The Politics of The Apolitical - Private Military Companies, Humanitarians and The Quest For (Anti-) Politics in Post-Intervention Environments

The politics of the apolitical: private military
companies, humanitarians and the quest for

(anti-)politics in post-intervention environments
Christian Olsson
Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences-Po/CERI), 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75337 Paris Cedex 07,
France.
E-mail: christianolssonfr@yahoo.fr
This article aims at exploring some of the political processes related to the
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These interventions include private actors
such as private military and security companies (PMCs and PSCs) on the one hand,
and humanitarian organizations on the other, being mobilized in the war effort.
The main theoretical argument is that the theory of securitization might be
instrumental to the comprehension of the concept of the political. Such a
conceptualization of the political facilitates the analysis of the outcome of the social
practices involved in military interventions. It allows for a different interpretation
of the political processes induced in ‘local’ societies by the private and civilian
actors — PMCs and PSCs on the one hand, and humanitarian organizations on the
other — involved along with the military in the civil–military ‘assemblage’ of
contemporary interventions. In this way, I argue against international policies
without local politics and conflict-resolution without political solution.
Journal of International Relations and Development (2007) 10, 332–361.
doi:10.1057/palgrave.jird.1800137
Keywords: humanitarian organizations; military intervention; political; private

security companies; private military companies; securitization
Introduction
The aim of this article is to explore some of the political processes related to the
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These interventions see private actors
such as private military and security companies (PMCs and PSCs) on the one
hand, and humanitarian organizations on the other, being mobilized in the war
effort. This article will deal specifically with these private and/or civilian actors
who might erroneously seem marginal to some compared to the ‘high-profile’
military operations. This will be done through a theoretical perspective not
solely focusing on the intervening actors but also highlighting the social
dynamics involving the ‘local’ populations. Indeed, here I will try to show that
these actors’ everyday practices in post-intervention environments participate
Journal of International Relations and Development, 2007, 10, (332–361) www.palgrave-journals.com/jird
r 2007 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1408-6980/07 $30.00
Christian Olsson
Politics of apolitical private military companies
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in the political processes that characterize military interventions in ‘local’

societies. However, my intent is neither to present new facts nor to make a
detailed analysis of the facts already available.
In the scope of this short article, long empirical developments cannot be
made. The objective is rather to explore new ways of ‘problematizing’ what is
at stake in contemporary interventions. The hope is to shed new light on the
important political questions that the latter raise. While doing this, the main
argument on the theoretical level will be that the theory of securitization might
be instrumental to the comprehension of the concept of the political. At the
same time, by proposing an approach in terms of politicization and
de-politicization, this article will try to ‘open up’ the theory of securitization
by showing that it has to be situated within a broader theory of the political.
Such a conceptualization of the political, as I will try to show, facilitates the
analysis of the outcome of the social practices involved in military
interventions. Moreover, it allows for an interpretation of the political violence
prevailing in post-intervention environments that does not put the focus
foremost on ‘extremist ideology’, ‘religious fanaticism’ or ‘cultural differences’,
but rather situates it within the complex political relations that characterize
these environments.
This article is structured in two parts. The first, drawing on a political theory
approach, tries to propose interpretive tools for the analysis of the social
processes of politicization and de-politicization. It thus sets the frame for an
‘interpretivist’ approach of political dynamics (Guzzini 2000) in post-
intervention environments. The second focuses on a tentative interpretation
of the political processes induced in ‘local’ societies by the private and civilian
actors — PMCs and PSCs on the one hand, and humanitarian organizations
on the other — involved along with the military in the civil–military
‘assemblage’ of contemporary interventions.
Bringing the Political Back into Social Theory: Politicization and

De-politicization as Social Processes
Before analyzing the political processes structuring post-intervention environ-
ments, one has to ask the question, often raised but never settled in social
theory, of the political. Once one dismisses the simplistic view merely
conflating the state and the concept of the political, one has to ask a certain
number of questions about the latter. Is it an essence, a substance, a subjective
mode of representation of social reality or a specific kind of relation? These
questions are all the more important as the failure of previous attempts to give
a definitive definition of the political only has served to illustrate the concept’s
fundamental instability and essential contestability. It has also shown the
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Volume 10, Number 4, 2007
334
concept’s tendency to crystallize social oppositions: once an issue is labeled as

political, no consensus is likely to emerge. Any analysis of the political has thus
to account both for its elusiveness as well as for its polarizing effects on social
debates.
Part of what follows draws on a critical stance towards positivist conceptual
analysis considering words as value-neutral ‘data-containers’. It rather builds
on the sociological uses of linguistic pragmatism in International Relations
(IR) theory focusing on how essentially contested concepts are used by social
actors and what they subsequently ‘do’ to social relations (e.g. Guzzini 2005).
However rather than trying to develop on all the theoretical implications of the
latter approach for the analysis of the political, the aim is to show how it can be
useful for an understanding of what is at stake in the political struggles of post-
intervention environments. In order to situate such an approach of the political
in the wider debate on the ‘meaning’ of the political, a quick overview of some
of the dominant approaches of ‘the political’ in political theory will be a useful
starting point.
The political in political theory: tracing the unfound boundaries between the
political and the apolitical
Within the wide range of interpretations given of the political in political
theory, three main, not mutually exclusive, perspectives will be distinguished
here. The focus will be on how they might be integrated into the interpretation
of social dynamics.1 This will incidentally allow defining the concepts of
politicization and de-politicization that will subsequently serve to analyze the
political processes induced in local settings by the diverse actors involved in
contemporary interventions. Hence, rather than giving a full account of the
existing literature on the political or even engaging with the details of some of
its majors works, the aim here is to narrow down the scope in order to identify
the theoretical ‘tools’ that will prove instrumental to the specific purpose and
‘angle’ adopted by this article. Hence, the first two perspectives presented here
mainly serve the purpose of framing and clarifying the third and last one. To
some extent, these perspectives (in their ideal-typical form) could be said to be
illustrative of different ‘moments’ in the history of ideas of thinking the political.
In a first perspective, the political is approached from a normative-
ontological angle referring to an ‘order of things’ and an explicitly stated
conception of the common good. It is, for example, conceived of as inherent in
the human nature as a zoon politicon (Aristotle 1932), in the human condition of
collective life (Arendt 1998) or in a social life that has be to instituted by a
foundational principle, the political, that constitutes three sets of logical
categories: command/obedience, public/private and friend/enemy (Freund
1965). According to these definitions, the political is inherent in humanity as
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we know it and is present, independently of time and space, in different forms

of social organization. But the latter are considered here only as the material
manifestation of a superior essence or condition. Although the political refers
to a particular sphere of humanity among many others (economic, legal,
esthetic, etc.), it is often considered here as the one that makes us truly human.
Consequently, when social agents deny the political, they contradict a reality
that continues to be existentially structured by it. This is, for example, precisely
the criticism addressed by Arendt to totalitarian regimes (Arendt 1998). One
might say that in this perspective the political exists independently of the
conscience one has of its existence. Its imperatives to a certain extent transcend
the empirically observable reality and can hence be analyzed independently
from the wide array of differences between diverse forms of political
organization. Although very interesting and useful, these definitions — with
the exception of Freund (1965), who has given a sociological extension to his
work — are therefore difficult to integrate into a sociological inquiry focusing
on variances as opposed to commonalities between political societies.
According to a second perspective that could be described as empiricist-
positivist, the metaphysical theory of the political is not a central preoccupa-
tion. Moreover, its central interest lies not as much in what politics should be
but how it actually is. It hence focuses foremost on the empirically identifiable
criterion that allows distinguishing political relations or units from other
configurations and that can be observed in objects that exist independently of
the mind (and hence independently of subjective or inter-subjective factors).
Carl Schmitt, for example, can be considered as a representative of this
perspective when he makes the polarization between friend and foe the
distinguishing criterion of the political (Behnke 2006). Indeed, the sovereign’s
decision regarding the enemy and the friend crystallizes the intensity of social
relations within a political unit on the one hand and the ‘extreme disunion’
with the enemy excluded from this political unit on the other (Schmitt 1996).
Schmitt’s existential decisionism is a positivism (in the epistemological sense) to
the extent that he focuses on what he calls the ‘real’ or ‘objective’ enemy
(hostis) existing independently of the mind as opposed to an approach defining
the enemy relationally or interactionally. At the same time, the normative-
ontological dimension of his work highlights the extent to which the
perspectives distinguished here are not necessarily mutually exclusive.2 In a
more recent period, and writing from a perspective that Schmitt would
castigate as ‘pluralist’, Susan Strange (1996) can be considered as a modern
representative of an empiricist-objectivist approach when she considers the
authoritative allocation of objectified values in the social space to be the main
criterion.3 Focusing on empirical criteria, these definitions have the merit of
being easily usable in sociological inquiry. Indeed, they identify the political as
a particular kind of social relation and not as an a-sociological essence (at least
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in the case of Strange). However, by focusing solely on the objective structure

