Abstract:Since 2013, combat services have been increasingly exchanged on the market. This development is puzzling since the practice emerged despite an anti-mercenary norm banning such services, and without any revision of the norm. The article argues that the combat market is not a deliberate design, but the result of strategic interaction. For some, compliance with the anti-mercenary norm is the best strategy, while for others, violating the norm is best. However, once the norm violation occurs, it is in the interest… Show more
“…Lastly, while the CMAD certainly improves data-access, it also wrestles with limitations. For one, the CMAD only records data until 2016, which impairs the analysis of more recent trends such as the increased frequency of combat contracts, for example, the Russian PMSCs in Syria (Petersohn 2021a). Moreover, due to the dataset focusing on exchange events, details about the underlying legal contracts are not recorded.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The CMAD also shows a small market segment in which combat services were traded. Although scholars have discussed combat providers, conventional wisdom holds that such services are too controversial and considered to be illegitimate (Petersohn 2014b, 2021a), and the “door for private combat companies” seems to have closed in the late 1990s (Percy 2007, 227). However, the CMAD suggest that delegitimizing combat services had no noteworthy impact on the frequency of their provision, for throughout the period of investigation, such services were consistently provided at a rather low level.Figure 3.Contracting by service from 1980–2016.…”
This article introduces the Commercial Military Actor Database (CMAD), a dataset able to support research on civil war and commercial military actors. First, the CMAD covers all civil wars from 1980 to 2016 across all of the world’s regions except Europe, which enables the investigation of long-term regional and global trends. Second, the CMAD encompasses the corporate market segment and mercenary outfits, which facilitates the analysis of how those actors have impacted conflicts differently. Third, containing detailed information about the relationships behind exchanges, the CMAD allows users to disaggregate market exchanges. Using the CMAD’s new data, we examined trends in the market for force, and demonstrate the data’s added value. We re-examining Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski’s study on how private military and security companies affect the duration of civil war. The findings show that the market’s influence on conflict can only be fully understood by including corporate and mercenary actors.
“…Lastly, while the CMAD certainly improves data-access, it also wrestles with limitations. For one, the CMAD only records data until 2016, which impairs the analysis of more recent trends such as the increased frequency of combat contracts, for example, the Russian PMSCs in Syria (Petersohn 2021a). Moreover, due to the dataset focusing on exchange events, details about the underlying legal contracts are not recorded.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The CMAD also shows a small market segment in which combat services were traded. Although scholars have discussed combat providers, conventional wisdom holds that such services are too controversial and considered to be illegitimate (Petersohn 2014b, 2021a), and the “door for private combat companies” seems to have closed in the late 1990s (Percy 2007, 227). However, the CMAD suggest that delegitimizing combat services had no noteworthy impact on the frequency of their provision, for throughout the period of investigation, such services were consistently provided at a rather low level.Figure 3.Contracting by service from 1980–2016.…”
This article introduces the Commercial Military Actor Database (CMAD), a dataset able to support research on civil war and commercial military actors. First, the CMAD covers all civil wars from 1980 to 2016 across all of the world’s regions except Europe, which enables the investigation of long-term regional and global trends. Second, the CMAD encompasses the corporate market segment and mercenary outfits, which facilitates the analysis of how those actors have impacted conflicts differently. Third, containing detailed information about the relationships behind exchanges, the CMAD allows users to disaggregate market exchanges. Using the CMAD’s new data, we examined trends in the market for force, and demonstrate the data’s added value. We re-examining Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski’s study on how private military and security companies affect the duration of civil war. The findings show that the market’s influence on conflict can only be fully understood by including corporate and mercenary actors.
The current international normative order strongly condemns strategies of civilian victimization, and actors engaging in atrocities face material, criminal, and reputational sanctions. The growth of the market for force has raised concerns about clients outsourcing atrocities to commercial military actors (CMAs), such as private military and security companies or mercenaries, and thereby circumventing accountability under international norms. This investigation explores whether interactions on the market for force are associated with an increase in the likelihood of violence against civilians. We argue that there is a variance in market interactions. While some market actors will comply with international norms, others will take advantage and circumvent normative restrictions. The crucial factor determining compliance and noncompliance are costs of norm violation, which vary across market actors. Those clients and CMAs with a higher exposure to sanctions, or an interest in the status quo of the normative order, are less likely to be associated with norm violations, and vice versa. We test our claims using a negative binomial regression and by drawing on new data from the Commercial Military Actor Dataset, which records contracting for force and force-related services. Overall, we found that there is a market segment where actors use market relations to circumvent international norms, yet mostly market interactions appear to comply with international norms.
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