ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the interaction between private military and security companies (PMSCs) and humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In the International Relations discipline, the concept of identity has acquired its status as an analytical category only recently with the so-called constructivist turn and the burgeoning of research informed by post-structuralist, feminist and constructivist approaches. As we find PMSCs taking on a humanitarian identity, humanitarian NGOs are appropriating language typical of the corporate sector. PMSCs are defined here as transnational companies selling military and police-related services, including protection of persons, compounds or equipment, training, surveillance or risk assessments. The NGOs stress their vast expertise of having worked with victims of conflict or natural disasters and use statistical figures to support their claims. Three trends politicisation, marketisation and militarisation provide clues as to why NGOs increasingly exhibit a managerial face. Commercialisation and militarisation are two of potentially more trends which might precipitate the alignment we observe among PMSCs and humanitarian NGOs.