of social relations, they fall into the trap of all-positivist sociology: a relation
can be political in spite of all the actors involved in the relation considering it
subjectively or inter-subjectively as apolitical. This is especially the case for
Susan Strange. In the same way, a relation can be apolitical even when the
individuals involved are convinced that they are engaging in political activities.
This is especially so for Carl Schmitt. Moreover, empiricist-positivist
approaches often fall short of an explicitly metaphysical theory of the political,
at least when they focus solely on the ‘criterion’, while undeniably
presupposing such a theory when proposing this criterion.
According to a last perspective, which could be called the relational
approach, the political refers to a specific kind of social relation in which the
concept of the political confers a specific salience to the relation itself as the
actors themselves represent it. In this approach, the political refers to a social
reality that is not purely objective in that it is dependent on the representations
of the actors involved. However, it is not subjective either since it refers to a
relation between social agents. In other words, the political refers to an inter-
subjective relation in which the actors confer a particular (‘political’) salience
to the issue, the ‘political issue’, which structures this relation. The process
through which this particular salience is conferred to the topic is the process of
politicization defined as ‘the process of transformation of a societal problem
into a political problem’ (Braud 1998: 581, own translation). This is the
approach of the political indirectly adopted by some authors inspired by
Bourdieu when they claim that any attempt to formulate a definitive definition
of the political is itself a highly political enterprise (Voutat 2001). For example,
when the political is said to refer to the state, this very claim contributes to the
legitimization of those who have a vested interest in this specific definition, that
is, the professionals of politics. This means that it is impossible to define the
political while remaining outside of the sphere of the political. To define the
political is to politicize. To politicize an issue, a social agent, an organization —
for example a party — is to engage in a political relation structured around this
issue, social agent or organization. In other words, the political is an ‘auto-
referential’ concept, any definitive definition of which leads to circular
arguments and tautologies.4
Discourse plays a central role in this process of politicization. Hence, the
political can be said to be a speech-act through which a particular salience is
conferred to a societal issue. As such, the political has many parallels with
security as defined by Ole Wæver (1995). Firstly, just as Wæver analyzes both
securitization and desecuritization,5 one would in this approach have to
analyze the processes of politicization and de-politicization when approaching
the political.6 Secondly, both the politicization and the securitization of an
issue confer a particular social salience to this issue. Thirdly, both the analyses
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of politicization and securitization imply to focus on their social effects, on

their transformative power or ‘performativity’ on social relations (Buzan et al.
1998; Lagroye 2003: 370). Fourthly, securitization may be defined as a specific
kind of politicization as ‘the Copenhagen School’ consistently does. Security is
indeed a political process.7 Moreover, the politicization-approach and the
securitization-approach may be complementary. Indeed, there is no analytical
reason to consider at the same time security to be a socio-political process and
the political to be an essence.
There are, however, also (not mutually exclusive) differences between the
generic processes of politicization and of securitization. The specificity of
securitization lies indeed, according to Wæver, in the fact that it calls for
emergency measures by invoking an existential threat to a particular
community. Therefore, security may be defined as the ‘Schmittian realm of
the political’ (Williams 2003: 523): it invokes the idea of a polarization between
a collective self and an enemy. Securitization is hence a type of politicization.
Politicization does not, however, necessarily imply the recourse to exceptional
means or to a polarization between friend and foe. The specific feature of
politicization is rather to confer a particular salience to a societal problem thus
construed as being essentially linked to the fundamental condition of collective
life (Leca 2001).8 This implies that there is no a priori limit to the societal topics
that can be politicized. It also explains why the political is defined by many by
the fact that it is always open to debate and never settled. Indeed, nothing is
a priori political or apolitical and to say something is already an attempt to ‘do’
politics. Here we find the type of ‘reflexive loop’, also highlighted by Stefano
Guzzini (2005), appearing when approaching politically connoted essentially
contested concepts through a performative conceptual analysis.
The advantage of this relational perspective is that it allows for the
sociological analysis of the processes related to the political. Indeed, construing
a problem as being linked to the fundamental condition of collective life is
likely to produce effects on social relations and behavior. For example, to say
unemployment is foremost a political problem and not only an economic issue
is likely to lead to specific forms of social mobilizations and policies that can be
sociologically analyzed. In a context in which the failure to settle the question
of the definition political might incite social ‘scientists’ to renounce to its
analysis, this perspective might hence allow to account for the political in a
sociological way without forestalling a debate that cannot be foreclosed. This is
not to say that other perspectives have to be dismissed, but rather that this last
perspective offers a general perspective on the specific definitions of the
political. Moreover, this approach might allow for cross-fertilizations between
the relatively recent debate on securitization in Security Studies on the one
hand, and the already ‘old’ debate on politicization/de-politicization in
Political Sciences on the other (Vedel 1962). Its inevitable weakness is,
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however, that it does not provide for a definitive definition of the political. But
this is, at that least that would be my argument, precisely what frees this
perspective from any suspicion of having a political agenda itself.
In order to show how this relational approach, based on the assumption that
the political is an essentially contested concept, allows for a sociological
analysis of political processes it is necessary to show more specifically what
politicization ‘does’ and how it affects social relations. It is equally necessary to
insist on the fact that thinking relationally here implies avoiding both the pitfall
of a radical subjectivism reducing the political to individual representations on
the one hand and of an objectivism claiming the political to be located in
objective structures on the other. In other words, it is necessary to show how
political relations between social agents operate and how they relate to
subjective elements such as intentionality or ‘consciousness’. This is what will
be done in the next section.
A framework for the analysis of the processes of politicization and

de-politicization: towards a social theory of the political?
Once politicization and de-politicization processes are conceived of as embedded
in social relations, one question arising is in what way the political represen-
tations of the actors involved in this relation interact. Do they necessarily agree
on the politicization/de-politicization — (de-)politicization — of a particular
societal problem or not? In other words, can political relations, that is, relations
structured around the politicization of an issue or an actor, be seen as only
involving ‘politically like-minded people’ or do they leave an important space for
divergences? In the latter case, can one still speak of a relation?
Here, it is important to note that the relational definition of the political
implies that social actors can foster (de-)politicization processes without being
conscious thereof. In other words, political processes are not necessarily the
outcome of intentional strategies. They are ‘produced’ by relations in which no
actor can lay a claim on the final outcome (Edelman 1988). The objective
mechanism producing the outcomes of inter-subjective relations is to a certain
extent independent of the intentions of the actors involved in these relations.
There might thus be a discrepancy between the representations of different
actors, whereas they are all part of the same political relation. This is not to say
that the political relation is a purely objective structure, but rather that it does
not necessarily tend towards a convergence of representations. Two ideal-
typical configurations will be analyzed here. Firstly, the one in which there is a
general convergence around the (de-)politicization of an issue (symmetric
relations), secondly, the configuration in which the (de-)politicization processes
give rise to divergent interpretations (asymmetric relations). Here I will take
the example of the definition of a political actor to illustrate this point.
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A political actor is not only a social agent that is part of a political

relation. Indeed, one should make the distinction between political actors
(politicians, trade-unions, militants, demonstrators, etc.) and politicizing actors
(i.e. virtually everybody). A political actor — for example a political leader —
could be defined by two elements. Firstly, s/he has to act and speak in ways
that make credible the claim that her/his position is essential to the
fundamental condition of collective life. Secondly, s/he and her/his practices
have to be politicized by the other social agents involved with her/him in social
relations. In this case, there is a convergence of the representations of the
different social agents involved in the political relation: they all agree to
consider this actor to be a political actor. This relation can be said to be
symmetric. This social construction of the political might structure very strong
power relations as this allows for the political actor to be more performative in
the politicization of issues, institutions, etc. A recognized political leader is
indeed more likely to be successful in claiming his/her priorities to be essential
to the fundamental condition of collective life than other actors.
This is all the more true if the political actor manages: (1) to extend the
political relation(s) of which s/he is part to a larger ‘constituency’ of social
agents and to fence this ‘constituency’ of from external influences; (2) to
marginalize other political actors within this political relation(s), or at least to
draw a line between the ‘official’ and the ‘unofficial’ political actors. In this
case, the objective social position acquired by this actor will most likely allow
her/him to enounce the political with more performativity than all other social
agents in the social space structured by these political relations. Going a step
further, this (collective or individual) actor might even have authority to speak
and act alone in the name of the community and to draw a limit between the
‘political’, that is, her/himself or the institution s/he represents, and the ‘social’.
In this case, the originally dialectical relation between the social and the
political becomes, in virtue of this differentiation, socially perceived as pure
causality: the political institutes the social. This intense form of differentiation
is characteristic of the idealized representation of the nation-state (Badie 2000).
Indeed, in this configuration a symbolic line is drawn between the legitimate
field of the professionals of politics (Bigo 2006) and ‘civil society’, thus at the
same moment de-politicizing society.
Such a monopolistic political actor acquires what Bourdieu has called a
monopoly on legitimate symbolical violence (Bourdieu 1994). In other words,
it allows imposing a unified system of classification in a given social space, thus
to a certain extent making political representations symmetric within this
space. But it also introduces a principle of negotiation into the relation. Indeed,
on the one hand symmetric relations confer political authority to the political
actor. On the other hand, since the political refers to the notion of collective
life, and since the political status has to be bargained, it involves a certain
340
degree of reciprocity. Indeed, by definition, authority only exists, provided it is

recognized by the ones on which it is exercised (Arendt 1998).
But even a nearby monopolistic political actor can be challenged from outside
the ‘normal’ field of (the professionals of) politics. In this case, the fences
separating this field both from the social field (political/social distinction) and
from external political fields (inside/outside distinction) might become difficult
to hold. As such, this situation is not extraordinary and historical examples
abound: the workers movement in the 19th century, the feminists in the 1960s,
Catalan autonomists in the 1970s, all this before they got represented by the
official political institutions and thus integrated into the ‘ordinary field of
politics’. However it shows that, even in the configuration of the nation-state, the
always fragile limit differentiating the political from the social might come under
serious threat, thus producing asymmetries (in the sense of disagreements about
what is political). In this case, the identification and assimilation of the political
as a concept to politics as a field of practice is (temporarily?) weakened.
Of course, even in established nation-states, an actor can be considered as
political without being a legitimate player in the field of politics: ‘extra-
parliamentary’ parties, political associations, etc. Real-life situations never live
up to the ideal type. But such a political actor will generally be considered as
relatively marginal or even as illegitimate. In the latter case, one might speak of
a negative politicization. The actor is considered as exterior to the legitimate
game of ‘ordinary’ politics and action might be taken to undermine his/her
legitimacy to enter the field of the professionals of politics. If the situation
endures, this social agent might even be politicized as a political enemy (in a
sense, however, very different from Schmitt). In this case, intense struggles for
political (de-)legitimization might arise. Indeed, since a symmetric politiciza-
tion structures strong power relations, a durable and credible contestation of
such a politicization might result in fierce power struggles. Thus, political
struggles are as much about power as about the definition of the legitimate
political conceptions. A political struggle might indeed be defined as ‘a struggle
to maintain or change the conception of the social world by maintaining or
modifying the categories of perception of the world, by working on the
constitution of a common sense that appears as the truth of the social world’
(Fritsch 2000: 19, own translation).
However, these struggles might in extreme cases lead to open conflict. The
distinction between ‘social violence’ and ‘political violence’ might then become
blurred as asymmetric perceptions of it arise. In the case of a state, this
weakening of the political/social boundary might lead the monopoly on
legitimate physical violence to be challenged and the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate violence to be contested. The theoretical monopoly
on physical violence then loses its monopoly on symbolical violence. This
situation leads me to the second ideal type.
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The second ideal type is the situation in which there is a social uncertainty
about what is political, about what issues and/or actors are to be (de-)politicized.
The political narratives are embattled. In these situations, actors perceiving
themselves as being outside of the realm of the political, and hence considering
their practices as merely technical, for example, might be considered by other
social agents as having a political reach or even political motivations. The reverse
is also true: actors perceiving themselves as political might be denied any
political status. The political relations can in this case be said to be asymmetric.
This is, for example, the case when police operations, in which the criminal is
defined by the mere technical fact that he does not abide by the law, hit political
leaders because of their political representations.9 But this situation does not
mean that the political relations that constitute the frame of the asymmetric
(de-)politicization processes are interrupted. It is indeed often not the frame of
the ‘collective life’ itself that is being questioned, but only the issues, the actors
and the institutions that are considered as essential to it.
In this second section, the effects of the processes of politicization and
de-politicization on social relations have been analyzed. It has tried to show
that these processes lie at the core of many of the power relations and struggles
structuring political societies. One of the central findings of this section is that,
in societies in which there is a differentiation between the political and the
social spheres, the establishment of a field of the professionals of politics plays
an important role in the regulation of these relations and struggles. Indeed, the
latter establishes a common sense, a doxa, about what is political and what is
not and determines who is entitled to participate in the legitimate political
struggles. This insight will be central in the second more empirical part of this
article. However, this section has also insisted on the fact that in some cases
divergent readings about the political might arise. In these cases, social
uncertainty emerges about the locale of the political. The central question is
what the mechanisms of interaction in situations of uncertainty are: do
divergent political representations eventually tend towards convergence or is
there on the contrary a tendency of polarization?
The suspension of the ‘ordinary’ field of politics and the political processes of
post-intervention environments
There probably is no general answer to this question but certainly both
outcomes are possible depending on a set of factors that cannot be developed
here. Suffice it to say that in social spaces in which some principle of
differentiation between the social and the political is operational (virtually all),
one of these factors is the ability on the part of the institutionalized field of the
professionals of politics to re-establish symmetric relations. This can either be
done through the integration/co-optation of the contesting social agents or
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through the effective marginalization of divergent voices. Indeed, as noted by

Bourdieu (1982: 238, own translation), analyzing the field of politics:
the adversaries who are in competition for the monopoly over the legitimate
manipulation of political goods, have a common stake which is state-power
that puts an end, to a certain extent, to this political struggle since the truths
of the state are transpolitical truths, at least officially.
If these mechanisms do not operate, political uncertainty might foster

