Military Privatization and the Remasculinization of the State: Making the Link Between the Outsourcing of Military Security and Gendered State Transformations

Abstract

This article examines the gendered implications of military privatization and argues that the outsourcing of military functions to the private sector excludes women from newly developing private military labour markets, impedes gender equality policies and reconstructs masculinist gender ideologies. This process constitutes a remasculinization of the state, in the course of which the nexus between state-sanctioned violence and masculinity is being reaffirmed. Recent research has introduced the concept of masculinity to the study of the private security sector. Building upon these approaches, the article integrates feminist theories of the state into the research field and evaluates their potential contributions to the analysis of military privatization. In an exemplary case study of the US military sector, this privatization is embedded within debates on the neo-liberal restructuring of the state and addressed as a gendered process through which the boundaries between the public and the private are being redrawn. The implications of these transformations are investigated at the levels of gender-specific labour division, gender policy and gender ideologies.

In the context of global restructuring and neo-liberal transformations of the state, private actors have become increasingly important in military operations opposite regular state forces. Recent research ¹ has pointed to the gendered dimensions of these processes by applying the concept of masculinity in the study of gender identity in the private security sector. Because war and political violence are gendered phenomena linked to the evolution of the modern nation-state, this article aims at expanding these approaches by introducing feminist theories of the state into the research field and embedding military privatization in debates on the neo-liberal restructuring of the state and its gendered implications. ² This article argues that the privatization of military security constitutes a process of remasculinization, which excludes women from newly developing private military labour markets, impedes gender equality policies and reconstructs masculinist gender ideologies. These processes are the result of interactions between gender discrimination in the regular forces and in the private security industry, which reaffirm the nexus between state-sanctioned violence and masculinity.

This article examines military privatization processes in an exemplary analysis of the US military sector. The gendered division of military labour, patterns of gender integration in the regular forces and general trends towards the marketization of state responsibilities are considered as relevant contexts. The relative importance of the military realm, the quantitative and qualitative scope of global military interventions, the advancement of gender integration and privatization processes and the availability of data and analysis on these subjects make the United States an ideal starting point for the critical investigation of the contractor industry. The US case can provide the basis for comparative research and guidelines for the study of similar developments in other countries. Caution is, however, advised in generalizing findings because of the specific structure and culture of the US military sector. More research on private security in other national contexts is thus an indispensable agenda for the future.

Introduction

Due to changes in security markets after the Cold War and general trends towards the privatization of public services, market-supplied security has flourished and private military companies (PMCs) ³ have gained strategic importance throughout the last decades. Since the 1990s, the market for privatized security has continuously expanded. In every major US military operation since the Persian Gulf War, significant and growing levels of PMCs have been employed. ⁴ As of December 2010, there were 150,000 contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan versus 144,000 uniformed personnel. Contractors thus made up 52 per cent of the Department of Defense’s workforce in the theatres of war and 46 per cent of personnel in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area. Between 2005 and 2010, contracting accounted for 18 per cent of total war spending. ⁵ While private, for-profit actors have always played a role in the history of warfare, today’s PMCs differ from the mercenaries of earlier times because they take on a modern corporate business form, are traded on the stock market and are tied to other firms and the public sector through complex financial arrangements and networks. ⁶

Scholarship on the privatization of military security has so far largely followed the concerns of mainstream international relations (IR) by focusing on strategic, legal and policy implications. Moral issues; ⁷ accountability as a legal and political problem; issues of regulation and limitation; ⁸ military, political, social and economic effects of privatization; ⁹ the connection to technological change ¹⁰ and the implications for democratic control over the legitimate use of armed force ¹¹ have been explored. Recently, the gendered nature of military privatization has been addressed with increasing frequency. Gendered violence perpetrated by PMCs in the countries of their deployment ¹² and the consequences for human rights and humanitarian law ¹³ have been central issues. The concept of masculinity has been a main theoretical point of reference in gender research on military privatization: Paul Higate has addressed the identity practices of contractors and the role of masculinity and nationality within them, ¹⁴ Sandra Via has examined the role of masculinity in the construction of the image of private security companies, ¹⁵ Amanda Chisholm has explored the politics of masculinity and race/ethnicity in relation to PMCs, ¹⁶ and Jutta Joachim and Andrea Schneiker have investigated the role of different concepts of masculinity in the self-representations of PMCs. ¹⁷

