Firms Agree Merger Deal’ (24th February), available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3517067.stm.

  • Braithwaite, J. (2000) ‘The New Regulatory State and the Transformation of Criminology’, in Garland, D. and Sparks, R. (eds) Criminology and Social Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Button, M. (2019) Private Policing (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Button, M. and Stiernstedt, P. (2018) ‘Comparing Private Security Regulation in the European Union’, Policing and Society 28(4), 3980–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cerny, P. (2015) ‘From Warriors to Police? The Civilianisation of Security in a Globalising World’, International Politics 52(4), 389–407.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chesterman, S. and Lehnardt, C. (eds.) (2007) From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Churchill, D. (2017) Crime Control and Everyday Life in the Victorian City: The Police and the Public (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, W., Strauchs, J. and Van Meter, C. (1990) Private Security Trends 1970–2000 (The Hallcrest Report II) (Stoneham: Butterworth-Heinemann).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, W. and Taylor, T. (1985) Private Security and Police in America (The Hallcrest Report) (Portland: Chancellor Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Eichler, M. (2014) ‘Citizenship and the Contracting Out of Military Work: From National Conscription to Globalized Recruitment’, Citizenship Studies 18(6–7), 600–614.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2002) Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation (London: HMSO).

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, M. [1962] (2002) Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gill, M., Burns-Howell, T., Keats, G. and Taylor, E. (2007) Demonstrating the Value of Security (Leicester: Perpetuity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartley, K. (1997) ‘The Economics of the Peace Dividend’, International Journal of Social Economics 24(1/2/3), 28–45

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayek, F. A. von [1944] (2001) The Road to Serfdom (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Higate, P. (2012a) ‘The Private Militarized and Security Contractor as Geocorporeal Actor’ International Political Sociology 6(4), 355–372.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higate, P. (2012b). ‘Drinking Vodka from the ‘Butt-Crack’: Men, Masculinities and Fratriarchy in the Private Militarized Security Company’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 14(4), 450–469.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isenberg, D. (2009) Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq (London: Praeger).

    Google Scholar 

  • Joachim, J. and Schneiker, A. (2012) ‘New Humanitarians? Frame Appropriation through Private Military and Security Companies’, Millennium—Journal of International Studies 40(2), 365–388.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1998) Private Security and Public Policing (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kempa, M., Stenning, P. and Wood, J. (2004) “Policing Communal Spaces: A Reconfiguration of the ‘Mass Private Property’ Hypothesis”, British Journal of Criminology 44(4), 562–581.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinsey, C. (2006) Corporate Soldiers and International Security (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinsey, C. (2009) Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq: Transforming Military Logistics (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Krahmann, E. (2010). States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Krahmann, E. (2016) ‘Choice, Voice and Exit: Consumer Power and the Self-Regulation of the Private Security Industry’, European Journal of International Security 1(1), 27–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruck, A. and Spencer, A. (2013) ‘Contested Stories of Commercial Security: Self and Media Narratives of Private Military and Security Companies’, Critical Studies on Security 1(3), 326–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, K. and Hart, J. (2003) ‘The Wrong Arm of the Law? Public Images of Private Security’, Policing and Society 13(2), 159–170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loader, I. (1997) ‘Private Security and the Demand for Protection in Contemporary Britain’, Policing and Society 7, 143–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loader, I. and Mulcahy, A. (2003) Policing and the Condition of England: Memory, Politics and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Loader, I. and White, A. (2017) How can we better align private security with the public interest? Towards a Civilizing Model of Regulation. Regulation and Governance 11(2), 166–184.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maguire, M. (2007) ‘Crime Data and Statistics’, in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 241–301.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFate, S. (2015) The Modern Mercenary (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Migdal, J. (2001) State in Society: Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortiz, C. (2010) ‘The New Public Management of Security: The Contracting and Managerial State and the Private Military Industry’, Public Money & Management 30(1), 35–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pattinson, J. (2014) The Morality of Private War (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Percy, S (2007) ‘Mercenaries: Strong Norm, Weak Law’, International Organization 61(2), 367–397.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plimmer, G. and Wiggins, K. (2021) ‘G4S Shareholders Approve £3.8 billion Takeover by Allied’, Financial Times (16th March), available at: www.ft.com/content/a25bb929-a497-45b2-b2d8-2265ddb67036.

  • Reiner, R. (2007) Law and Order: An Honest Citizen’s Guide to Crime and Control (Cambridge: Polity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosén, F. (2008) ‘Commercial security: Conditions of growth’ Security Dialogue 39(1), 77–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scahill, J (2007) Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (London: Serpent’s Tail).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaub, G., Jr. and Kelty, R. (eds.) (2016) Private Military and Security Contractors: Controlling the Corporate Warrior (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1981) ‘Modern Private Security: Its Growth and Implications’, Crime and Justice 3, 193–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1983) ‘Private Security—Implications for Social Control’, Social Problems 30(5), 493–506.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer, P. (2001) ‘Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry and Its Ramifications for International Security’, International Security 26(3), 186–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer, P. (2008) Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stenning, P. (2000) ‘Powers and Accountability of Private Police’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 8(3), 325–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiernstedt, P., Button, M., Prenzler, T. and Sarre, R. (2019) ‘The ‘Three-Pillars Model of Regulation’: A Fusion of Governance Models for Private Security’, Security Journal, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-019-00224-3.

  • United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2014) State Regulation concerning Civilian Private Security Services and their Contribution to Crime Prevention and Community Safety; available at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/crimeprevention/Ebook0.pdf

  • Wakefield, A. (2012) Selling Security (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2010) The Politics of Private Security: Regulation, Reform and Re-Legitimation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2012) ‘The New Political Economy of Private Security’, Theoretical Criminology 16(1), 85–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2015) The Impact of the Private Security Industry Act 2001. Security Journal 28(4), 425–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2016) ‘The Market for Global Policing’, in Bradford, B., Jauregui, B., Loader, I. and Steinberg, J. (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Global Policing. (London: Sage), 535–551.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2018) ‘Beyond Iraq: The Socioeconomic Trajectories of Private Military Veterans’, Armed Forces and Society 44(3), 387–407.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2020a) ‘Private Security and the Privatisation of Criminal Justice’, in Bean, P. (ed.), Criminal Justice and Privatisation: Key Issues and Debates (London: Routledge), 127–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, A. (2020b) ‘Monopoly or Plurality? The Police and the Private Security Industry in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain’, in Churchill, D., Janiewski, D. and Leloup, P. (eds.), Private Security and the Modern State: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (London: Routledge), 78–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zedner, L. (2003) ‘Too Much Security?’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31, 155–184.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Adam White

Authors
  1. Adam White
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam White .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Perpetuity Research, Tunbridge Wells, UK

    Martin Gill

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

White, A. (2022). Private Security/Private Military: One Phenomenon or Two?. In: Gill, M. (eds) The Handbook of Security. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-91734-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-91735-7

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation