This book explores the privatization of space and its global impact on the future of commerce, peace and conflict. As space becomes more congested, contested, and competitive in the government and the private arenas, the talk around space research moves past NASA’s monopoly on academic and cultural imaginations to discuss how Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is making space "cool" again. This volume addresses the new rhetoric of space race and weaponization, with a focus on how the costs of potential conflict in space would discourage open conflict and enable global cooperation. It highlights the increasing dependence of the global economy on space research, its democratization, plunging costs of access, and growing economic potential of space-based assets. Thoughtful, nuanced, well-documented, this book is a must read for scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, space studies, political studies, sociology, environmental studies, and political economy. It will also be of much interest to policymakers, bureaucrats, think tanks, as well as the interested general reader looking for fresh perspectives on the future of space.

In this timely work, the author analyzes the use of private military firms and international interventions of the military. Outsourcing to the private sector takes missions away from the military, but the shift towards international intervention adds new, wider functions to the traditional role of defence. If these two trends continue at the present pace, important security functions will be out of control of parliaments, national governments and international authorities. The state monopoly of violence - an achievement of civilization - is at stake.

Privatizing Peace: From Conflict to Security pinpoints the weaknesses in the numerous peacekeeping missions of recent decades, as well as the blind spots in the thinking that guided them. Even more significantly, they clearly demonstrate the ways in which well-meaning stabilization and reconstruction programs fail to accommodate the economic and social imperatives of war-torn societies. But this visionary work is not merely an indictment of First World myopia in the face of Third World devastation. The authors offer cogent, well-thought-out recommendations, firmly grounded in current reality, with a powerful determination to avoid the repetition of past mistakes. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have been used in every peace operation since 1990, and reliance on them is increasing at a time when peace operations themselves are becoming ever more complex. This book provides an essential foundation for the emerging debate on the use of PMSCs in this context. It clarifies key issues such as whether their use complies with the principles of peacekeeping, outlines the implications of the status of private contractors as non-combatants under international humanitarian law, and identifies potential problems in holding states and international organizations responsible for their unlawful acts. Written as a clarion call for greater transparency, this book aims to inform the discussion to ensure that international lawyers and policy makers ask the right questions and take the necessary steps so that states and international organizations respect the law when endeavouring to keep peace in an increasingly privatized world.

Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition—what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome—defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking. The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.

The book concludes with an assessment of the complexities surrounding responses to security privatization - and an exploration of when, and whether, it should be promoted rather than prevented."--BOOK JACKET.

With inevitable major economic and political transformations ahead, NGOs need to acknowledge and manage their policy dilemmas so that they can anticipate the many inevitable problems that consistently arise in attempting to avoid the return of war by building peace over the medium to long-term