Building upon these gender-critical approaches, this study addresses privatization as a gendered process through which the boundaries between the public and the private are being redrawn and the state monopoly on the use of force is being reconfigured (rather than dissolved). This process entails the outsourcing of different kinds of military functions formerly executed by state forces, not only in combat but also in many support and supply capacities. ¹⁸ The analysis therefore goes beyond the level of industry and adopts a more comprehensive theoretical outlook by highlighting the social embeddedness of military privatization. This process- and context-oriented understanding guides the examination of the changing relationship between state and market and its gendered implications in different spheres, such as the labour market, the realm of policy and ideology.

Gender and the neo-liberal restructuring of the state

Military privatization is part of the current neo-liberal restructuring of the state through which state functions are outsourced to the private sector. These processes have shifted the relationship between the public and the private sector. The internationalization of capital and the explosive growth in financial markets has ‘disembedded’ capital and financial flows from national contexts; ¹⁹ the state has been depoliticized ‘through the reduction of all political issues to matters of economic efficiency’. ²⁰ The state’s ‘centralized power, regulatory capacity and public accountability … is eroded in favour of unaccountable decentralized markets, international agencies and private interest networks’. ²¹ This entails the relocation of public responsibilities to the market through direct privatization, outsourcing and public–private partnerships. ²² Instead of being a sign of state erosion, this neo-liberal restructuring works through state actors and leads to mutual empowerment of political and economic elites. ²³ The privatization of security, too, is ‘not only allowed but designed and encouraged by states’. ²⁴ It does not weaken the state as a whole but rather ‘empowers groups within the state that share a “techno-managerial understanding of security”’. ²⁵ In this process, the lines between public and private and between state and market, which have defined conventional state, IR, and economic theory, are not merely being blurred or becoming irrelevant – they are redefined, shifted and reconstructed. Because the notion of a public–private divide, constructed as hierarchical, dichotomous and fixed, has been shown to be gender-biased and to support women’s exclusion from the political realm, ²⁶ shifts in the public–private relationship also indicate transformations in gender relations.

Recent research highlights the impact of these neo-liberal transformations on women and the gender order. ²⁷ The reconfiguration of the relations between the state, the market, the family and gender in fields such as fiscal and labour market policy, family and immigration law and health- and child-care has been thoroughly examined. ²⁸ Results suggest that the current restructuring of the state reconstructs patriarchal gender regimes rather than dissolves them. Denationalization and de-democratization have deteriorating effects on women’s status in different economic, social and political contexts and contribute to the hierarchization of gender relations. ²⁹ They have produced new gender biases and reaffirmed others as well as created new forms of inclusions and exclusions, often exacerbating existing inequalities. ³⁰

In the course of these developments, the gendered boundaries between different social spheres (state, market, private sphere), which are constitutive of the modern nation-state and its gender order, have also been redefined. ³¹ While the public sector has traditionally been coded in masculine terms and included the state as well as the market, neo-liberal discourses construct the market as private in opposition to the state, masculinizing the former and feminizing the latter. ³² These discourses are strengthened by an alliance between neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism ³³ and shaped by the rise of political forces, which simultaneously blame the welfare state and feminism for social and political problems and conflicts. ³⁴ Although the women’s movement and equality policies have transformed patriarchal gender relations in recent decades, they have not been experienced as democratization, but as a crisis of masculinity that has invoked defensive reactions. In this context, newly developing global regimes of (in)security provide central arenas for the reconstitution of masculinist identities ³⁵ and hierarchical concepts of the public– rivate divide. Privatization thus constitutes a process of remasculinization, which modifies the relationship between public and private by initiating new dynamics between gendered state orders and gendered private markets.

Gender, state and the military

Despite its political, economic and ideological importance in the process of state (trans)formation and the establishment of gender relations, the military sphere has so far not been systematically researched and theorized as a site of gendered state restructuring. Gender and military research provides extensive evidence that this would be a worthwhile endeavour, highlighting the multiple dimensions in which gender shapes the military system and vice versa. ³⁶ The construction of the fighter as an exclusively male figure, mechanisms supporting military masculinity and the role of gender ideologies in military socialization have been central themes in gender-critical military sociology and political science. ³⁷ In addition, feminist IR ³⁸ have established gender as an analytical tool to critically read military, strategic and foreign policy. Their interventions have drawn attention to the unchallenged gendered assumptions that shape the theorizing and analyses in mainstream IR. Masculinist biases inherent in central concepts of the discipline, such as ‘security’, ³⁹ have been criticized.

Anthropological and historical accounts point to the state-theoretical relevance of the gender and war nexus, showing that changes in political organization, warfare and gender relations are deeply intertwined. ⁴⁰ Historians have particularly emphasized the interconnections between formation processes of the Western nation-state, military institutionalization and the establishment of hierarchical gender relations and dualistic gender ideologies. ⁴¹ The triumph of the state form was largely based on the state’s sole ability to consolidate the men, money and machinery required for large-scale warfare. ⁴² Conversely, evolving military institutions depended on state-organized mobilization of large contingents of male recruits. As a consequence, conscription was introduced, which based military service on citizenship and defined it as a male citizens’ duty. Citizenship rights, most notably the right to political participation, were thus associated with the ability to bear arms, and ultimately, with masculinity. Men’s military service consequently played a major role in the development of modern nation-states. ⁴³ In the nineteenth century, the conscript military became the central state institution establishing and sustaining militaristic gender ideologies, that is, ideals of women as weak, in need of protection, passive and peaceful, and men as rational, war prone and aggressive. ⁴⁴ It instilled a special relationship between the state and men, which inscribed gender dichotomies into other state institutions and provided the basis for women’s political exclusion.

In the United States (and other Western nations), this tight connection between state, military and masculinity was transformed with the development of a service-oriented economy and the technological advancement of warfare. Under these conditions, the military was turned into a labour market reigned by supply and demand, and the draft was abolished. Conscripts became volunteers, and the relationship between military institutions and their personnel changed from one defined as a temporary obligation to the state to a professional career. ⁴⁵ The establishment of voluntary military service was an important precondition for increased female representation in the military. The loss of the state’s access to male conscripts and women’s increased workforce participation in the civilian realm led to their selective and limited integration into the armed forces. ⁴⁶ Due to discrimination against women in the civilian sector, they provided a low-cost personnel reserve. Gender policies have since adapted female participation to the military’s needs, and various forms of combat exclusions restrict integration to higher qualified non-combat jobs on lower and middle ranks for which not enough men are available. ⁴⁷ Despite these remaining boundaries, women have attained a certain degree of equality in the services, which has been seen as important step towards their equal status as citizens. In addition, their integration questions the role of the military as a male resource of power directly related to the state.

Currently, the relationship between state, military and gender is again being transformed in the course of neo-liberal state restructuring. Technological modernization and increased diversification of military work fields have not only favoured gender integration in the regular forces, ⁴⁸ but they have also promoted trends towards the outsourcing of military tasks. In this process, the privileged relationship between the state and men, which was traditionally mediated through the conscript military and upheld in the volunteer force, has been reconfigured, and the nexus between war and masculinity reaffirmed. These transformations of the state–gender relationship have so far not been at the centre of gender-critical research on the private military and security industry, ⁴⁹ neither have they been systematically explored in studies on the neo-liberal state. To close this gap, the following sections evaluate feminist state theories and their possible contributions to the study of military privatization. The aim is to conceptualize a gender-sensitive approach to the state, which can be applied in the study of privatization processes and their remasculinizing effects.

Gender and the state: feminist approaches

While conventional theories of the state exclude gender as a relevant analytical category, feminist approaches emphasize the importance of gender for understanding state structures and discourses. ⁵⁰ Feminist theories of the state tend to be situated within neo-Marxian theory traditions, building upon their critical stance towards political power and the state and the open, process-oriented definitions of the state they propose. ⁵¹ In particular, Poulantzas’ view of the state ⁵² as material manifestation of social power relations has been influential in feminist accounts of the interrelations between the state and the gender order. Poulantzas’ approach is based on Althusser’s analysis of ideological state apparatuses, in which the double role of state institutions (such as the military) as means of repressive and ideological control is emphasized. ⁵³ The state is thus considered as a structural as well as an ideological phenomenon, which is constantly changing and being contested. It has a certain degree of autonomy, observable in state policies, but it is not an independent subject, for its actions result from social power relations. ⁵⁴ Due to this focus on social processes and power struggles within and around the state, neo-Marxian approaches have been useful in studying state transformations in relation to social change and political conflicts operative on multiple levels of society.

Feminists have criticized, however, that neo-Marxian concepts, too, have mostly viewed the state as a gender-neutral sphere. Building on this critique, they have further developed neo-Marxism to enable the inclusion of gender-specific power relations into state analysis. ⁵⁵ They have shown that the state as a social process and manifestation of political power relations is also structured by gendered practices and discourses. Conversely, gender as a structural and ideological category is constructed and organized through state institutions, policies and discourses. Unlike static concepts of the eternally patriarchal state, these perspectives facilitate grasping the interconnections between transformations of the state and changes in gender relations, in the course of which masculinity and femininity are being redefined and patterns of gender-specific labour division reconstructed. ⁵⁶ These dynamics have the potential to dissolve traditional gender relations and stereotypes as well as introduce new inequalities. The question whether the state is patriarchal has thus been replaced by questions on the gender selectivity of state institutions. ⁵⁷ This approach considers different social spheres, in which femininity and masculinity and their interrelations with state practices are being defined and contested. ⁵⁸ Therefore, feminist state analysis does not focus on state institutions and political processes alone but includes discourses and practices of and on the state to highlight their relevance for gender-specific power relations. ⁵⁹

Building upon these feminist approaches to the state, this study examines the military sector, public and private, as one such state-related space, in which gendered power relations are being produced and negotiated on the structural, institutional and ideological level. The military sphere is particularly relevant for the analysis of the gendered nature of the state due to the historical connections between state (trans)formation, military institutionalization and hierarchic gender relations. This connection is currently changing, shifting the boundaries between state and private and thereby modifying the gendered structures, institutions and discourses of the state. Therefore, the gendered effects of military privatization are discussed in the realms of military labour market, military gender policy and military gender ideology.

Masculinity and the state

Masculinity studies have contributed to the gender-critical examination of the state by shedding light on the separate and often insular spaces of male socialization, such as the military and other state institutions. While masculinity as a theoretical concept is often associated with micro-sociological accounts on gender identity, gender scholars have also applied it in state analysis to grasp the political institutionalization of masculinity. Building on the assumption that hegemonic masculinity and masculinist ideology are being generated in state institutions and shape state structures, ⁶⁰ they have highlighted the systemic aspects of masculinism, which is independent of specific men and masculinities. ⁶¹ Rather, it is embedded within the organizational culture of political institutions, in its work ethics, in ritualized work processes and in patterns of discrimination and exclusion/inclusion.

The concept of masculinity has also been prominent in research on gender and military privatization. However, the masculinity–state literature and the masculinity–private security literature have so far not engaged with each other.

In critical masculinity studies and feminist IR, the concept of masculinity is generally ‘used to refer to those (variable) sets of values, capacities, and practices that are identified as exemplary for men’. ⁶² It draws ‘its meaning from a logic of contrasts (between different masculinities) and a logic of contradiction (between masculinity and femininity)’. ⁶³ At the same time, there is significant tension between the different values and characteristics deemed as masculine (e.g. between risk taking and rationality, aggression and discipline). Hutchings thus suggests focusing on the ‘formal, relational properties of masculinity as a concept’ ⁶⁴ rather than think of it in terms of specific characteristics. This helps understanding how masculinity ‘operates as a kind of intersection of hierarchies, in which a dominant hierarchical distinction between masculine and feminine sustains other hierarchies within and between men and women’. ⁶⁵ The concept of masculinity thus always already incorporates definitions of the feminine. This emphasizes the relational aspects of gender, which cannot be fully grasped by a focus on men and masculinity alone. ⁶⁶

In accordance with relational definitions of masculinity, Jeffords defines remasculinization as the ‘renegotiation and regeneration of interests, values, and projects of patriarchy’, ⁶⁷ which leads to ‘a revival of the images, abilities, and evaluations of men and masculinity in dominant US culture’. ⁶⁸ In her analysis of gender relations after the Vietnam War, she argues that social change challenges the stability of patriarchal power, but rather than being negated, its base is being altered and adapted to new conditions. This process entails a ‘firm delineation of gender boundaries and reinstatement of the masculine in opposition to [the] feminine’. ⁶⁹ Jeffords identifies discourses on warfare as a main instrument to ‘redefine the constructions of masculine and feminine in even firmer and more exclusionary terms, so that women are effectively eliminated from the masculine narration of war and the society of which it is an emblem’. ⁷⁰ Representations of war are thus also to be read as comments on altered gender relations. ⁷¹ The following sections explore how military privatization can be comprehended as such a process of remasculinization on different levels of gender hierarchy formation and how this is related to state restructuring.

Gendered effects of military privatization

General findings on the gendered effects of state restructuring are likely to apply to the military realm as well, for which both dissolution and affirmation of traditional patterns have been observed: In their earlier stages, military professionalization and modernization led to women’s military integration and relative acceptance as service members. As these same processes are advancing further, they introduce privatization and deregulation, which exclude women from military jobs and redefine military masculinity as a state-supporting ideal. These developments affect the formation of gender hierarchies at the level of gendered labour division, gender policy and gender ideology. The regular forces and military labour markets as well as the reciprocity between state and private sector shape these processes on all these levels.

Labour division

The gender-specific division of labour is transformed as the state partially withdraws from recruitment, and PMCs take over military responsibilities. In this process, women are excluded from military labour markets and marginalized as a military workforce. Their under-representation in the military and the police, the main recruitment pools of PMCs, ⁷² is not only mirrored but also aggravated on private military labour markets. This is a result of recruitment conditions in the private sector and their interaction with gender-specific discriminations in the state forces, where women are concentrated in jobs on middle and lower ranks, typically in support and supply. Combat exclusion laws and assignment practices limit their participation accordingly. PMCs largely draw on personnel pools consisting of male ex-military who became available due to the downsizing of the state forces, especially in the more combat-intensive, less-qualified occupations. The preferred occupational specialities of PMCs include Army and Navy enlisted and officer special operations forces as well as Army infantry, ⁷³ occupations from which women are largely excluded by law. Hence, military privatization creates a refuge for men trained in the more traditional, combat-oriented skills of warfare. These ‘losers’ of military modernization became the winners of the privatization of warfare.

