Elke Krahmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 325507 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elke Krahmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elke |
| FAMILY NAME | Krahmann |
| SIGNATURE | KRAHMANN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6524-2022 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 200 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Norms and Peace in a Turbulent World
Scholars have long recognized the importance of norms for promoting peace. Yet there are significant gaps in existing scholarship on the complex and multidimensional relationships between norms and peace. This article offers a framework for analyzing these relationships and outlines how the contributions to this Special Issue enable us to gain a better understanding of them. By doing so, we aim to contribute towards systematizing and synthesizing…
From Negative to Positive Peace: How Norms Relate to Different Peace Dimensions
Everyday visuality and risk management: Representing (in)security in UN peacekeeping
Visuality is a central aspect of everyday security governance. In the recent visual turn in International Relations, however, the more mundane and routine visualities of security have been widely neglected. To address this gap, this article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of visual representations, ranging from press photos and educational images to outwardly appearances. Taking the…
Contracting Security: Markets in the Making of Monusco Peacekeeping
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are increasingly contracted to provide security in international peacekeeping missions. Yet, we know very little about the practical implications of this development. How do PMSCs reinforce and shape security management within UN peacekeeping operations, and what are the consequences for UN missions and their host populations? To answer these questions, we explore the operational, representative and…
Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity
Global governance is frequently criticised because of major legitimacy deficits, including lack of public accountability and democratic control. Within this context, questions about the legitimacy of non-state governance actors, such as non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations and private security companies, are neither an exception nor a surprise. Many actors have, therefore, turned to the measurement of performance, defined as…
From performance to performativity: The legitimization of US security contracting and its consequences
Discussions about the legitimacy of private security companies (PSCs) in multilateral military interventions abound. This article looks at how the United States has sought to legitimize the outsourcing of security services to PSCs through performance-based contracting and performance assessments. Both mechanisms aim to demonstrate the effective provision of publicly desirable outcomes. However, the immaterial and socially constructed nature of se…
Choice, voice, and exit: Consumer power and the self-regulation of the private security industry
Promoting Private Security Company (PSC) self-regulation has become a key focus due to high profile scandals during the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Related efforts include the Montreux Document, the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), American National Standards Institute/ASIS certification, and the new International Standards Organization (ISO) Management System Standard for Private Se…
Nato contracting in Afghanistan: The Problem of Principal-Agent Networks
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) play a growing role in international military and peacekeeping operations. Very little is known, however, about the fact that not only the United States relies extensively on contractors, but so do international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article examines NATO's collaboration with PMSCs during its leadership of the International Security Assistance Forc…
From ‘Mercenaries’ to ‘Private Security Contractors’: The (Re)Construction of Armed Security Providers in International Legal Discourses
The proliferation of armed security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to widespread criticism of their insufficient control through international laws and conventions. This article suggests that one reason for this omission has been the (re)construction of actors who provide armed force for profit in international legal discourses. During most of the 20th century, armed persons who participated in foreign conflicts for monetary gain wer…
Beck and beyond: Selling security in the world risk society
Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this article examines the role of the private security industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated, but require permanent ri…
States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security
Recent years have seen a growing role for private military contractors in national and international security. To understand the reasons for this, Elke Krahmann examines changing models of the state, the citizen and the soldier in the UK, the US and Germany. She focuses on both the national differences with regard to the outsourcing of military services to private companies and their specific consequences for the democratic control over the legit…
Security: Collective Good or Commodity
The state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Europe and North America has been central to the development of security as a collective good. Not only has it institutionalized the state as the prime national and international security provider, it has helped to reduce the threat from other actors by either prohibiting or limiting their use of violence. The recent growth of the private security industry appears to undermine this view. Not…
American Hegemony or Global Governance? Competing Visions of International Security
Since the 1990s, the concepts of global and security governance have emerged as new frameworks for the analysis of international relations. The proponents of these approaches have argued that we are witnessing a transformation in global politics through the simultaneous dynamics of integration and fragmentation. The result of these two dynamics is a shift away from the state as the primary authority and actor in international affairs, thus challe…
Regulating Private Military Companies: What Role for the EU
Following allegations that private security guards were involved in the torture of Iraqi prisoners and in the wake an attempted coup by private mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea, the proliferation of so-called 'private military companies' (PMCs) is receiving considerable attention. Of particular concern is the lack of effective national and international controls of the industry. This article argues that much of the current debate about PMCs under…
Security Governance and Networks: New Theoretical Perspectives in Transatlantic Security
The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for th…
Security governance and the private military industry in Europe and North America: Analysis
Even before Iraq, the grow ing use of private military contractors has been widely discussed in the academic and public literature. However, the reasons for the proliferation of private military companies and its implications are frequently generalized due to a lack of suitable theoretical approaches for the analysis of private means of violence in contemporary security. Consequently, this article contends, the analysis of the growth of the priva…
Les études sur la sécurité et la défense au Royaume-Uni: Institutions, débats et perspectives de recherche
Cet article a pour but de passer en revue certains thèmes majeurs abordés actuellement au sein de la recherche sur la défense et la sécurité au Royaume-Uni. En offrant une synthèse des questions traitées dans les universités et les centres de recherches de ce pays, nous souhaitons également accroître la visibilité de la recherche britannique sur la sécurité et la défense auprès d’un public international et interdisciplinaire. À cette fin, nous av…
International Relations
The governance of European security
This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involvin…
Conceptualizing Security Governance
This article examines the changing transatlantic security architecture since the end of the Cold War. It argues that the absence of a unifying military threat and the subsequent broadening of the notion of security from states to societies has led to the increasing differentiation of security policy arrangements since the beginning of the 1990s. Not only have international institutions proliferated since the end of bipolarity, private actors — su…
National, Regional, and Global Governance: One Phenomenon or Many
Since the 1980s, the concept of governance has increasingly been employed to describe policymaking in the national, regional, and global arenas. Definitions and uses of governance, however, are as varied as the issues and levels of analysis to which the concept is applied. They range from definitions that subsume any form of social coordination to policymaking in the absence of an overarching political authority, from descriptions of the withdraw…
One in, all in?’ Nato's next enlargement
In 1999 NATO heads of state invited three states to join the alliance and are set to invite yet more states to join in November 2002 at the Prague summit. At present there are ten states that have declared their interest in gaining accession to NATO councils, and the prospect is that even more states will most likely be interested in joining in the years to come. The question for NATO is no longer whether to enlarge but how to manage enlargement.…
Conceptualizing Security Governance
This article examines the changing transatlantic security architecture since the end of the Cold War. It argues that the absence of a unifying military threat and the subsequent broadening of the notion of security from states to societies has led to the increasing differentiation of security policy arrangements since the beginning of the 1990s. Not only have international institutions proliferated since the end of bipolarity, private actors — su…
From ‘Mercenaries’ to ‘Private Security Contractors’: The (Re)Construction of Armed Security Providers in International Legal Discourses
The proliferation of armed security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to widespread criticism of their insufficient control through international laws and conventions. This article suggests that one reason for this omission has been the (re)construction of actors who provide armed force for profit in international legal discourses. During most of the 20th century, armed persons who participated in foreign conflicts for monetary gain wer…
Security: Collective Good or Commodity
The state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Europe and North America has been central to the development of security as a collective good. Not only has it institutionalized the state as the prime national and international security provider, it has helped to reduce the threat from other actors by either prohibiting or limiting their use of violence. The recent growth of the private security industry appears to undermine this view. Not…
The governance of European security
This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involvin…
Security Governance and Networks: New Theoretical Perspectives in Transatlantic Security
The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for th…
Contracting Security: Markets in the Making of Monusco Peacekeeping
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are increasingly contracted to provide security in international peacekeeping missions. Yet, we know very little about the practical implications of this development. How do PMSCs reinforce and shape security management within UN peacekeeping operations, and what are the consequences for UN missions and their host populations? To answer these questions, we explore the operational, representative and…
Beck and beyond: Selling security in the world risk society
Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this article examines the role of the private security industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated, but require permanent ri…
National, Regional, and Global Governance: One Phenomenon or Many
Since the 1980s, the concept of governance has increasingly been employed to describe policymaking in the national, regional, and global arenas. Definitions and uses of governance, however, are as varied as the issues and levels of analysis to which the concept is applied. They range from definitions that subsume any form of social coordination to policymaking in the absence of an overarching political authority, from descriptions of the withdraw…
From performance to performativity: The legitimization of US security contracting and its consequences
Discussions about the legitimacy of private security companies (PSCs) in multilateral military interventions abound. This article looks at how the United States has sought to legitimize the outsourcing of security services to PSCs through performance-based contracting and performance assessments. Both mechanisms aim to demonstrate the effective provision of publicly desirable outcomes. However, the immaterial and socially constructed nature of se…
American Hegemony or Global Governance? Competing Visions of International Security
