Norms versus Rationality: Why Democracies Use Private Military Companies in Civil Wars

Abstract

Private security and military services — so-called Private Military Companies (PMC) — were widely ignored as important actors in international politics. However, PMCs are of increasing interest both in light of the debate about new wars and, especially, in light of recent media reports on the role of such companies in the current war in Iraq (see Singer 2003a; Kümmel 2005). While a variety of actors, such as governments, transnational corporations, UN agencies, and NGOs hire PMCs to provide security in situations where states lack the capacity or willingness to do so, this article explores why democratic governments introduce private military companies as a foreign policy tool in civil conflicts. Drawing on constructivist and rationalist arguments, this article maintains that the contradictory effect of liberal norms and cost-benefit calculations can lead to the use of PMCs. When Western democracies are faced with internal wars in other countries, liberal norms foster support for intervention in humanitarian crises, while cost-benefit calculations often make these states reluctant to intervene in regions of little geo-strategic importance. This dilemma can lead to the use of PMCs in responding to the humanitarian impulse “to do something,” while also reducing the financial, military and political risk of intervening. This argument is illustrated by considering the introduction of the American private security firm MPRI in Bosnia and the British company Sandline International in Sierra Leone.