Gender and Private Security in Global Politics

Citation:

Eichler, Maya, ed. 2015. Gender and Private Security in Global Politics. Oxford Studies in Gender and International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author: Maya Eichler

Abstract:

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

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Gender and the Privatization of Military Security: An Introduction

(Maya Eichler)

1. Military Privatization as a Gendered Process: A Case for Integrating Feminist International Relations and Feminist State Theories

(Saskia Stachowitsch)

2. Military Privatization and the Gendered Politics of Sacrifice

(Bianca Baggiarin)

3. Gender, PMSCs, and the Global Rescaling of Protection: Implications for Feminist Security Studies

(Maya Eichler)

4. (Re)Producing American Soldiers in An Age of Empire

(Isabelle V. Barker)

5. From Warriors of Empire to Martial Contractors: Reimagining Gurkhas in Private Security

(Amanda Chisholm)

6. The License to Exploit: PMSCs, Masculinities, and Third Country Nationals

(Jutta Joachim and Andrea Schneiker)

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)

8. Heternormative and Penile Frustrations: The Uneasy Discourse of the Armorgroup Hazing Scandal

(Chris Hendershot)

9. Engendering Accountability in Private Security and Public Peacekeeping

(Valerie Sperling)

10. Women and PMSCs: International Law and Regulation

(Ana Filipa Vrdoljak)

11. Empathy, Responsibility, and the Morality of Mercenaries: A Feminist Ethical Appraisal of PMSCs

(Jillian Terry)

Conclusion

(Maya Eichler)

Afterword

(Anna Leander)

Topics: Combatants, Gender, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Private Military & Security, Security

Year: 2015