Military Privatization and the Evolution of State Power

Cusumano, Eugenio

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16423-1_2

Eugenio Cusumano²

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Abstract

Drawing on military history and historical sociology, the chapter challenges some of the oversimplifications attached to the notion of a state monopoly of violence. To that end, it presents past commercial providers of military functions, highlighting the pivotal role played by these actors in European state formation processes. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the diffusion of universal conscription across Europe enabled rulers to mobilize much greater military power at lower financial costs, but also imposed new constraints on war-making, which have increasingly tightened over the last decades. Consequently, today’s use of PMSCs belies any simplistic association between military privatization and a decline of state powers. By providing new ways to circumvent political constraints on soldiers’ mobilization, military privatization may actually increase state decision-makers’ ability to employ force abroad.

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Notes

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103.
This possibility is acknowledged by Avant (2005: 49).

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Political and Juridical Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
Eugenio Cusumano

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Cusumano, E. (2023). Military Privatization and the Evolution of State Power. In: Mobilization Constraints and Military Privatization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16423-1_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16423-1_2
Published: 13 December 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-16422-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-16423-1
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