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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Motivation, Markets and Client Relations in the British Private Security Industry Drutschmann, Sebastian Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Motivation, Markets and Client Relations in the British Private Security Industry Title: Author: Sebastian Drutschmann The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ You are free to: Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Motivation, Markets and Client Relations in the British Private Security Industry An Economic-Sociological Perspective on UK Private Security Company Behaviour in Iraq and Afghanistan 2003-2009 Sebastian Drutschmann, PhD Candidate 1 For Annika, this and everything else. 2 Abstract One persistent concern about the increasingly widespread use of private security companies (PSCs) is that, unlike the state-organized military, PSCs are inherently unreliable and disloyal because they are primarily motivated by profit and only subject to limited controls. Yet if these concerns were valid, one should expect misconduct to be PSCs’ default behavioural option. Evidence from UK PSCs operating in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003-2009, however, suggests that misconduct was relatively rare, given how widely PSCs were used in both theatres of operation. Indeed, PSCs are frequently lauded for their professionalism and loyalty - particularly by their customers, who arguably have a close view of their behaviour. The core problem of this thesis is, therefore, the question why misconduct is actually not more prevalent in the UK private security industry (PSI). It argues that the dominant conceptualization of PSC behaviour overemphasises the importance of financial interests in their decision-making. Using Granovetter’s concept of embeddedness, this thesis suggests that the social context of PSCs, through institutions, networks and power relationships, shapes their economic actions. In a three-level analysis, it shows how (1) the decision- making processes in individual PSCs, (2) competition in the market for PSC services and (3) the (contractual) relationship between PSCs and their clients reduce the likelihood of misconduct. Rather than being exclusively interested in maximising their corporate profits, PSCs are therefore motivated by a complex amalgam of financial and non-financial interests. This motivation, combined with informal regulatory influence from their labour, market and client relations, causes PSC behaviour to be more restricted than previously acknowledged. Adopting a qualitative approach and drawing on over fifty semi-structured interviews with UK PSC representatives and employees, their clients, policy-makers and experts as well as on corporate reports, biographies, academic and media research, this thesis traces the key factors that shaped the behaviour of UK PSCs in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003-2009. By providing a more nuanced understanding of UK PSC behaviour, this study offers a new approach to PSC regulation. Instead of strict, formal regulation, including intrusive monitoring and strong sanctions, this study demonstrates the advantages of less antagonistic, responsive forms of regulation, which rely on fostering military professionalism in the PSI, on shaping public and private sector demand power in the market for PSC services and on using the relationship dimension of contracting to increase regulatory responsiveness. 3 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................. 3 Table of Contents ............................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ 7 Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1: Motivation, Markets and Client Relations – Modelling the Behaviour of Private Security Companies .......................................................................... 12 Section One: The Behavioural Model and Its Theoretical Underpinnings .......................... 16 Section Two: Incentives ....................................................................................................... 19 Section Three: Opportunities .............................................................................................. 22 Section Four: Behavioural Manifestations .......................................................................... 27 Section Five: The Research Question .................................................................................. 31 Section Six: The Relationship between Profit and Conventions ......................................... 36 Section Seven: Methodology ............................................................................................... 39 Section Eight: Purpose and Design of the Interviews.......................................................... 43 Section Nine: Research Ethics ............................................................................................. 51 Section Ten: The Scope of the Thesis ................................................................................. 53 Chapter 2: The PSI - From Its Origins to the Bubble and Beyond ...................... 59 PART I: The Private Security Industry Prior to 2003 ............................................................. 61 Section One: The Origins of the Debate about Security Privatization ................................ 61 Section Two: Typologies and Typological Problems ............................................................ 65 Section Three: The UK PSI Prior to 2003 ............................................................................. 70 PART II: The Private Security Industry Since 2003 ............................................................... 73 Section Four: The “Bubble”: The PSI 2003-2004 ................................................................. 73 Section Five: Data on the PSI’s Size and Growth and its Limitations .................................. 78 Section Six: The “Bubble” and its Aftermath from an Industry Perspective ....................... 85 Section Seven: The UK PSI during the “Bubble” and Its Aftermath .................................... 89 PART III: Economics and Security Privatization .................................................................... 95 Section Nine: Privatization and New Institutionalism ......................................................... 97 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 100 4 Chapter 3: Decision-Making Processes in Individual UK PSCs ......................... 102 Part I: In Search of the Corporate Interest ......................................................................... 104 Section One: The Prevalent View on PSC Motivation ....................................................... 104 Section Two: Incentive Structures in the PSI ..................................................................... 107 Section Three: Interests in Individual PSCs