Think Piece No. 3: Tendencies to Rearrange, Dismantle, and Destroy the Monopoly on the Use of Force – Causes, Consequences, and Types

Summary

• The privatization of security services can damage the monopoly on the use of force or prevent its emergence.

• Non-state groupsand companies engaged in performing traditional security functions include private military and security companies; militias, rebel groups, insurgents, or warlords; and organized crime.

• Reasons for the growth of private security services include the neoliberal economic ideology, globalization, weak governments, violent conflict and wars, the »war on terror«, humanitarian interventions, public opinion, parliamentary scrunity, demobilization of soldiers and lack of qualified personnel in the armed forces.

• Modes of privatising or dissolving and damaging the monopoly on the use of force include outsourcing (commercialization of military functions), hostile takeover (unauthorized non-state actors take over governmental functions), franchising (non-state actors perform quasi-governmental functions on behalf of foreign governments), and friendly takeover (consensus-based access to personal data by IT companies and governments).

• However, the lines between the different types of privatized security are porous.