Governing (Post-)Conflict Spaces

On June 6 , 2014 the corporate ownership of Academi, which is the current name of the private military and security company (PMSC)  that began its operational life as Blackwater, merged with The Constellis Group, which is a group of companies that includes the PMSC Triple Canopy, to form Constellis Holdings Inc. Now this is an admittedly niche news story to discuss for my first post to the Calgary Centre for Global Community blog, but this corporate merger does mean and reveal some rather interesting things about the contemporary governance of (post-)conflict spaces.  For instance, with this merger, Constellis Holdings becomes the key commercial provider of security guards for the United States’ Department of State (DOS), particularly for protective services in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Beyond the potential for better looking balance sheets, Constellis’ position as a key provider of security guards to the DOS signals the continued import of commercially sourced services to the day-to-day going-ons of (post-)conflict spaces.  Protective services, i.e. armed guarding of persons, places and things, have in recent history been thoroughly scrutinized by academic, media, government and civil-society investigators and analysts - with due cause.  During the mid-2000s in Afghanistan and Iraq, PMSCs under contract to the DOS committed and were alleged to have committed a litany of egregious, unethical and illegal activities of which Blackwater were front and centre.  The problems with Blackwater’s operations in Iraq became so troubling that the PMSC was ordered to leave the country in 2010. Although the exploits of commercially sourced armed men are a significant feature of the recent historical/contemporary landscape of (post-)conflict spaces the operations of and services provided by PMSCs extend far beyond protective services.  Indeed the homepage for The Constellis Group boasts that its “family of businesses” provide “complementary security, support and advisory services” to a range of clients “working in challenging environments worldwide”.  Such services include risk-assessment and mitigation, materiel transport and logistics, project management and consulting and market research, which in the case of Strategic Social involves in-depth socio-cultural research. 

The clientele of PMSCs are also not limited to the military, diplomatic, development or intelligence apparatus of nation-states.  Multinational corporations, especially those involved in the resource and logistics sector, aid and development non-governmental organizations as well as private individuals have all and continue to seek the services of PMSCs.  This diverse array of services and clientele also ensures that PMSCs operate, whether corporately or in the field, on every continent save for Antarctica and recruit their contractors from and through global labour markets.  As Rita Abrahamsen and Michael Williams point out in their influential book Security Beyond the State PMSCs are representative of as well as an integral productive aspect of the agential and structural changes that have effected how (post-)conflict spaces are governed over the past fourteen years.  Accordingly, the contemporary governance of (post-)conflict spaces involves a complex arrangement of political, economic, military and security relations amongst globally influential and locally effectual agents and structures alike.  PMSCs serve as both the vessels and in the case of the individual contractors the literal bodies through which other agents express and enact global influence and local effect.   PMSCs themselves must also be recognized as influential and effectual agents and not simply for egregious, unethical and illegal activities.

Likewise the global and local rearrangements of political, economic, military and security relations brought on by processes of globalization, neo-liberalization, securitization and digitization are readily manifested by and through the work of PMSCs.  This work most readily seeks to increase the security, mobility, functionality, efficiency and profitability of certain people, resources and finances. By increasing security, mobility, functionality, efficiency and profitability the work of PMSCs extends the influence the aforementioned processes not only in (post-)conflict spaces, but less violate locales as well.  For instance, the global daily dependence on oil and other fossil fuel based products is utterly dependent upon the work of PMSCs particularly in Northern and Western Africa and the Persian Gulf.  The formation of Constellis Holdings Inc. may only garner interest from the financial media and thus be of niche interest to investors or subject matter experts.  It, as asserted in this post, can also serve as significant reminder of the complex arrangements of global and local structures and agents that are involved in the governance of contemporary (post-)conflict spaces.   

Chris Hendershot
PhD Candidate & Graduate Fellow 
York Centre for International and Security Studies