The global dimension of recruitment on private military labour markets also marginalizes women. PMCs are less dependent on the female workforce because they are not bound to national borders in recruiting. Menial, traditionally female-dominated tasks in support are assigned to men from the global periphery, that is, poorer countries that offer cheap labour, such as Bangladesh, Nepal or the Philippines. Former resistance fighters from Fiji, Uganda or Latin America ⁷⁴ are typically assigned more dangerous physical protection and military support duties. ⁷⁵ Contracting local nationals is also an important element in counter-insurgency strategies. ⁷⁶ In Iraq, 28 per cent of contractors were US citizens, 57 per cent were third-country nationals and 15 per cent were local nationals, as of December 2010. ⁷⁷ As a consequence, fewer women are required even in those occupations in which they are over-represented in the regular forces. This global labour division is ‘ethnicized’ and gendered, as it allows only those who conform to hegemonic Western masculinity ideals into the best paying and most prestigious jobs. ⁷⁸

Women’s status as a military workforce in the private sector is a result of these recruitment conditions. Research on local security providers ⁷⁹ suggests that women’s integration is uneven and limits them to positions that are low in status and unskilled. In the private military industry, ‘[w]omen are concentrated at head quarters’ and ‘work primarily as personal assistants, secretaries, or human resources assistants, i.e. in support and administrative functions’. ⁸⁰ Only ‘a very small number of female employees [work] in the field’. ⁸¹ Maya Eichler assesses that women are considered as ‘hirable and even desirable employees only in occupations stereotypically associated with femininity such as support roles’, in capacities requiring ‘contact with female clients’ ⁸² and ‘in a cultural context where a male contractor would be considered inappropriate’. ⁸³ These conditions – unequal participation in ‘inferior’ and stereotyped occupations – make PMCs a hostile working environment for women. Female personnel experience elevated levels of physical and mental violence at the hands of their colleagues. ⁸⁴ Civilian women interacting with PMCs are also at high risk of being subject to sexual violence. ⁸⁵ Studies have also linked the cultivation of aggressive masculinity in the institutional culture of PMCs to human rights abuses such as forced prostitution and the trafficking of women and children. ⁸⁶ PMCs thus represent ‘hegemonic masculine institutions’ ⁸⁷ and a ‘highly gendered element of the private sector’. ⁸⁸ This remasculinization of military labour markets is a result of the dynamics between privatization processes and existing exclusions within the state military. These interactions between the state and private gender orders lead to the exclusion of women from military jobs. Hence, military capacities associated with core functions of the state, that is, defending national interests, executing foreign policy objectives, defining the nation’s role in the global order and so on, are increasingly carried by men.

Policy

Trends towards military outsourcing have negative implications for the quality of democracy because they reduce transparency and democratic control over military issues and impede constitutionalism. ⁸⁹ The institutional balance in civil–military relations, which is ideally based on proper civilian control over the armed forces, is disturbed by the third-party influence of private military industry. The democratic principle of checks and balances is eroded because the executive can use private military means to circumvent public debate and limits set by the legislature, for example, Congressional constraints on troop numbers. ⁹⁰ Representatives cannot acquire information on internal structures of companies, directives for promotion or qualification requirements. In the United States, the government did not provide data on the deployment of PMCs until recently. Initiatives to enhance democratic control and public scrutiny have only been taken up in the last few years. Information is still not centrally available and hence less accessible. As a consequence, there is no regular media reporting on PMCs, severely limiting access to information on the actual human costs of the war. ⁹¹

These impediments to democratic control have gender-specific effects on the policy level because the state and its elected representatives have less access to the male- dominated sector of privatized security. ⁹² Democratic institutions have no instruments to implement and monitor gender equality in PMCs. While women have gained increased admission to the regular forces in recent decades and a certain degree of equality, a new male-dominated labour market has developed, which is not subject to the same equality regulations as the regular forces. These conditions mirror similar developments on civilian labour markets and within the political realm: Women were increasingly integrated into male-dominated work fields and political institutions but unable to gain equal access to economic and political power because the public arena and legislature were being devalued and subordinated to private capital. ⁹³ This ‘derails traditional feminist demands on the state to provide full citizenship, human, equality, and social welfare rights to women’. ⁹⁴ The same applies to women’s struggle for equal access to military jobs, involvement in military policy and attainment of full citizenship rights via military service: Equality initiatives mainly focus on the regular forces, from which military functions are gradually being removed to the private security market.

