Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
18
result(s) for
"Private military companies Case studies."
Sort by:
States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security
Recent years have seen a growing role for private military contractors in national and international security. To understand the reasons for this, Elke Krahmann examines changing models of the state, the citizen and the soldier in the UK, the US and Germany. She focuses on both the national differences with regard to the outsourcing of military services to private companies and their specific consequences for the democratic control over the legitimate use of armed force. Tracing developments and debates from the late eighteenth century to the present, she explains the transition from the centralized warfare state of the Cold War era to the privatized and fragmented security governance, and the different national attitudes to the privatization of force.
eBook
Outsourcing Security
Faced with a decreasing supply of national troops, dwindling defense budgets, and the ever-rising demand for boots on the ground in global conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, decision makers are left with little choice but to legalize and legitimize the use of private military contractors (PMCs).Outsourcing Securityexamines the impact that bureaucratic controls and the increasing permissiveness of security environments have had on the U.S. military's growing use of PMCs during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Bruce E. Stanley examines the relationship between the rise of the private security industry and five potential explanatory variables tied to supply-and-demand theory in six historical cases, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia in 1995, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.Outsourcing Securityis the only work that moves beyond a descriptive account of the rise of PMCs to lay out a precise theory explaining the phenomenon and providing a framework for those considering PMCs in future global interaction.
eBook
Private security in Africa
“Across Africa, growing economic inequality, instability and urbanization have led to the rapid spread of private security providers. While these PSPs have already had a significant impact on African societies, their impact has so far received little in the way of comprehensive analysis. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary approaches, and encompassing anthropology, sociology and political science, Private Security in Africa offers unique insight into the lives and experiences of security providers and those affected by them, as well as into the fragile state context which has allowed them to thrive. Featuring original empirical research and case studies ranging from private policing in South Africa to the recruitment of Sierra Leoneans for private security work in Iraq, the book considers the full implications of PSPs for security and the state, not only for Africa but for the world as a whole.”
eBook
Semi-state violent actors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the case of PMC Wagner
The Wagner Group is a Private Military Company (PMC) funded by the Russian government and is actively involved in the war efforts against Ukraine. This case study highlights the contradiction between the requirements of secrecy and publicity in the operation of PMCs. Secrecy is needed to allow PMCs’ home states to deny their involvement in conflicts abroad, plausibly or implausibly. To increase their client base, violent actors need a reputation. Building a reputation requires publicity. Characteristics of the Wagner Group lead to its being considered an extreme case of a semi-state violent actor. The Wagner Group case was studied using a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis. A 60-million-word corpus of Russian political and media discourses about this country’s invasion of Ukraine informed the study. The dataset covered the period from February 2022 to January 2024. Wagner’s case study indicated the instability of the group’s reputation and the dangers associated with the state’s reliance on PMCs.
Journal Article
Realizing the \market-state\? Military transformation and security outsourcing in Sweden
Over the past few years, Sweden has markedly shifted its position on private military and security companies (PMSCs), from widespread reluctance and general suspicion to increasing acceptance and normalization, along with a gradual institutionalization of the use of PMSCs by Swedish state agencies. On the one hand, this development is part of the broader trend of security commercialization in Europe and globally. On the other hand, it is both shaped by, and shapes, changes within Sweden, where the past years have seen important shifts in foreign and security policies, as well as a substantial transformation of the Swedish Armed Forces, with the ongoing transition from a conscript system to an all-volunteer force (AVF) being the most visible. Drawing on interviews with state officials, records from parliamentary debates, and official government documents, this article analyzes the shift from reluctance to acceptance and identifies and discusses possible future implications of this increased reliance on PMSCs in the context of Swedish military and security transformation, particularly in relation to issues of security governance and civil–military relations and cooperation.
Journal Article
Multicriteria analysis and genetic algorithms for mass appraisals in the Italian property market
Purpose
This paper aims to test and compare two innovative methodologies (utility additive and evolutionary polynomial regression) for mass appraisal of residential properties. The aim is to deepen their characteristics, by exploring the potentialities and the operating limits.
