Crack Troops Or Bloody Killers? States, Political Parties, and Mercenaries 1805-2017’
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Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP) Graduate School in Social, Economic and Political Sciences, University of Milan ‘Crack Troops or Bloody Killers? States, Political Parties, and Mercenaries 1805-2017’ Supervisor Prof. Alessandro Colombo Ph.D. Director Prof. Matteo R.C. Jessoula Ph.D. Candidate Matteo C.M. Casiraghi 1 Contents Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................. 4 List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter I: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 10 The journey of the anti-mercenary norm ........................................................................................ 12 Political parties, mercenaries and security contractors ................................................................ 24 The path ahead ............................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter II: Theory, Mechanisms, Dimensions ............................................................................... 31 The anti-mercenary norm and the spillover effect ......................................................................... 31 Political parties, mercenaries and contractors: The three dimensions ......................................... 44 Chapter III: Data and Method......................................................................................................... 55 Epistemological approach and data description............................................................................ 55 Problems and cautions ................................................................................................................... 62 Method ............................................................................................................................................ 65 Chapter IV: Weak, Politicized, Absent: The Anti-Mercenary Norm in Italy and the United Kingdom 1805-2017 .......................................................................................................................... 67 Mercenaries in the Very Long XIX Century 1805-1914................................................................. 75 Mercenaries in the Very Short XX century 1945-1991 .................................................................. 90 Contractors in the Post-Cold War 1990-2017 ............................................................................... 99 Chapter V: Parties, Mercenaries, Contractors: Political Attitudes in Italy and the United Kingdom 1945-2017 ........................................................................................................................ 109 Italian parties during the Cold War: A fiercely antagonistic left ................................................ 109 British parties and mercenaries during the Cold War: Similar aversion, different reasons ....... 123 Italy in the post-Cold War: a different left, a different aversion .................................................. 131 The United Kingdom in the post-Cold War: an antagonistic left, the gap widens....................... 140 2 Chapter VI: Honorable Mentions ................................................................................................. 148 Honorable mentions I: Mercenaries and political parties before 1945 ....................................... 149 The Questione Romana ............................................................................................................. 149 The War in Crimea ................................................................................................................... 152 Honorable mentions II: Mercenaries and the norm after 1991 ................................................... 156 Honorable mentions III: Mercenaries and political parties after 1991 ....................................... 165 The Civil War in Libya 2011 .................................................................................................... 171 Chapter VII: Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 174 The journey of the anti-mercenary norm ...................................................................................... 174 Parties, mercenaries and contractors: Different hostilities and diverging attitudes ................... 178 Appendix I ...................................................................................................................................... 181 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 181 Codebook ...................................................................................................................................... 184 Models .......................................................................................................................................... 192 References ....................................................................................................................................... 204 3 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my supervisor Professor Alessandro Colombo, whose help, support, and comments to this dissertation were fundamental. I am also very grateful to Prof. Eugenio Cusumano, Dr. Christopher Kinsey, Prof. Andrea Ruggeri, and Valerio Vignoli, as without their support this work would have been impossible to complete. Many other professors, colleagues, and friends provided a decisive help, in particular Prof. Deborah Avant, Ekrem Baser, Prof. Patrick Bayer, Prof. Anna Caffarena, Prof. Ernesto Calvo, Prof. Andrea Carati, Prof. Luigi Curini, Dr. Simone Dossi, Prof. Tasha Fairfield, Prof. Fabio Franchino, Prof. Macartan Humphreys, Alice Iannantuoni, Prof. Juliet Kaarbo, Prof. Andrea Locatelli, Prof. Francesco Moro, Francesco Testini, my Ph.D. colleagues and all my friends. I would also like to give special thanks to my mom Loretta, my sister Sara, my dearest animals Cookie, Nikita, and Vega, and my friends Iurmiz and Pierre, who strongly supported my work and me during the years of the Ph.D. Finally, no words cannot express my love and gratitude to Sofia. My life and myself would suck without her. 4 List of Tables Table I: Different frameworks to characterize the anti-mercenary norm .......................................... 36 Table II: Different frameworks to characterize the persistence/transfer of the anti-mercenary norm ............................................................................................................................................................ 39 Table III: Three cases for international norms ................................................................................... 43 Table IV: Mercenaries 1945-1991 ..................................................................................................... 53 Table V: Private military and security companies 1991-2017 ........................................................... 54 Table VI: General results for parliamentary debates on mercenaries in Italy and the UK ................ 69 Table VII: General results for parliamentary debates on PMSCs in Italy and the UK ...................... 69 Table VIII: Drivers of the antagonism during the Cold War (percentages of negative references) 130 Table IX: Drivers of the antagonism after the Cold War (percentages of negative references) ...... 144 Table X: Mercenaries 1945-1991, results ........................................................................................ 146 Table XI: Private military and security companies 1991-2017, results ........................................... 146 Table XII: Negative and moral references to PMSCs and mercenaries 1991-2017 ........................ 158 Table XIII: List and description of all variables .............................................................................. 183 Table XIV: Character (positive, neutral and negative references to mercenaries and contractors) . 184 Table XV: Moral (moral and non-moral negative references to mercenaries and contractors) ...... 185 Table XVI: Insult (out-of-context and rhetorical references to mercenaries) .................................. 186 Table XVII: Mechanism (reasons behind the accusations against mercenaries and contractors) ... 187 Table XVIII: Dimension (references to specific mechanisms on the three dimensions, military, IR and political-economic, and to alternative explanations)................................................................. 189 5 List of Figures Figure I: positive, neutral, and negative references to mercenaries in the UK (1805-1991) and Italy (1861-1991) ........................................................................................................................................ 70 Figure II: moral and non-moral negative references to mercenaries in the UK (1805-1991) and Italy (1861-1991) .......................................................................................................................................