dynamics of polarization of political representations. Therefore, it should be
noted that these questions related to asymmetric political relations become
particularly salient in situations of ‘exception’ in which ‘ordinary politics’ —
whatever its frame may be — has been suspended. They arise when the
‘ordinary’ field of politics, for a reason or for another, is no longer the point of
convergence of the greater part of the (de-)politicization processes.10 It goes
without saying that this is precisely the situation prevailing in environments
shaped by external military interventions. Indeed, the latter usually imply a
radical and brutal change in the structure of political authority (Rosenau 1968;
MacFarlane 2002). The violent upheaval caused by the suspension of the ‘ordi-
nary’ political order causes politics to become an essentially contested field,
thus reinforcing potentially violent struggles for political (de-)legitimization.
Several reasons, directly drawn from the previous analyses, can be invoked
here to explain this potentiality. Firstly, military interventions aiming for
‘regime-change’ might contribute to the re-politicization of the target society.
Indeed, if no credible political authority is installed in the immediate aftermath
of the intervention, the differentiation between the political and the social
crumbles. Struggles to reconstitute and reshape it according to divergent
interests ensue. Secondly, ‘normal’ mechanisms, de-politicizing or politicizing
negatively non-state violence, are not operational any longer. Indeed, the
superior legitimacy of the actor who wants to impose its dominance, the
intervening forces or the ‘new regime’, might not go unquestioned. This actor
might thus be violently contested. Thirdly, violence might be fuelled instead of
quelled when force is resorted to in order to ‘pacify’ post-intervention
environments. Indeed, the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate
violence, which used to be fixed by the monopoly on symbolic violence,
becomes a site of contestation and any effort to ‘restore peace and security’ is
therefore likely to be perceived as illegitimate. Bourdieu (1994: 110, own
translation) here writes:
This is the problem of the tragedies: is not the deed of the righter of wrongs
— Oreste — a crime in the same way as the original deed of the criminal?
This question has been put aside by the recognition of the legitimacy of the
state but is reminded when certain borderline situations occur.
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In other words, different interpretations of legitimate violence characterize

these borderline situations. Fourthly, the regulation of ‘social violence’ through
integration or exclusion from the field of politics might fail as there is no
legitimate political field to be included into or excluded from. The asymmetries
that might ensue in the representations of the actors involved in political
relations might give rise to seemingly irreducible conflicts, rather than
introducing a principle of negotiation.
Some of these dynamics, linking the suspension of the political order on the one
hand and political struggles in which the institutions cease to ensure a symbolic
mediation on the other, have been highlighted by Peter Harling (2007: 35–36, own
translation) in his analysis of the unfolding of the current conflict in Iraq:
While the reactions to the US presence were primarily determined in the

immediate aftermath of the fall of the regime by (present and future) losses
and gains, the idea of the overthrow of an age-old Sunni (political) order has
progressively become an over-determining element. The US influence
has hence been decisive in the symbolic struggle that has been engaged
after the fall of the regime over the very meaning of the new institutions
(a rebalancing for the Shiites, dispossession and repression for Sunnis, an
occasion to consolidate and extend recent attainments for the Kurds). [y]
This symbolical struggle has paved the way for a generalized civil war.
Parts of these political dynamics have been highlighted by the so-called

counter-insurgency theoreticians. The latter play an increasingly important
role in the current debate on interventionist practice in Afghanistan and Iraq
(de Hoop Scheffer 2007). Their motto is ‘the ineluctable political dimension of
counterinsurgency’ (Hoffman 2004: 2). Indeed, one of their central claims is
that ‘pacification’ must not solely be a military activity but also a political one
(Trinquier 1960; Kitson 1971). Issues of political legitimacy and political
consent have to be taken into account in the overall effort to win over ‘local’
populations and thus put an end to violence. Historically, this discourse has
not prevented counter-insurgency from being a highly violent enterprise as
shown by the US interventions in Vietnam and Latin America (Klare and
Kornbluh 1988; Mc Clintock 1992). However, it has also led the military, as
well as a range of civilian and private organizations with which the military is
to cooperate according to this approach, to become involved in ‘local’ politics.
They are indeed to re-shape and legitimize the post-intervention field of
politics. This strategy is hoped to allow for the co-optation of ‘local’ political
actors who might otherwise, so it is thought, oppose the intervening forces.
Consequently, former Taleban have been integrated into the new political
institutions in Afghanistan and the US-supported Iraqi government of Maliki
has made several bids to negotiate with and possibly co-opt ‘insurgent leaders’.
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Another strategy, in the face of groups engaging in seemingly irreducible forms

of violence, is to securitize them by either de-politicizing them as criminals or
de-legitimizing them as terrorists. Often, the two latter tactics are combined. It
shows that the process of securitization might in some cases be analyzed as a
specific strategy in the struggles over political legitimacy.
This non-exclusively military dimension and ineluctable political component
of counter-insurgency is increasingly called for by the US military to deal
with the setbacks of the counter-terrorist approach in Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, in practice, the ensuing ‘political measures’ adopted by the counter-
insurgent often do not account for the specific features of the political
representations of the ‘local’ populations. On the contrary, they follow from a
priori assumptions on what these representations should be. In the context of
this article, this counter-insurgency approach, however, constitutes a useful
starting point to approach the political relations involving non-military actors
and ‘local’ social systems in the post-intervention environments of Afghanistan
and Iraq.
In this first part, I have tried to suggest an approach of the political focusing
on the effects of politicizations and de-politicizations on social relations. It has
hopefully allowed to show some of the mechanisms (inclusions, exclusions,
asymmetries, etc.) through the analysis of which the study of (de-)
politicization processes on the one hand and of political struggles on the
other might be interwoven. Through a relational approach of the political, the
aim has been to suggest tools allowing for the analysis of the complex relations
of cooperation and conflict that are tied in post-intervention environments
between the international and ‘local’ actors. Indeed, the political dimensions of
these relations are likely to be central because these interventions’ rationale is
the change of political authority structures but also because the externally
imposed transformations raise the question of the locale of the political in post-
interventionist settings. The second part will hence attempt to show some of the
insights allowed for by such an approach in the study of the relations involving
the diverse actors of contemporary interventions.
Externalizing Interventionism to PMCs and Humanitarian

Organizations: From ‘Pacifying’ De-Politicizations to Violent
Re-Politicizations
The delegation of non-specifically military activities to civilian and/or private
actors in Afghanistan and Iraq has accelerated the prevailing tendency of the
networking of warfare (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001; Dillon and Reid 2001;
Duffield 2001). It has made military expeditions inseparable from a set of
civilian and/or private organizations. Hence, one can speak of a civil–military
‘assemblage’ of contemporary military interventions.11 To consider these
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organizations as well as the military — which have different rationales and

aims — as being part of an ‘assemblage’ implies to look at the network of
relations that interlinks them and produces power-effects on ‘local’ societies.
The analysis of this assemblage here serves to insist on the idea that any study
of military interventions has to account for these civilian and/or private actors
that could otherwise seem marginal. Indeed, it highlights that all intervening
actors participate in the specific form of management of ‘local’ populations
that characterizes contemporary post-intervention environments. One of the
defining features of this management is that, in spite of its bid to pacify social
relations, it foremost focuses on populations as masses and not as political
subjects. However this approach, which de-politicizes many of the societal
issues of post-intervention environments (public safety, humanitarian aid, etc.),
might run into a contradictory move of re-politicization of these same issues by
‘local’ populations. Hence, asymmetrical political relations, as previously
defined, become likely to be of interest for the analysis of these violent social
contexts.
Two types of actors involved in this multifaceted and multidimensional ‘war’
through delegation (Banégas 1998) will be analyzed here: humanitarian
organizations on the one hand, and PMCs and PSCs on the other. Both are
closely associated to the military operations and participate in the structuration
of the political relations involved in the management of ‘local’ populations.
The privatization of security: from the anti-politics of pacification to the political