Since the 1990s, the concepts of global and security governance have emerged as new frameworks for the analysis of international relations. The proponents of these approaches have argued that we are witnessing a transformation in global politics through the simultaneous dynamics of integration and fragmentation. The result of these two dynamics is a shift away from the state as the primary authority and actor in international affairs, thus challe…
Security governance and the private military industry in Europe and North America: Analysis
Even before Iraq, the grow ing use of private military contractors has been widely discussed in the academic and public literature. However, the reasons for the proliferation of private military companies and its implications are frequently generalized due to a lack of suitable theoretical approaches for the analysis of private means of violence in contemporary security. Consequently, this article contends, the analysis of the growth of the priva…
Everyday visuality and risk management: Representing (in)security in UN peacekeeping
Visuality is a central aspect of everyday security governance. In the recent visual turn in International Relations, however, the more mundane and routine visualities of security have been widely neglected. To address this gap, this article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of visual representations, ranging from press photos and educational images to outwardly appearances. Taking the…
Choice, voice, and exit: Consumer power and the self-regulation of the private security industry
Promoting Private Security Company (PSC) self-regulation has become a key focus due to high profile scandals during the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Related efforts include the Montreux Document, the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), American National Standards Institute/ASIS certification, and the new International Standards Organization (ISO) Management System Standard for Private Se…
Nato contracting in Afghanistan: The Problem of Principal-Agent Networks
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) play a growing role in international military and peacekeeping operations. Very little is known, however, about the fact that not only the United States relies extensively on contractors, but so do international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article examines NATO's collaboration with PMSCs during its leadership of the International Security Assistance Forc…
Regulating Private Military Companies: What Role for the EU
Following allegations that private security guards were involved in the torture of Iraqi prisoners and in the wake an attempted coup by private mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea, the proliferation of so-called 'private military companies' (PMCs) is receiving considerable attention. Of particular concern is the lack of effective national and international controls of the industry. This article argues that much of the current debate about PMCs under…
Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity
Global governance is frequently criticised because of major legitimacy deficits, including lack of public accountability and democratic control. Within this context, questions about the legitimacy of non-state governance actors, such as non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations and private security companies, are neither an exception nor a surprise. Many actors have, therefore, turned to the measurement of performance, defined as…
One in, all in?’ Nato's next enlargement
In 1999 NATO heads of state invited three states to join the alliance and are set to invite yet more states to join in November 2002 at the Prague summit. At present there are ten states that have declared their interest in gaining accession to NATO councils, and the prospect is that even more states will most likely be interested in joining in the years to come. The question for NATO is no longer whether to enlarge but how to manage enlargement.…
One in, all in?’ Nato's next enlargement
In 1999 NATO heads of state invited three states to join the alliance and are set to invite yet more states to join in November 2002 at the Prague summit. At present there are ten states that have declared their interest in gaining accession to NATO councils, and the prospect is that even more states will most likely be interested in joining in the years to come. The question for NATO is no longer whether to enlarge but how to manage enlargement.…
Conceptualizing Security Governance
This article examines the changing transatlantic security architecture since the end of the Cold War. It argues that the absence of a unifying military threat and the subsequent broadening of the notion of security from states to societies has led to the increasing differentiation of security policy arrangements since the beginning of the 1990s. Not only have international institutions proliferated since the end of bipolarity, private actors — su…
National, Regional, and Global Governance: One Phenomenon or Many
Since the 1980s, the concept of governance has increasingly been employed to describe policymaking in the national, regional, and global arenas. Definitions and uses of governance, however, are as varied as the issues and levels of analysis to which the concept is applied. They range from definitions that subsume any form of social coordination to policymaking in the absence of an overarching political authority, from descriptions of the withdraw…
Les études sur la sécurité et la défense au Royaume-Uni: Institutions, débats et perspectives de recherche
Cet article a pour but de passer en revue certains thèmes majeurs abordés actuellement au sein de la recherche sur la défense et la sécurité au Royaume-Uni. En offrant une synthèse des questions traitées dans les universités et les centres de recherches de ce pays, nous souhaitons également accroître la visibilité de la recherche britannique sur la sécurité et la défense auprès d’un public international et interdisciplinaire. À cette fin, nous av…
International Relations
The governance of European security
This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involvin…
American Hegemony or Global Governance? Competing Visions of International Security
Since the 1990s, the concepts of global and security governance have emerged as new frameworks for the analysis of international relations. The proponents of these approaches have argued that we are witnessing a transformation in global politics through the simultaneous dynamics of integration and fragmentation. The result of these two dynamics is a shift away from the state as the primary authority and actor in international affairs, thus challe…
Regulating Private Military Companies: What Role for the EU
Following allegations that private security guards were involved in the torture of Iraqi prisoners and in the wake an attempted coup by private mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea, the proliferation of so-called 'private military companies' (PMCs) is receiving considerable attention. Of particular concern is the lack of effective national and international controls of the industry. This article argues that much of the current debate about PMCs under…
Security Governance and Networks: New Theoretical Perspectives in Transatlantic Security
The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for th…
Security governance and the private military industry in Europe and North America: Analysis
Even before Iraq, the grow ing use of private military contractors has been widely discussed in the academic and public literature. However, the reasons for the proliferation of private military companies and its implications are frequently generalized due to a lack of suitable theoretical approaches for the analysis of private means of violence in contemporary security. Consequently, this article contends, the analysis of the growth of the priva…
Security: Collective Good or Commodity
The state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Europe and North America has been central to the development of security as a collective good. Not only has it institutionalized the state as the prime national and international security provider, it has helped to reduce the threat from other actors by either prohibiting or limiting their use of violence. The recent growth of the private security industry appears to undermine this view. Not…
States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security
Recent years have seen a growing role for private military contractors in national and international security. To understand the reasons for this, Elke Krahmann examines changing models of the state, the citizen and the soldier in the UK, the US and Germany. She focuses on both the national differences with regard to the outsourcing of military services to private companies and their specific consequences for the democratic control over the legit…
From ‘Mercenaries’ to ‘Private Security Contractors’: The (Re)Construction of Armed Security Providers in International Legal Discourses
The proliferation of armed security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to widespread criticism of their insufficient control through international laws and conventions. This article suggests that one reason for this omission has been the (re)construction of actors who provide armed force for profit in international legal discourses. During most of the 20th century, armed persons who participated in foreign conflicts for monetary gain wer…
Beck and beyond: Selling security in the world risk society
Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this article examines the role of the private security industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated, but require permanent ri…
Choice, voice, and exit: Consumer power and the self-regulation of the private security industry
Promoting Private Security Company (PSC) self-regulation has become a key focus due to high profile scandals during the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Related efforts include the Montreux Document, the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), American National Standards Institute/ASIS certification, and the new International Standards Organization (ISO) Management System Standard for Private Se…
Nato contracting in Afghanistan: The Problem of Principal-Agent Networks
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) play a growing role in international military and peacekeeping operations. Very little is known, however, about the fact that not only the United States relies extensively on contractors, but so do international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article examines NATO's collaboration with PMSCs during its leadership of the International Security Assistance Forc…
Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity
Global governance is frequently criticised because of major legitimacy deficits, including lack of public accountability and democratic control. Within this context, questions about the legitimacy of non-state governance actors, such as non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations and private security companies, are neither an exception nor a surprise. Many actors have, therefore, turned to the measurement of performance, defined as…
From performance to performativity: The legitimization of US security contracting and its consequences
Discussions about the legitimacy of private security companies (PSCs) in multilateral military interventions abound. This article looks at how the United States has sought to legitimize the outsourcing of security services to PSCs through performance-based contracting and performance assessments. Both mechanisms aim to demonstrate the effective provision of publicly desirable outcomes. However, the immaterial and socially constructed nature of se…
Contracting Security: Markets in the Making of Monusco Peacekeeping
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are increasingly contracted to provide security in international peacekeeping missions. Yet, we know very little about the practical implications of this development. How do PMSCs reinforce and shape security management within UN peacekeeping operations, and what are the consequences for UN missions and their host populations? To answer these questions, we explore the operational, representative and…
Everyday visuality and risk management: Representing (in)security in UN peacekeeping
Visuality is a central aspect of everyday security governance. In the recent visual turn in International Relations, however, the more mundane and routine visualities of security have been widely neglected. To address this gap, this article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of visual representations, ranging from press photos and educational images to outwardly appearances. Taking the…
From Negative to Positive Peace: How Norms Relate to Different Peace Dimensions
Norms and Peace in a Turbulent World
Scholars have long recognized the importance of norms for promoting peace. Yet there are significant gaps in existing scholarship on the complex and multidimensional relationships between norms and peace. This article offers a framework for analyzing these relationships and outlines how the contributions to this Special Issue enable us to gain a better understanding of them. By doing so, we aim to contribute towards systematizing and synthesizing…
Political science (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Public Administration (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Military and Defense Studies (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Public Administration (10 works)