Design/methodology/approach
With reference to the same case studies, concerning samples of residential properties recently sold in three Italian cities, the two procedures are tested and the results are compared. The first method is the utility additive, which interprets the process of the property price formation as a multi-criteria selection of multi-objective typology, where the selection criteria are the property characteristics that are decisive in the real estate market; the second method is a hybrid data-driven technique, called evolutionary polynomial regression, that uses multi-objective genetic algorithms to search those models expressions that simultaneously maximize accuracy of data and parsimony of mathematical functions.
Findings
The outputs obtained from the experimentation highlight the potentialities and the limits of the two methodologies, as well as the possibility of jointly applying them to interpret and predict the real estate phenomena in a more realistic representation.
Originality value
In all countries, mass appraisal techniques have become strategic for the definition of management and enhancement policies of public and private property assets, in the case of investments of technical and economic refunctionalization (energy, environment, etc.), and for the alienation of buildings no longer suitable for public needs (military barracks, hospitals, areas in disuse, etc.). In this context, the use of mass appraisal techniques for residential properties assumes a leading role for sector operators (buyers, sellers, institutions, insurance companies, banks, real estate funds, etc.). Therefore, the results of the applications outline the potentialities of the two methodologies implemented and the opportunity of further insights of the topics that have been dealt with in this research.
Journal Article
Blurring Public and Private Security in Indonesia: Corporate Interests and Human Rights in a Fragile Environment
While legal and policy frameworks are basedon a clear distinction between public and private security actors and functions, the reality on the ground in Indonesia reveals that there is a high level of corporate capture of public security services, including the military and police, who often operate alongside private security companies (mainly local, though there is some evidence of an emerging international presence), and the security personnel of companies engaged in the natural resources industry. This has led to serious human rights violations of indigenous peoples and other local inhabitants, who often find themselves entangled in protracted conflicts with multinational companies over access to their land. Two case studies involving fieldwork in the logging and palm oil sectors in Sumatra reveal a pernicious and deliberate erosion and violation of rights of local inhabitants across the spectrum of security actors, showing that public security actors are protecting corporate interests rather than performing public functions. The implications of these findings are considered in terms of legal responsibilities as well as access to justice. The article reasons towards what are argued to be necessary legal and policy changes.
Journal Article
Energy and conflict: Security outsourcing in the protection of critical energy infrastructures
Attacks on oil and gas infrastructures by terrorists and criminals in places like Nigeria, Colombia, Iraq and Russia have amplified the vulnerability of critical energy infrastructures (CEIs) to deliberate physical attacks. Being unable or unwilling to protect CEIs, many national governments have made attempts to alleviate these vulnerabilities through outsourcing of security, i.e. contracting the responsibility to protect CEIs out to non-state actors. This article advocates the need to conceptualize security outsourcing in the domain of critical energy infrastructure protection (CEIP) in order to explain a variety of regulatory choices made by governments in this domain. Based on a qualitative analysis of four case studies, the article discusses various types of security outsourcing in the protection of CEIs, including the militarization of national oil companies, public-private partnerships and the involvement of international organizations and local social groups. The typology may serve as a tool of describing, classifying and evaluating various forms of security outsourcing. The findings of the article help to deconstruct the complexity of security outsourcing and capture some of the major contemporary trends in energy security.
Journal Article
International and Domestic Challenges to Comprehensive National Cybersecurity
While many countries and companies have fallen victim to cyber attacks over the past few years, including American companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, Czech websites remained relatively safe until March 2013, when they were interrupted by a series of cyber attacks. Even though the origin of the attacks remains debatable, this case study demonstrates the importance of cooperation between nations in the nascent phase of the internet development and their more powerful allies. Domestic challenges that nations face in addressing cybersecurity in an effective and comprehensive manner include ambiguous legislation, recalcitrant officials, and a lack of both fiscal and human capital. To address these challenges, nations should cooperate with their more capable allies, such as the EU and NATO, create better cyber protective measures, train and hire qualified specialists in the public sector, and intensify private-public partnership. Until an international agenda on cyberspace is set, these nations with limited resources should cooperate with developed nations lest they risk more severe attacks in the future.
Journal Article