de-legitimization of security-providers
The number of PMCs (and to a certain extent PSCs) involved in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and the activities they engage in, might confer a certain relevance to
the currently fashionable idea of a progressive ‘privatization of warfare’
(Chapleau 2005). PMCs seem to have actively participated in a wide array of
post-intervention missions in both countries. These include intelligence
gathering; the guarding of the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA) in Baghdad (e.g. Global Risk International) until 2004, as
well as of pipelines, ministries and official buildings in Iraq; the training of
Iraqi and Afghan security forces (e.g. Vinnel) and police (e.g. DynCorps,
Erinys International); the protection of Hamid Kharzaı̈ in Kabul (e.g.
DynCorps), etc. Although they are officially not to be involved in ‘mission
critical operations’, these companies have sometimes effectively participated in
highly coercive forms of ‘pacification’. This was, for example, the case when
the firm Blackwater got engaged in direct combat in the city of Najaf against
the ‘Army of Mehdi’ of Moqtada Sadr during its clashes with the US Forces
throughout the whole of southern Iraq in 2004. Alongside PMCs, even more
(but less ‘high-profile’) PSCs operate in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to restore
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public safety. However, the distinction between PSCs and PMCs, reproducing
the distinction between the police and the military at the state-level, is
questionable in many regards. In practice, the same technologies of coercion
are indeed often resorted to by both types of companies (Bigo 2003).
Moreover, their personnel is very often made up of former soldiers in both
cases. As a consequence, some authors have chosen to conflate both categories
under the generic term of PSC (Avant 2005).
Through the intervention of private security professionals, the very
distinction between the public and the private is also being blurred. Indeed,
one would be mistaken to think of the public and the private security sectors as
two strictly autonomous fields. Rather than private (or public), these firms are
‘para-public’ in the sense that they are part of networks that are transversal to
the distinction between the private and public spheres (Bigo 2003). The
trajectories of their personnel, straddling the boundaries of the public and
the private sectors — generally going from the public to the private —
demonstrate the porosity of these sector’s boundaries. However, the image of
‘communicating vessels’ is also misleading. Indeed, the interconnectedness and
the reciprocal instrumentalizations of the public and private networks of
security professionals to a certain extent invalidate the very distinction between
the two sectors. Cross-sectoral dynamics show that one sector cannot be
analyzed thoroughly independently from the other. Both spheres rather seem
to be part of a broader relational and transversal field of security practices
(Bigo 2006). This transversal field seems to confirm the idea of a public–private
assemblage of international interventions.
The privatization of security tasks in post-intervention environments will be
analyzed here through what has been said about the political. Indeed, one of
the central claims in the first part has been that political relations between
actors locating the political at different levels might be potentially conflictual.
Such asymmetric relations, as we shall see, might precisely be observed when
PMCs and PSCs engage in post-intervention ‘stabilization missions’.
The underlying assumption of this argument is that the recourse to PMCs/
PSCs reveals and accentuates the de-politicizing approach of the pacification of
‘local’ populations on the part of the intervening forces. This de-politicization
is, however, not accidental. It is on the contrary inseparable from the very
rationale that leads these companies to be resorted to in war-torn societies.
Indeed, the favorable stance of the proponents of the private option to conflict-
resolution, like David Shearer, often rests on the general assumption that
PMCs ‘have to be considered as an arms system’ (Shearer 1999; for an explicit
critique, see Olsson 2003: 40; Leander 2005a). The assumption is that, in
order to pacify effectively, it suffices to identify the actor or ‘arms system’ that
holds the necessary capacity. In other words, this technical, as opposed to
political, approach of PMCs supposes that the recourse to coercion produces
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347
the same effects independently of the social identity of the actors or ‘arms
systems’ involved. It implicitly posits that the outcome of the recourse to
military force is independent from the perception that the local populations
have thereof.
Power is, however, a relational process and not a pure capacity (Foucault
1997). A political relation might not be the same if the relationally defined
identity of the actors involved varies. As a consequence, the regulation of
violence cannot be considered to be a mere technical matter in which military
capacities are modulated in order to produce a situation of peace. Rather,
armed conflicts being a political process in which political dynamics of
(de-)legitimization and of (de-)politicization play a crucial role (in this regard,
on the case of Afghanistan, see Dorronsoro 1997), the social identity and
legitimacy of the actors who claim to pacify has to be focused upon (Crowley
2000). This is not what is done when one relies on ‘market forces’ without
having previously assessed how their social identity might be relationally
defined in the context of the intervention. It is precisely because the protean
and endemic forms of violence prevailing in Afghanistan and Iraq are often —
by virtue of their presumably irrational, deregulated and incomprehensible
nature — considered as apolitical,12 that the idea of hiring PMCs has seemed
so uncontroversial to many intervening governments. These armed conflicts
are, however, on the contrary highly political to many of the ‘local’ populations
and even more so to their protagonists. In other words, when relying on PMCs,
the issue of political legitimacy might be overlooked and sacrificed to the sole
problem of efficiency.
This is not to say that PMCs and PSCs never can contribute to the provision
of a feeling of safety among populations when engaging, for example, in
policing. Neither is it to say that such a feeling of safety cannot participate in
the legitimization of existing institutions (Abrahamsen and Williams 2006).
However, it must be emphasized here that the potentially legitimizing effect of
private policing on political institutions is dependent on the capacity of its
implementers to make credible the claim that their authority derives from a
legitimate political order. When this is not the case, when the boundaries
between legitimate and illegitimate violence are blurred, claims of legitimate
violence might on the contrary fuel political struggles as shown in the first part.
This is precisely what might happen in post-intervention environments because
of the increased contentiousness of politics. As a consequence, security forces
must be utmost sensitive to the political context in which they evolve in order
not to further radicalize violence. One can wonder whether the technical
approach of Shearer, which seems to have been adopted in Iraq and
Afghanistan, might fulfill this requirement.
When considering the self-perceived and socially defined identity of PMCs,
this seems not likely to be the case. Indeed, firstly, by adopting the posture of
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apolitical technicians of pacification, private security firms are not very prone
to taking account of the transformations of political relations that their actions
induce. They will therefore most likely fail to adapt their practices accordingly.
Secondly, as lucrative organizations exogenous to the actual political conflict,
they are not always considered by the ‘local’ population as legitimately
authorized to resolve it, be it by force. They are hence easily politicized
negatively, as political enemies or at least as a political problem. In other
words, the political relations between ‘local’ populations and PMCs/PSCs
might become highly asymmetric. Indeed, on the one hand, these companies
might be politicized negatively, as engaging illegitimately in the political
struggles of ‘local’ societies. On the other hand, their practices proceed from a
purely apolitical (technical and tactical) reading of security. The resort to
PMCs and PSCs in the ‘stabilization’ of post-intervention environments could
hence be described as a form of ‘anti-politics’. It proceeds from the incapacity
or refusal to recognize the extent to which these companies might be construed
as involved in the embattled politics of post-intervention societies.
Consequently, while the recourse to PMCs might reinforce a political actor
militarily, it might also weaken it in terms of political legitimacy (see the
chapter on civil–military relations in Singer 2003). Indeed, when hiring security
professionals not accounting for the political sensitivity of their activity, this
might spin off on the ‘client’. It shall therefore not come as a surprise that, as
noted by an American security-analyst on the conflict in Iraq, ‘the use of
contract security has created the image of mercenary forces, and effort to win
hearts and minds in troubles areas have eventually collapsed, as they have in
some ‘‘friendly’’ areas as well’ (Cordesman 2004: 15). The fact that in
Iraq the personnel of two companies, Titan and CACI, are known to have been
involved in the ill-treatments at the prison of Abu Ghraı̈b, the revelation
of which has done much to radicalize ‘insurgent’ violence in Iraq (Heggham-
mer 2006), is in this regard only an aggravating factor. One can also
wonder how the authority of Afghan president Hamid Kharzaı̈ can be
perceived as being firmly embedded in local political structures when his
security has to be assured by an American military company (DynCorps).
Moreover, in a context in which the counterinsurgency approach adopted by
the General Petraeus in Iraq and by NATO in Afghanistan focuses on the
responsibility of international troops in showing restraint, displaying ‘situa-
tional and cultural awareness’ and taking account of the political spin-offs
of ‘tactical engagements’ when possible (Tomes 2004; Cohen et al. 2006;
Petraeus 2006),13 the frequently voiced concern of military commanders
concerning the absence of legal accountability of and political control over
PMCs is largely justified (Traynor 2003). In sum, one can have doubts as to
whether PMCs and PSCs will be able to appease the political tensions in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
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This potential criticism of PMCs is much more far-reaching than the one
according to which PMCs only play a role on the short term, whereas conflict-
resolution necessitates a long-term perspective (Shearer 1999). Indeed, it not
only questions the temporality of the intervention of PMCs but also the very
social identity of the actors who define conflict-regulation in technical and not
in political terms. Moreover, it goes slightly further than the traditional
criticisms that only question the intentions of these firms. Indeed, it also
accounts for the non-intentional but potentially harmful effects of PMCs.
In other words, it is not necessary to believe that PMCs are inherently
‘neo-colonial’ or ‘war-profiteers’ to question their capacity to play a positive
role in armed conflicts. Finally, it shows that the argument of efficiency,
notably of military efficiency, simply misses the point. Indeed, what is focused
upon here is not only on the role of the PMCs per se but also on the capacity-
based approach — as opposed to effect-based approach14 — that leads to their
involvement in contemporary conflicts. Indeed, by analyzing PMCs as purely
technical and apolitical tools, one necessarily fails to grasp these political and
structural de-legitimizing effects. Only a political reading, that is, a reading that
considers the effects of processes of (de-)politicization and (de-)legitimization
on social relations, can account for the fact that the privatizing trend might
have important political consequences.
The unintentional politicization of humanitarian actors and the logic of violent

