ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how security outsourcing practices in conflict environments interfere with existing power balances and create new or altered dynamics to local power, and ultimately how that influences the security of the client as well as the local population. It illustrates ways that local power constellations may be affected by security outsourcing, and not least, how local power constellations themselves have translated into the private security market. The chapter suggests that should private security companies (PSC) research pay closer attention to local power dynamics, and should studies of counterinsurgency operations. A large part of the business of PSCs takes place in weak states or states emerging from war. In such contexts, power is often dispersed and power brokers often compete over access to resources, the support of local populations and in some cases become the main source of physical force. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has in recent operations increasingly used locally recruited armed contractors in Afghanistan.
