With the ever farther advancement of globalization, governance has become one of the most prominent theoretical concepts to describe today’s world. Governance theory is concerned with a system of rule through non-hierarchical governing modes, such as networks and market mechanisms. Initially the field of security was ignored, as it was seen as the last bastion of the nation state. When the concept of security governance emerged at the beginning of the millennium, it sought to take account of transnational threats, such as nuclear proliferation or cluster bombs. However, the traditional security domain of the state, i.e. the provision of security by military force, is still exempt from governance theory. Provoked by the increasing support of private actors to military operations, Gloria Westermeyer aims to investigate whether this exemption is still valid. Based on the conduct of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance services in the German ISAF Mission, the author examines the impact of private actors on the governance of today's military affairs. What is the relative power of private security actors vis-à-vis the state? Which factors determine if, to what extent and why private actors support the military? Under what circumstances and how may security functions be privatized without undermining the state's interest?

The privatization of security understood as both the top-down decision to outsource military and security-related tasks to private firms and the bottom-up activities of armed non-state actors such as rebel opposition groups, insurgents, militias, and warlord factions has implications for the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Both top-down and bottom-up privatization have significant consequences for effective, democratically accountable security sector governance as well as on opportunities for security sector reform across a range of different reform contexts. This volume situates security privatization within a broader policy framework, considers several relevant national and regional contexts, and analyzes different modes of regulation and control relating to a phenomenon with deep historical roots but also strong links to more recent trends of globalization and transnationalization. Alan Bryden is deputy head of research at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). Marina Caparini is senior research fellow at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF).

Private actors are increasingly taking on roles traditionally arrogated to the state. Both in the industrialized North and the developing South, functions essential to external and internal security and to the satisfaction of basic human needs are routinely contracted out to non-state agents. In the area of privatization of security functions, attention by academics and policy makers tends to focus on the activities of private military and security companies, especially in the context of armed conflicts, and their impact on human rights and post-conflict stability and reconstruction. The first edited volume emerging from New York University School of Law's Institute for International Justice project on private military and security companies, From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies broadened this debate to situate the private military phenomenon in the context of moves towards the regulation of activities through market and non-market mechanisms. Where that first volume looked at the emerging market for use of force, this second volume looks at the transformations in the nature of state authority. Drawing on insights from work on privatization, regulation, and accountability in the emerging field of global administrative law, the book examines private military and security companies through the wider lens of private actors performing public functions. In the past two decades, the responsibilities delegated to such actors - especially but not only in the United States - have grown exponentially. The central question of this volume is whether there should be any limits on government capacity to outsource traditionally "public" functions. Can and should a government put out to private tender the fulfilment of military, intelligence, and prison services? Can and should it transfer control of utilities essential to life, such as the supply of water? This discussion incorporates numerous perspectives on regulatory and governance issues in the private provision of public functions, but focuses primarily on private actors offering services that impact the fundamental rights of the affected population.

This book explores the unintended consequences of security governance actions and explores how their effects can be limited. Security governance describes new modes of security policy that differ from traditional approaches to national and international security. While traditional security policy used to be the exclusive domain of states and aimed at military defense, security governance is performed by multiple actors and is intended to create a global environment of security for states, social groups, and individuals. By pooling the strength and expertise of states, international organizations, and private actors, security governance is seen to provide more effective and efficient means to cope with today’s security risks. Generally, security governance is assumed to be a good thing, and the most appropriate way of coping with contemporary security problems. This assumption has led scholars to neglect an important phenomenon: unintended consequences. While unintended consequences do not need to be negative, often they are. The CIA term "blowback," for example, refers to the phenomenon that a long nurtured group may turn against its sponsor. The rise of al Qaeda, which had benefited from US Cold War policies, is only one example. Raising awareness about unwanted and even paradoxical policy outcomes and suggesting ways of avoiding damage or limiting their scale, this book will be of much interest to students of security governance, risk management, international security and IR. Christopher Daase is Professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt and head of the research department International Organizations and International Law at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK). Cornelius Friesendorf is lecturer at the Goethe University Frankfurt and research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK).

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

This open access book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions. Specifically, the book shows the strong connections between human rights and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Already the preamble of this document explicitly states that "the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ... seek to realise the human rights of all". Moreover, several goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda correspond to already existing individual human rights obligations. The contributions of this volume therefore also address how the implementation of human rights and SDGs can reinforce each other, but also point to critical shortcomings of the different approaches.

Focusing on four East European polities-Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania--this book examines the dynamics and implications of processes of commercialization of security that have occurred following the collapse of communist regimes. These processes have been central to post-communist liberalization, and have profoundly shaped those states and their integration into European institutional structures and global economic and political circuits. They have also affected -- and been shaped by-- the behaviour and power of regional and global actors (e.g. European institutions, regional, and global corporations) in Eastern Europe. By virtue of the fact that they combine in complex ways local, national, regional, and global dynamics and actors, processes of security commercialization in the former Eastern bloc can be seen as instances of 'glocalization'. Several aspects of security commercialization are particularly important. To begin with, private actors --specifically private security companies (PSCs)-- have been reconstituted as partial agents of public power. As such, they have come to be systematically involved in performing security practices traditionally associated with the state. In addition, a potent commercial logic has come to permeate public security institutions. This has led to redefinition of the relationship between the state and its population in ways that defy conventional wisdom about the role of the state, and pose difficult normative challenges. More broadly, processes of security commercialization in Eastern Europe, which involve important performative dimensions, have led to the emergence of complex, hybrid networks of security providers that transcend domestic/international, public/private boundaries and behave, in many ways, as entrepreneurs.