To Build or To Buy: Understanding the Determinants of Security Privatization
In recent years, private military companies (PMCs), firms that sell services traditionally provided for by state militaries, such as logistics, training of forces, and participation in combat, have participated frequently in conflicts worldwide. Although the use of PMCs has become increasingly popular, little research has been done to ascertain the determinants of a leader’s decision to privatize security. Instead, the Political Science literature generally assumes that states hold a monopoly over the use of force. I argue that delegation of security tasks is more common than we assume and that insights from agency theory can help us better understand this phenomenon. Leaders, motivated to retain their positions of power, will choose to privatize when the costs of contracting with PMCs are low (such as with the protection of site-specific appropriable assets, i.e. mines) and the costs of employing the state military are high (when the military and leader have disparate preferences, i.e. after a coup attempt). I test my theory using an original quantitative dataset on the privatization of security in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as qualitative case studies.
Of Regimes and Resource Revenue: Contracting for Combat Services in Sub-Saharan Africa
This paper explores the connection between natural resource wealth in developing states and the decision regimes make to privatize security. The literature on the ‘resource curse’ is silent on this issue, whereas I offer a theory of why these states privatize security services, particularly those near the tip of the spear, those involving actual participation in combat, as opposed providing support and logistics. The reasoning is not that these regimes are ‘bad’ or unresponsive, but is rather a product of two factors related to the site-specificity of natural resource wealth: (1) because the economic livelihood of the regime is based on site-specific assets, they are much easier and therefore more likely to be contested and appropriated by internal challengers; and (2) it is easier and therefore less costly to contract for services protecting or reclaiming site-specific assets. Original quantitative and qualitative data on security privatization in sub-Saharan Africa from 1990-2010 supports my theory.
Military Privatization and Coup-proofing in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990-2010
Why do some leaders decide to hire private companies to provide security, rather than producing it internally? And why do regimes privatize some areas of security, but not others? Using contracting theory, this paper argues that regimes facing internal existential threats will be more likely to hire private military companies (PMCs), and that the relationship between the regime and the military will determine what types of services are privatized. When civil-military relations are ‘bad’ (there has been a recent coup event) regimes are more likely to hire PMCs to actively participate in combat, ostensibly replacing mutinous forces; when civil-relations are good, PMCs are more frequently hired to train already-existing state forces, adding capacity to loyal forces. In this way, privatization can function as a coup-proofing device for weak regimes. Quantitative and qualitative data from sub-Saharan Africa from 1990-2010 support my theory.
Measuring Power Projection
With Jonathan Markowitz, Therese Anders (PhD Student), Jacob Tucker (UG Alum), and Lauren Cholakian (UG Alum)
Deployments of military force represent some of the most dramatic and closely followed actions on the world stage. Some scholars have boldly asserted that countries have dramatically increased their military activity and presence in the Arctic and the South China Sea, but it is unclear what data these assertions are based upon. Has there been an increase in the frequency or intensity of military deployments? If so, compared to what baseline? Many of these military deployments, or more precisely, what we code as ‘military activity events,’ may alter the strategic context the ground or at sea, but until they escalate to crises or disputes, they are not be recorded by existing datasets. As a result, the vast majority of shifts in states’ military activity are never recorded by these datasets. This project is a first step to develop a more inclusive indicator of a state’s military activity—measuring the frequency and intensity with which states choose to project power beyond their own borders.
Civil-Military Relations and the U.S. Military’s Use of Social Media
How does the US military use its social media channels to communicate and what implications do these communications have for civil-military relations and operational security? Using a unique dataset of all tweets sent by official US military accounts, I am able to identify characteristics of the US military’s media and messages, as well as the contexts in which they tweet such as location and time. I differentiate between the active and passive sharing of information within these tweets and look particularly at circumstances in which military accounts have unintentionally shared information about ongoing operations or in which they have intentionally obscured the topic or target of the tweet (a practice known as ‘sub-tweeting’). This paper contributes to a growing literature on the way in which political/government entities use social media and provides necessary context for the study of civil-military relations in the digital age.
Replicating the Resource Curse: Ross (2004) and Prospects for Qualitative Replication
With Jonathan Markowitz, Sarah Orsborn (UG Alum) Srividya Dasaraju (UG Alum), Lindsay Lauder (UG Alum), and Isabelle Nazha (UG Alum)
Winner of the 2020 Kendra Koivu Award for Best Paper in Qualitative Methods Presented at the APSA Annual Meeting
Draft available here:10.31222/osf.io/bd6yk
The ‘replication crisis’ in quantitative social science has motivated a re-assessment of previous findings and a re-thinking of approaches to research to increase transparency. Unfortunately, these changes have been slower in coming amongst scholars that use qualitative methods. Many have questioned whether applying the model of replicability to qualitative work is appropriate or, even, possible. While the question of appropriateness is outside of the scope of this paper, we do demonstrate that it is indeed possible and can provide illuminating results. We provide a model for qualitative replication using Michael Ross’ (2004) seminal paper on the connection between natural resources and civil war. The paper, which has been cited approximately 1000 times, uses information from thirteen cases to uncover the mechanisms that connect natural resource wealth to the onset, severity, and duration of civil wars. Using Ross’ sources and his own case notes, we sought to replicate the study and verify its findings. We find that roughly twenty percent of the case observations are mis-coded in some way (conceptual issues, measurement issues, missing data), calling in to question the validity of Ross’ findings. However, the replication exercise demonstrates a way forward—how we might design future research to further adjudicate to Ross’ claims and how we might apply lessons from this study to future qualitative replication efforts.
Resources, Conflict, and Causal Mechanisms: A Re-evaluation