asymmetries
Another type of actor involved along with the military in the fields of
Afghanistan and Iraq is represented by the many humanitarian actors: non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), quasi-NGOs such as the International
Red Cross (IRC), international organizations with humanitarian preoccupa-
tions such as the UN, etc. Of course, these actors cannot be analyzed as a
homogeneous group. They are very different in nature, have very different
practices and institutional affiliations. In other words, the field of humanitar-
ian practice is very broad and the sole common denominator might be that
they converge on a same humanitarian rhetoric. This heterogeneity is also
illustrated by the fact that they are more or less keen to cooperate with the
military (Braem 2004). Some of them are, however, closely coordinating their
operations with the military through what is often referred to as civil–military
cooperation or CIMIC.
The generic term of CIMIC could be defined as the operational function
aiming at the coordination between the military command and the multiple
civilian actors on the ‘field’. The units in charge of this coordination, mostly
Civil Affairs units in the case of the US military, are generally composed of
civilians with military status (reservists). This function thus creates networks
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between the civilian world and the military world through reservists being part
of both, and thus capable of straddling the frontier between them. The
coalescence of the military and the humanitarians that sometimes ensues is well
illustrated within the framework of the different Provincial Reconstruction
Teams in Afghanistan (PRTs). From the point of the military, CIMIC is
increasingly seen as part of a counter-insurgency strategy aiming at the
building of a local consensus around the presence of the foreign military: the
so-called ‘hearts and minds approach’. This is hoped to defuse any hostility on
the part of ‘local’ populations. Thus, Collin Powell (2001), when still Secretary
of state, has described NGOs as ‘force multipliers’ and as members of the
‘combat team’ in the war against terrorism.
Of course, many humanitarian actors, especially NGOs, have firmly
criticized this militarization of humanitarian activities (Pugh 2001). However,
even the critically minded humanitarians, focusing on human security as
opposed to military security, might have more in common with security
professionals than many of them want to admit (Bigo 1996). Indeed, the focus
on the satisfaction of basic human needs and on the individual well-being,
following a seemingly apolitical needs theory (Burton 1997), leads many of
them to call for the military to restore security and protect local communities
when endemic violence becomes a permanent threat to individual survival.
Although understandable to some extent, this focus on physical survival often
leads to an indirect endorsement of the underlying premises of the ‘mili-
taro-humanitarian’ approach. Indeed, just as many of the military, humani-
tarians tend to look at the effects of violence (the threat to individual life)
while disregarding its underlying rationale. Both then fail to recognize that
the driving force behind the prevailing violence might precisely lie in the
politically motivated refusal on the part of ‘local’ groups to accept the foreign
military’s claims of protection. Indeed, the political nature and not only
religious, ‘cultural’ or ‘social’ nature of ‘insurgent violence’ targeting foreign
military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan has been widely documented
by many of the empirical studies that have been carried out on the subject
(Dorronsoro 2003; Hegghammer 2006; International Crisis Group 2006a;
Harling 2007).
The intentional or non-intentional association of humanitarian actors
with the military that follows from what has been previously said leads
paradoxically to a politicization by the ‘local’ populations of activities that are
self-perceived as being external to the realm of the political. This could be a
powerful factor in the sometimes lethal misunderstandings between ‘local’
populations and humanitarians. As has been seen, the latter’s self-perception,
often founded on the doctrine of neutrality/impartiality, posits that they are
involved in conflicts to satisfy individual human needs independently of
political considerations. Many humanitarian actors consider themselves as
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exterior to the political struggles of ‘local’ societies since their main role is to
satisfy the universal biological needs founded in the body and the psyche
(Chandler 2002, 2006). The pertinent metaphor here would be the one of a
doctor treating his patients on the basis of his scientific knowledge, rather than
the one of a negotiator conscientious of the political will of his partners
(Pupavac 2002). Hence, many humanitarians do not see themselves as
politically engaged, even when in some cases they ask the international forces
to establish more security.
This reading of humanitarian practice might, however, not be universally
shared. The political nature of security seems to complicate the task of making
the apolitical stance of humanitarians credible when they call for more security.
This is all the more true as their cooperation with military forces on the fields
of Afghanistan and Iraq might associate them with the political options of the
military (Makki 2004). Moreover, in a situation in which the local political
structures are questioned and transformed, these humanitarian anti-politics
might be perceived as trying to legitimize the contested power structures and
the established (although contested) field of politics. Whether intentional or
not, the satisfaction of the urgent needs of deprived populations is indeed a
powerful legitimizing tool in the political struggles over post-intervention
politics. One must mention here that when some humanitarian NGOs have
seen themselves as politically engaged, it has been following the lines of the
doctrine of ‘principled humanitarian’ and once again without taking account of
local perceptions of the political (Stockton 2004).
All of this might explain why abducted humanitarians are so often described
as ‘spies’ or ‘collaborators of the occupation’ by the local groups claiming to
detain them and could hence be a powerful factor in the negative politicization
of humanitarian practices by local groups. These dynamics are, however,
largely ignored by many NGOs sticking to their self-perception as apolitical
actors engaged in the satisfaction of biological needs or ethical requirement
that, because of their unquestionable character, could not be thought of as
being essentially linked to the fundamental condition of collective life
(Chandler 2002). By thinking of themselves in this way, they fail to perceive
the relational political processes they might induce in local societies. These
processes are, however, easy to politicize by local political actors in a context in
which the political structures are being transformed.
These considerations certainly offer an insight into the cruel bombings that
targeted the offices of the UN and the IRC in Baghdad in 2003. While more
than 40 humanitarians had been killed in Afghanistan by February 2004, Iraq
has certainly offered the grimmest illustration of a systematic targeting of
humanitarians by ‘insurgents’. These acts were probably largely misinterpreted
because of the presumed apolitical stance or terrorist nature of the actors
involved. Indeed, they were merely considered as desperate acts perpetrated by
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elements motivated by anti-Western or anti-Christian hatred, and this

independently of their political convictions. On the contrary, an analysis in
terms of (de-)politicization and asymmetric political relations gives us
alternative tools to interpret some of the motives that can have been behind
these attacks. Even if humanitarian actors perceive themselves as apolitical, the
local actors and clandestine groups probably do not. There is, in this case, an
asymmetric political relation between the humanitarian organizations and
parts of the local population. Indeed, the latter might consider humanitarian
aid a highly political issue because of its legitimizing and ‘stabilizing’ effects on
military interventions. A study on the declarations and writings of the Iraqi
‘insurgents’ has shown that ‘the shared objective simply was to prevent the US
from stabilising the situation [y]’ and thus to thwart any attempt on the part
of the intervening forces to establish a semblance of normalcy through the
protection of infrastructures or through humanitarian assistance (International
Crisis Group 2006b: 15).
As many humanitarians deny the potential political interpretations of their
actions, they fail to adapt their strategies to this possibility by developing forms
of technical cooperation with the military. Of course, to say this is in no way to
justify the action taken by some militant groups. On the contrary, it serves to
highlight that a political analysis accounting for the interactions between the
practices of humanitarian actors on the one hand and the local political
representations on the other could have helped avoid some of the deleterious
consequences of asymmetric political relations. Indeed, a relational approach
to the processes of politicization, as opposed to an approach merely positing a
preconceived and an a priori definition of what is objectively political and what
is not, allows understanding the conditions under which social actors who have
an apolitical self-perception of themselves might be politicized by the actors
with whom they establish social relations.
The role of PMCs in the training of ‘local’ security professionals: securitization

