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Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis article argues that civil-military relations should be conceptualized not only in terms of democratic civilian control but also for effectiveness in implementing a spectrum of roles and missions. It also argues that achieving effectiveness requires institutional development as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Currently in Latin America, the focus in civil-military relations remains exclusively on civilian control. While there is a growing awareness of the need for analysis beyond asserting control over the armed forces, so far nobody has proposed or adopted a broader analytical framework. This article proposes such a framework, and employs it to analyze differences among four major South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. The explanation for the differences identified by use of the framework is found in the incentives of civilian elites in Chile and Colombia, who have recognized serious threats to national security and defense.

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00216.x ; This article argues that civil-military relations should be conceptualized not only in terms of democratic civilian control but also for effectiveness in implementing a spectrum of roles and missions. It also argues that achieving effectiveness requires institutional development as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Currently in Latin America, the focus in civil-military relations remains exclusively on civilian control. While there is a growing awareness of the need for analysis beyond asserting control over the armed forces, so far nobody has proposed or adopted a broader analytical framework. This article proposes such a framework, and employs it to analyze differences among four major South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. The explanation for the differences identified by use of the framework is found in the incentives of civilian elites in Chile and Colombia, who have recognized serious threats to national security and defense.

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2012.663254 ; Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic.

Volume 1, Cebri ; The author proposes in this paper a new framework for the analysis of civil – military relations in the U.S. and applies it to the use of private security contractors, mainly in Iraq. He argues that the academic literature on civil – military relations in the U.S. is not well focused as it concentrates exclusively on control, and is thus totally marginal to the contemporary debates on the use of force to achieve national goals. He illustrates this point by looking to the most serious national defense reform initiatives from the Goldwater – Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 up until the current major effort, the Project on National Security Reform. He then applies this framework to the use of private security contractors (PSC) and finds that they are problematic both in terms of control and effectiveness.

Paper Prepared for Panel on "New Approaches to the Analysis of Civil – Military Relations and Security Sector Reform" Annual Convention, International Studies Association, New Orleans, Friday 19 February, 2010, 3:45 pm ; This paper discusses democratization and a new understanding of civil - military relations.

Research Paper No. #12 ; A Civil-military relation is a poorly defined concept in the academic literature and in popular usage. This paper begins with a conceptualization of civil-military relations as a trinity of dimensions including democratic civilian control, effectiveness in the achievement of roles and missions, and efficiency in the use of resources. Six roles and missions are specified and three different entities – the armed forces, police, and intelligence agencies – are defined as the instruments of security. The paper then highlights the ongoing tensions with regard to democratic civilian control: that chief executives in Latin America are able to fire ministers of defense and senior officers. What is generally lacking, however, in all but a few countries, are institutional mechanisms and sufficient personnel to manage security and defense issues in a routine manner. Just as important, the vast majority of Latin American countries lack the required instruments – strategies, institutions, and resource allocations – to achieve effectiveness. A few countries, including Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, however, are seeking to increase effectiveness through reforms in professional military education.