TY - JOUR
T1 - No Accounting for Bad Contracting
T2 - Private Military and Security Contracts and Ineffective Regulation in Conflict Areas
AU - Swed, Ori
AU - Materne, Adam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - The proliferation of contracts outsourcing military functions to private companies raises serious oversight concerns vis-à-vis regulation and accountability. As the industry is emerging, regulation of these outsourced function is considered weak. While critics predict an unchecked industry, supporters have defended the lack of an adequate accountability mechanism by touting self-regulation as a potential solution. Following this discussion, we examine whether the frequency of contractor violations and legal repercussions within the overall contracting industry differed between those in the burgeoning security-contracting community and those in the traditional contracting community. We utilize a preexisting dataset of American contractors’ misconduct to compare military contacting to non-military contracting and military contractors to non-military contractors. Our results indicate that contracting military functions is associated with higher levels of violations and lower levels of legal repercussions, while military contractor companies themselves are not associated with higher levels of violations or legal repercussion. These findings support calls for improved oversight of conflict area’s contracting in order to prevent contractors’ misconduct with impunity.
AB - The proliferation of contracts outsourcing military functions to private companies raises serious oversight concerns vis-à-vis regulation and accountability. As the industry is emerging, regulation of these outsourced function is considered weak. While critics predict an unchecked industry, supporters have defended the lack of an adequate accountability mechanism by touting self-regulation as a potential solution. Following this discussion, we examine whether the frequency of contractor violations and legal repercussions within the overall contracting industry differed between those in the burgeoning security-contracting community and those in the traditional contracting community. We utilize a preexisting dataset of American contractors’ misconduct to compare military contacting to non-military contracting and military contractors to non-military contractors. Our results indicate that contracting military functions is associated with higher levels of violations and lower levels of legal repercussions, while military contractor companies themselves are not associated with higher levels of violations or legal repercussion. These findings support calls for improved oversight of conflict area’s contracting in order to prevent contractors’ misconduct with impunity.
KW - Accountability
KW - Contracts
KW - Oversight
KW - Private military contractors
KW - Regulation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104271364&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12116-021-09327-8
DO - 10.1007/s12116-021-09327-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85104271364
SN - 0039-3606
VL - 57
SP - 36
EP - 62
JO - Studies in Comparative International Development
JF - Studies in Comparative International Development
IS - 1
ER -