as a political process
According to the counter-insurgency approach, the eventual replacement of the
intervening military forces by ‘local’ security forces is of crucial importance
(Dobbins 2005; Cassidy 2006). ‘Local’ security forces are indeed hoped to be
more legitimate, and hence more efficient, in their bid to quell the prevailing
political violence. Conversely, this transfer of security tasks to ‘local’ forces is
hoped to allow for an effective legitimization of the emerging political
institutions by (re-)constituting its monopoly on violence. However, in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the difficult task of re-constituting internal security
forces and reforming the ‘security sector’ (SSR) is increasingly delegated to
PMCs. It is therefore important to insist on the effects of the privatization of
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military training, not only on the intervening countries’ military profession-

alism, as it is often done (Avant 2002), but also on the target countries’
‘security sector’.
As already shown, private security actors might contribute to the potentially
violent asymmetric relations between intervening forces and ‘local populations’
when participating in the policing of post-intervention environments. However,
private training activities might on the contrary structure highly symmetric
relations with ‘local’ security forces. These activities are thus amenable,
following the theoretical insights of the first part of this article, to give rise to
very strong power relations. As will be shown, this might participate in the
formation of policy preferences favorable to strictly coercive solutions likely to
radicalize conflicts. In order to prove this point, one has to ask why the
involvement of PMCs in the (re-)construction of a local monopoly on physical
violence might allow them to foreclose the range of policy-options available in
the effort to ‘restore peace and security’.
According to the official ‘functionalist’ discourse, PMCs have no agenda-
setting prerogatives but are only hired to help responding to prevailing
insecurities (Brooks 2000; Spicer 2002). However, it follows from the analysis
of security as a social process, that security-practices cannot be explained solely
as a functional response to a violent environment. There are two reasons for
this. Firstly, the process of securitization implies that security does not refer to
a pre-existing object of security but transforms societal issues, previously
considered, for example, as mere risks, into security issues (Wæver 1995).
Hence, as Anna Leander has highlighted in her analysis of the ‘epistemic
power’ of PMCs, if the private security providers manage to control the process
through which societal issues are securitized, supply and demand of security
become virtually inseparable. This might give considerable leverage to PMCs
to determine the policy preferences of the clients they train (Leander 2006).
However, one could argue with some reason that in a context of endemic
violence, in which threats are not only defined by security professionals but
also by the clandestine groups professing threats, the definition of what
constitutes a threat becomes relatively uncontroversial. In this case, as in Iraq
and Afghanistan, security professionals are not in a monopolistic position in
determining the legitimate ‘truth-claims’ about threats. The latter are
relationally defined by diverse actors including the clandestine groups them-
selves claiming to threaten the emerging political structures, while showing
through sometimes highly elaborate televized interventions aired by al-Jazeera
or al-Arabia or posted on the internet to have the means to do so (Baran and
Guidère 2005; International Crisis Group 2006b).
In this context, and this is the second point, the critique of the ‘functionalist’
reading of security is also justified — and Leander’s argument on the ‘epistemic
power’ of PMCs also helps to account for this — by the fact that security
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practices are never value-neutral. Security practices require a specific value

system that allows to organize threats into a hierarchy ranging from the
unacceptable threats to the ones that can be temporarily accepted. Moreover,
they suppose the identification of the referent values to be protected (the
individual’s physical integrity, stability, progress, etc.). Indeed, as insisted upon
by Arnold Wolfers (1962: 150), security ‘in its subjective sense [measures] the
fear that [acquired] values will be attacked.’ Simultaneously, the means that are
resorted to (military action, policing, the co-optation of violent actors, etc.)
have to be framed not only as efficient but also as relatively harmless to the
values that are to be protected. The crucial aspect here is that since values as
such cannot be assessed on the basis of truth claims (Nietzsche 1989), security
practices cannot be inferred from the ‘truth’ of the social world either.
Clandestine groups might say ‘we threaten the unjust power-structures’,
the security professionals may say ‘terrorists are a threat to stability’ and
some local politicians may say that ‘because of the invasion, insurgents are
destroying our country’. While these enunciations might convey the same truth
claims, they are based on different value assumptions. Consequently, they will
not advance the same policy agendas. Hence, even when threats to the status
quo can be considered as being in a way given by the structure of the relational
game of securitization (including the ‘threatening’ actors), security practices
still suppose value assumptions to be defined beforehand.
As opposed to the functionalist perspective, the training of ‘local’ security
forces then means that PMCs de facto participate in the definition of these
value assumptions. Indeed, the private trainers, when allowed to determine
(directly or indirectly) the content of the training program, acquire a
specifically political role as they determine the values to be construed as
essentially linked to the fundamental condition of collective life. In this sense,
securitization is indeed a form of politicization as already highlighted in the
first part. The fact that the private trainers might not dispose of coercive
capacities themselves is therefore not the determining factor. Rather, their
structural position in the social space will determine their ability to define the
relevant security practices (Bigo 2006). In this regard, as experts of security
hired to teach how to fight against threats, they are, to a certain extent, granted
the authority to define the political. Indeed, if the trainers and the trained do
not eventually share a same vision of the legitimate reading of the social world
as far as threats are concerned, the training program by definition fails (Olsson
2003).
It could be argued here that the training only concerns tactics and not
strategy or politics. However, the former often presupposes the latter in the
sense that precisely its implicit value assumptions reach beyond the mere
technicalities of tactical thinking. To focus the training on military operations
in urban terrain (MOUT) or on counter-guerrilla as in Afghanistan and Iraq is
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likely to have concrete political effects by creating the conditions of possibility

