The global trend for contracting out the supply of military and security services is growing. Security is being transformed from a service for the public or common good into a privately provided service. The present paper by Nikolaos Tzifakis argues that the implications of outsourcing security...

In this Chapter, Hannah Tonkin examines in detail the challenges that confront states in supervising and managing private military and security companies (PMSCs) effectively in the field, particularly in weak or conflict-prone states. Effective management of PMSCs is problematic and the stakes...

It was Robert Nozick who, distinguishing the classical Liberal ‘night-watchman state' which protected citizens against violence and enforced contracts on their behalf, conjured instead the ‘ultraminimal state' in which the task of the state is confined to the monopolisation of violence...