Back to the future: Private military contractors and political theory in the modern democratic state

Abstract

My theme is that while the use of private institutions to perform military and government functions for Western society is nothing new, its relative prevalence - that is, its pattern of emergence, decline, and re-emergence as a prominent feature of society - is positively aligned with certain arising international policy goals of a transformational sort combined with particular domestic agendas. These twin goals are pursued by governments via their theoretical views on the 'proper' management of power. Absent this reinforcing special domestic-international policy/theory nexus, private military contractors (PMCs) decline as a power management tool. PMCs are creatures of a particular circumstance. Currently, the United States and Great Britain account for over 70% of the world market for PMCs (SourceWatch 2006: 1), a subgroup of the broader universe of private institutions just mentioned, and so we must focus our attention particularly on current American and British domestic political agendas regarding power and their internationally expansionist/transformational goals, if my inference is correct. © 2007 VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften | GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden.