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The New World of Privatized Violence
Stefan Mair*
Summary
In retrospect, the 1990s might not have marked the end of history but the replacement of states as aggressors and main threat to international security by non-state, private actors of violence. September 11 did not trigger off this development but was its preliminary zenith. Bedevilled by the terrorist threat, decision-makers tend either to neglect other forms of privatized violence or to subsume them under terrorism. This does not only misjudge warlords, rebels and organized crime, it makes their containment more difficult. The four ideal types of privatized violence – the three just named plus terrorists – show marked differences in terms of objectives, target groups, and the geographic scope of the use of violence as well as in the relation to the state monopoly on the use of force. They, however, co-operate in different ways and on different levels. The synergies they develop among each other as well as the links they foster with some states, parts of the private sector and even NGOs create an amalgam which will require international attention beyond the campaign against terrorism. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region in which three components of this amalgam are more interlocked than in any other: warlordism, rebellion and organized crime. It is the absence of a genuinely African terrorism which tempts security experts to neglect the region nevertheless. The hope remains that the price of this neglect will not exceed all risk calculations.
*Stefan Mair; Politikwissenschaftler; Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin; stefan.mair@swp-berlin.org (published in International Politics and Society 2/2003)
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