Who Am I? The Blurring of the Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) Category

Prem, Berenike

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63010-6_3

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In addition to being far-fetched ('feeling safe' is notably not among the UN articles of human rights), the message creates a paradoxical discursive effect by which Saab -Sweden's largest supplier of arms by some distance (SIPRI, 2022) -attempts to reconfigure their core activity as one of supplying human rights and associate themselves with notions of humanitarianism more broadly. As Berenike Prem (2018) writes, this kind of corporate framing is an example of how arms industries and private security actors are 'actively seeking to influence public perceptions about what or who they "really" are' as an attempt to vindicate their reputation 'by purveying a feel-good image as "new humanitarians"' (p. 52).…”

Section: Humanitarianism and Impartialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Branding ‘progressive’ security: The case of Sweden

Coetzee¹,

Larsson²,

Berndtsson³

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

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Contemporary research on so-called Nordic branding has provided crucial insights into the social power of states and how various actors use and circulate ‘progressive’ nation brand tropes for political and commercial goals. Hitherto, the literature on Nordic branding has focused on a wide range of substantive issues, among other things, human rights, gender equality, social welfare and foreign aid, but considerably less attention has been paid to the topic of security. The present article adds to a small but established literature on how the security sphere is increasingly entangled with nation branding. In the Nordic region, we argue, the latter is particularly evident in the case of Sweden – one of the world’s largest per-capita arms exporters in the post-Cold War era but also a country known and often revered for its peaceful and progressive image. Focusing on the case of Sweden, the article contributes to knowledge of how defence industry-related actors (both public and private) draw on and frame nation branding tropes to sell and legitimise their products and services to both insiders (domestic constituents) and outsiders (the global security market).

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Section: Humanitarianism and Impartialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Branding ‘progressive’ security: The case of Sweden

Coetzee¹,

Larsson²,

Berndtsson³

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…PMSCs are not obligated to share information, even if they act as government proxies. Moreover, their ambiguous status and style of operations makes them harder to define (Prem, 2018) and therefore to monitor or systematically study. Most of all, secrecy is one of this industry's currencies, as companies are commissioned to perform national security tasks and functions.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PMSC employers would not entrust to local, unskilled laborers the use or even the maintenance and repair of the specialized, expensive equipment used in today's armed conflicts (Krishnan, 2016). This has been stipulated in studies on PMSCs and cyber, intelligence, and drone operations (Halchin, 2015;Prem, 2018;Shorrock, 2015). Krahmann (2003Krahmann ( , 2005 has underscored the important role of security governance, the fragmented and complex security structures of today, to privatized military operations; such governance measures must be enforced by educated, high-status employees who are knowledgeable about combat and also capable of understanding and implementing management and security principles.…”

Section: Introduction: Exploitative or Exclusive Profession?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contractors in Iraq: Exploited Class or Exclusive Club?

Swed

Burland

2020

Armed Forces & Society

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Corporate privatization of security has generated a neoliberal iteration of an old profession: the private military contractor. This development has revolutionized security policies across the globe while reviving old patterns of inequality. Following neoliberal logic, outsourcing fosters two types of employment: the exploitative and the exclusive. The first refers to low-status individuals hired en masse to perform menial labor; the second refers to experts who perform functions central to the employer’s mission. We contribute to this discussion by focusing on the qualifications of a different subsample of this industry: American contractors who died while performing military and security functions in Iraq. We assert that such American employees directly engaged in mission-essential combat and security functions better fit the employment category of an exclusive, expert sector at the core of the private military industry.

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No Accounting for Bad Contracting: Private Military and Security Contracts and Ineffective Regulation in Conflict Areas

Swed

Materne

2021

St Comp Int Dev

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Who Am I? The Blurring of the Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) Category

Cited by 5 publications

References 45 publications

Branding ‘progressive’ security: The case of Sweden

Branding ‘progressive’ security: The case of Sweden

Contractors in Iraq: Exploited Class or Exclusive Club?

No Accounting for Bad Contracting: Private Military and Security Contracts and Ineffective Regulation in Conflict Areas

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