To Escalate, or Not to Escalate? Private Military and Security Companies and Conflict Severity

Nicholas Lees and Ulrich Petersohn

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2023, vol. 46, issue 12, 2622-2645

Abstract: The existing literature is unclear about whether private military and security companies (PMSCs) are a cause of increased conflict severity, or rather are simply hired within more severe conflicts. We argue that PMSCs do increase conflict severity, yet this is the result of an escalation strategy by states to regain territory from rebels. If contracted, PMSCs either substitute for host nation forces, or free up such conventional forces to engage in offensive operations. In both cases the conflict severity increases substantially. This argument is tested with OLS regression using data from 30 weak states from 1990 to 2007.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2021.1935700 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uterxx:v:46:y:2023:i:12:p:2622-2645

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2021.1935700

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().