For two hundred years the provision of military security has been a central and defining function of the modern nation-state. The increasing reliance on private military and security companies in contemporary conflict marks a fundamental transformation in the organization of military violence, and it raises issues of accountability and ethics that are of particular concern to feminists. This privatization of force not only enables states to circumvent citizens' democratic control over questions of war and peace, but also undermines women's and minority groups' claims for greater inclusion in the military sphere. Gender and Private Security in Global Politics brings together key scholars from the fields of international relations, security studies, and gender studies to argue that privatization of military security is a deeply gendered process. The chapters employ a variety of feminist perspectives, including critical, postcolonial, poststructuralist, and queer feminist perspectives, as well as a wide range of methodological approaches including ethnography, participant-observation, genealogy, and discourse analysis. This is the first book to develop an extended feminist analysis of private militaries and to draw on feminist concerns regarding power, justice and equality to consider how to reform and regulate private forces.
"Acknowledgements List of Contributors List of Acronyms Gender and the Privatization of Military Security: An Introduction Maya Eichler Part One: Beyond the Public/Private Divide: Feminist Analyses of Military Privatization and the Gendered State Chapter 1: Military Privatization as a Gendered Process: A Case for Integrating Feminist International Relations and Feminist State Theories Saskia Stachowitsch Chapter 2: Military Privatization and the Gendered Politics of Sacrifice Bianca Baggiarini Chapter 3: Gender, PMSCs, and the Global Rescaling of Protection: Implications for Feminist Security Studies Maya Eichler Part Two: Rethinking the Private Military Contractor I: Third Country Nationals and the Making of Empire Chapter 4: (Re)Producing American Soldiers in An Age of Empire Isabelle V. Barker Chapter 5: From Warriors of Empire to Martial Contractors: Reimagining Gurkhas in Private Security Amanda Chisholm Chapter 6: The License to Exploit: PMSCs, Masculinities, and Third Country Nationals Jutta Joachim and Andrea Schneiker Part Three: Rethinking the Private Military Contractor II: Masculinities and Violence Chapter 7: Aversions to Masculine Excess in the Private Military and Security Company and their Effects: Don't Be a ""Billy Big Bollocks"" and Beware the ""Ninja!"" Paul Higate Chapter 8: Heternormative and Penile Frustrations: The Uneasy Discourse of the Armorgroup Hazing Scandal Chris Hendershot Part Four: Private In/Security: Gendered Problems of Accountability, Regulation, and Ethics Chapter 9: Engendering Accountability in Private Security and Public Peacekeeping Valerie Sperling Chapter 10: Women and PMSCs: International Law and Regulation Ana Filipa Vrdoljak Chapter 11: Responsibility, Empathy, and the Morality of Mercenaries: A Feminist Ethical Appraisal of PMSCs Jillian Terry Conclusion Maya Eichler Afterword Anna Leander Notes Bibliography Index"
Maya Eichler is Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement and Assistant Professor of Political Studies and Women's Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University.