of highly coercive approaches to local conflicts. In other words, when PMCs
are hired to (re)form the monopoly on physical violence this also leads them, to
some extent, to mediate the monopoly on symbolical violence. This is,
however, not to say that PMCs consider themselves to be political actors. As
security advisors or trainers, they merely politicize (securitize to be precise)
social issues for the ones they advise or train. As a consequence, the principle of
reciprocity that characterizes symmetric political relations is absent. While the
dynamic theory of securitization is very useful in uncovering these processes,
this analysis, however, shows that the former has to be situated within a
broader conceptualization of the political.
But one could argue that all of this also does not distinguish the private
training activities from the same activities carried out by ‘official’ (public)
military advisors. What distinguishes PMCs is, however, that, being foremost
driven by profit, they have more to gain from the transformation of societal
issues into security issues. Moreover, they will most likely frame the value
assumptions of security practices in ways that put their specific know-how,
military coercion, at the forefront. Public security professionals are constrained
by the inter-agency process and have an interest in being able to claim a swift
victory (when possible) and hence avoid a ‘mission creep’ following the
principle of ‘first in, first out’. On the contrary, not only do PMCs have a
bigger interest in the selling of their know-how, but they can also define the
content of their training (more or less) independently from other organizations.
This is all the more true as US commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have
complained that PMCs operate in a ‘grey zone’ allowing them to take decisions
relatively independently from official circles (Traynor 2003). Hence, it is easy
for DynCorps training the new Iraqi police or Vinnel training security forces
both in Afghanistan and Iraq to promote security readings that justify their
lucrative training activity. Consequently, coercive solutions that might do little
to appease political struggles will most likely be furthered by the recourse to
PMCs.
As mentioned in the first part, symmetric political relations, in which there is
a convergence of the actors’ perceptions on the issues to be politicized, give rise
to strong power relations. The relation between security providers and security
demand is precisely an example of this: there is a common perception of the
threat on both sides. Hence, PMCs are in a structural position of force on the
‘security market’ (Olsson 2003; Leander 2005b). The use of PMCs in Iraq and
in Afghanistan therefore entails the risk of increasing violent dynamics fuelled
by the preference given to strictly coercive solutions.
Here, once again, the capacity-based approach to military intervention,
leading to the resort to PMCs for the training of ‘local’ security forces, might
have long-term deleterious effects on post-interventionist environments.
356
Harling’s analysis of the Iraqi conflict offers interesting insights in this regard
by shedding light on the importance of abandoning the prevailing means-based
or capacity-based approach:
the process of ‘monopolization of legitimate violence’ that should come with
the emergence of a functional Iraqi state is hampered by two obstacles: on
the one hand the fundamental illegitimacy of the political system [y]; on the
other, and perhaps above all, the occupier and its Iraqi partners concentrate
their attention and their resources on the means of state violence (number of
troops, equipment, training etc.) instead of on its legitimization [y]
(discipline, the sense of a cause, occupational identity, etc.) (Harling 2007:
38, own translation).
This is all the more true as the blurring of the public and the private sphere
through the outsourcing of training activities ‘conveys the acceptability of
moving beween public and private forces’ (Leander 2005b: 617). This is indeed
one of the more paradoxical outcomes of the privatization of military training
in a context in which the US military in Iraq is simultaneously worried about
the presence of Iraqi security personnel in ‘private militias’ and complaining
about the fact that ‘half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents’ (New York
Times 2007).
Conclusion
In this article, I have tried to conceptualize what might be at stake in the
political relations involving the civil–military assemblage of contemporary
interventionism on the one hand and the ‘local’ populations of post-
intervention environments on the other. This has been done through a
framework highlighting the possible contributions of a social and relational
theory of the political focusing on the effects of processes of (de-)politicization.
It has hopefully allowed to account for the role of struggles for political (de-)
legitimization, of diverging representations of the locale of the political and of
asymmetric power relations within the political process. In a context of
institutional change, in which the ‘ordinary’ field of politics has been
suspended by the very rationale of military intervention, these aspects indeed
have to be accounted for. The aim has been to show that critical approaches to
security might develop their scope if situating their analyses within a broader
theory of the political.
However it goes without saying that, while the political violence prevailing in
Afghanistan and Iraq has to be situated within the specific structuration of
political relations in post-intervention environments, it is not predetermined by
explanatory laws. Rather, this article has tried to show that this structuration
Christian Olsson
357
constitutes the conditions of possibility of violent practice. The aim has hence
been to show that, when adopting a framework focusing on the role and the
effects of political relations and processes, this violence can be interpreted
without resorting to causal mechanisms involving cultural or ideological
determinations.
This article hence argues against international policies without local politics
and conflict-resolution without political solution. While this is easier said than
done, a necessary starting point is, however, to recognize that the flaws of the
current approaches are not accidental. They are embedded in the very rationale
of many of the intervening actors. Indeed, both the ahistorical human needs
theories of the humanitarians and the asociological power materialism of many
security professionals fail to approach the political dynamics at play in post-
intervention environments. If these actors have not in some cases contributed
to the radicalization of violence, they at least have fatally failed in curbing the
political conflicts wreaking havoc in post-intervention environments.
Notes
1 I do not claim, however, these three categories to encompass all definitions of the political, nor
do I claim this classification to be the only possible one. I find them, however, useful in the
presentation of the wide variety of approaches to the political.
2 Although the positions of Schmitt and of Freund are very close, just as they were close as
academics and friends, here we place them in separate categories because Freund, inspired by
Aristotle, has explicitly wanted to give priority to the ‘essence’ over the ‘criterion’, while Schmitt
has rather done the reverse.
3 Actually, she borrows this criterion from David Easton (1965).
4 Of course, I am inspired here by the developments made by the ‘Copenhagen School’ in IR
theory (Wæver 1995; Buzan et al. 1998) insisting on the fact that ‘security’ is both an ‘auto-
referential concept’ and what linguistic pragmatism calls an ‘essentially contested concept’.
Although the political is also an ‘essentially contested concept’, it cannot be contested that all
definitions of the political refer in one way or another to the fundamental anthropological
condition of collective life.
5 Securitization is the process of transformation of a societal problem into a security problem,
through discourse Wæver would add. Conversely, desecuritization is the transformation of a
security-issue into a non-security-related issue.
6 The process of de-politicization being the transformation of a political issue into an apolitical
one: social, private, economic, etc.
7 The paradox is, however, that Wæver considers the process of securitization to lead to the
suspension of ‘ordinary politics’ (cf. Aradau 2004, 2006).
8 Jean Leca has established the relation between the political and the fundamental human
condition of collective life in very clear terms.
9 According to Luigi Ferrajoli, Police operations are defined by the fact that they claim to be the
expression of a symbolically ‘superior order’, the legal and political order. If they pursue
individuals who also claim to act in the name of a ‘superior order’, a clash between narratives
occurs (Ferrajoli 2001).
358
10 The field of politics indeed ‘normally’ tends to become the center of attraction of (de-)
politicization processes, thus homogenizing representations through a process of diffusion into
the ‘social body’. This can be explained in Bourdieu-inspired terms by the social position of the
professionals of politics who enounce in the social space. But this only accounts for part of the
explanation since these professionals do not usually have the monopoly on performative
political discourses. Another explanation is that the political processes that occur outside of the
field of politics are usually integrated into the ‘official’ political agenda if they reach a critical
mass due to tactical interests on the part of politicians. This is for example currently happening
with the topics highlighted by the ‘anti-globalization movement’. This is often consistent with
the strategy of the ‘non-official’ political actors: they want their point of view to be integrated
into the official institutional agenda. It is notably the explicit aim of the demonstrations at G8
summits.
11 By ‘assemblage’, I refer here to the English translation of the term ‘dispositif’ used by Foucault
to describe a ‘resolutely heterogeneous set, including discourses, institutions, architectural
arrangements, reglementary decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific utterances,
philosophical propositions, morals [y] in short: discursive as well as non-discursive elements
[y]. The assemblage itself is the networked relations one can establish between these elements’
(Foucault 1997: 299, own translation).
12 In the sense that the motivations of the ‘local’ actors involved are thought of as having nothing
to do with their conception of what is essentially linked to their condition of collective life.
13 See also: Headquarters, Department of the US Army, FM 3-24 ‘Counterinsurgency’, June 2006.
14 It goes without saying that I am not here referring to the contemporary military doctrine of
‘Effect Based Operations’ (EBOs).
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About the author

Christian Olsson is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the Institut
D’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po/CERI) and Associate Researcher at
the Centre d’Etudes sur les Conflits/revue Cultures et Conflits.

The Politics of The Apolitical - Private Military Companies, Humanitarians and The Quest For (Anti-) Politics in Post-Intervention Environments

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The politics of the apolitical: private military

companies, humanitarians and the quest for

Keywords: humanitarian organizations; military intervention; political; private

in the political processes that characterize military interventions in ‘local’

Bringing the Political Back into Social Theory: Politicization and

concept’s tendency to crystallize social oppositions: once an issue is labeled as

we know it and is present, independently of time and space, in different forms

in the case of Strange). However, by focusing solely on the objective structure

of politicization and securitization imply to focus on their social effects, on

A framework for the analysis of the processes of politicization and

A political actor is not only a social agent that is part of a political

degree of reciprocity. Indeed, by definition, authority only exists, provided it is

through the effective marginalization of divergent voices. Indeed, as noted by

If these mechanisms do not operate, political uncertainty might foster

In other words, different interpretations of legitimate violence characterize

While the reactions to the US presence were primarily determined in the

Parts of these political dynamics have been highlighted by the so-called

Another strategy, in the face of groups engaging in seemingly irreducible forms

Externalizing Interventionism to PMCs and Humanitarian

organizations as well as the military — which have different rationales and

The privatization of security: from the anti-politics of pacification to the political

The unintentional politicization of humanitarian actors and the logic of violent

elements motivated by anti-Western or anti-Christian hatred, and this

The role of PMCs in the training of ‘local’ security professionals: securitization

military training, not only on the intervening countries’ military profession-

practices are never value-neutral. Security practices require a specific value

likely to have concrete political effects by creating the conditions of possibility

Guzzini, Stefano (2000) ‘A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations’, European

About the author

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