Contracting—An American Way of Governance: Post-9/11 Constitutional Choices

In earlier ages, today’s modern Western states relied on nongovernmental actors to perform core “governmental” activities under contractual arrangements-tax collection, public finance, war fighting, and building and maintaining empires (Corvisier 1979; De Soto 1989; Ferguson 1999; Kamen 2002; Mallett 1999; Petrie 1999; Schama 1989; Strayer 1970: Strouse 2000; Taylor 2001; Wild 2000).1 In the global transformation from government to governance-the performance of public purposes by a mix of state, market, and civil society actors2-the United States is the pioneer in the renewed deployment of private contractors to perform the basic work of government.