The Rise of Transnational Corporate Military Service Provision

The provision of military and armed security services typically is the monopoly domain of the state. With the end of the Cold War legitimate private firms, however, expanded as worldwide providers of military and security services. The proliferation of private military companies echoes back to pre-modern eras when it was customary for state rulers to allocate force and security through the market. This study therefore aims to explore and explain the rapid rise of transnational corporate military service provision in our time, and to ground this change process historically by exploring the economic history of private military service provision. Historically this study primarily addresses private military service provision during Medieval and Early Modern periods. During these eras state and local rulers relied on contractual institutions to employ military companies and other private military actors. To explain the rise of private military service provision in our time this study explores global institutional changes, national institutional arrangements and military privatization paths, and the proliferation of transnational private military companies. This study demonstrates that the capacity of the modern state to control