Private Security, Public Order

Public functions are increasingly being outsourced to the private sector. This includes activities that impact on human rights and security, such as the management of prisons and water facilities. Drawing on insights from various disciplines, this book looks at the costs and benefits of privatization and at whether there are limits to this trend. Top page

Complete description

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. Top page

General info

Publisher & Imprint: Oxford University Press

City: Oxford

Pages: 272

More info: height 234 mm width 156 mm weight 572 gr thickness 20 mm

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Age recommended: General/trade

Subject Indexing & Classification Dewey: 343.015354 Library of Congress Subject: National security

Summary Private Security, Public Order Introduction; PART I: ACCOUNTABILITY GAPS; 1. The privatization of violence; 2. The responsibility of states; 3. Accountability to whom?; PART II: LESSONS FROM OTHER SECTORS; 4. The privatization continuum; 5. Private prisons and the democratic deficit; 6. Regulatory choices in the privatization of infrastructure; 7. Human rights and self-regulation in the apparel industry; PART III: LIMITS; 8. Police informants; 9. Intelligence services; 10. Peacekeeping; 11. Conclusion: Private security, public order Top page

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