In the United States, the interaction between de-democratizing tendencies and neo-conservative power gains during the Bush Junior administration has had specifically deteriorating effects on gender equality. Congressional control over private military labour markets was weakened, and countermeasures were repelled by the government. At the same time, Congress’ influence on female participation in the regular forces was expanded in an attempt to limit women’s assignment and deployment in the ‘War on Terror’. Gender integration has since been under attack by powerful interest groups. The religious right became a key player in the fierce resistance against the ‘feminization’ of the armed forces. Lobbyists and right-wing think tanks such as the Center for Military Readiness and the Heritage Foundation successfully pushed for legislature constraining equality in the regular forces. ⁹⁵ It follows that prospects for gender equality in the military realm look particularly dire, when neo-liberal policies of deregulation and privatization are combined with neo-conservative gender policies of exclusion and discrimination. The former creates a separate labour market of masculinized private security, while the latter introduces policies that curtail women’s military participation in the regular forces. Again, this shows that it is not the security industry in itself that harms gender equality but the interaction between the state and private patterns of inclusion and exclusion.

As the state outsources military functions, the influence of state regulations on military personnel developments is reduced. The typical instruments for strengthening and monitoring gender equality – legal reform and federal action – do not take effect in the global market for force to the same extent as they do in the state military. The government is not accountable for women’s working conditions and not responsible for discrimination they might experience in this volatile working environment. At the same time, neo-liberal reforms devalue gender equality as a political objective, and neo- conservative forces push and promote anti-feminist agendas.

Ideology

Military gender ideologies reflect strategic, social, political and recruitment conditions. As privatization transforms these conditions, it also initiates ideological change, the study of which is of particular relevance because of the manifold functions that gender ideologies attain in warfare and military institutions: They are crucial in adapting gender integration patterns to the military’s personnel needs by enabling a modernized view of women’s suitability for some tasks, while referring to traditional notions to justify exclusions from others, for example, occupations in ground combat or leadership positions. Beyond that, they are important instruments for military and non-military actors, such as political elites, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and lobbyists, to legitimize their stance on different foreign and security policy issues. ⁹⁶ They also play a central role in legitimizations of war, as exemplified in depictions of female soldiers as proof of US moral superiority and progressiveness in the ‘War on Terror’ or justifications of interventions as saving ‘oppressed’ Muslim women. ⁹⁷

The rise of PMCs has led to the evolution of a new kind of ‘private military masculinity’ ⁹⁸ and the remasculinization of discourses on war. Remasculinization in this context, however, does not mean the re-establishment of traditional aggressive masculinity but rather the reconstitution and diversification of different masculinities in and through the private security industry. Research has found that PMCs increasingly refrain from the hyper-masculine image that has dominated media coverage and caused public outrage in the past. Because this image harms their business, private military masculinity has been modernized to some degree, even casting PMCs as ‘new humanitarians’. ⁹⁹ Sandra Via has shown for the case of Blackwater, renamed Xe after several public scandals, that the company shifted its self-representation towards a more professionalized masculine image: ‘Whereas Blackwater’s early public presentations emphasized aggressiveness, independence, stealth, strength, glory, and vigilantism, the public face of Xe emphasizes patriotism, efficiency, discipline, management, protection, and organization’. ¹⁰⁰ Self-regulatory accountability measures, including protection of women against violence perpetrated by contractors, are being introduced across the industry to strengthen this newly professionalized image. This recalls developments after the end of the Vietnam War, when the integration of women into the regular forces was argued as a measure to re-install the legitimacy of the US military. In this case, too, the inclusion of women coincided with the professionalization of military masculinity ideals.

The differentiation of private military masculinities is, however, not only a matter of development over time. Higate ¹⁰¹ and Chisholm ¹⁰² emphasize that multiple masculinities are simultaneously at work in the private security industry. Diversification occurs along various categories of difference, such as nationality, place of deployment and capacity/function. This diversity of the workforce and the different identities in the field have often been overlooked and concealed by the ‘stereotypical constructions of security contractors as … “trigger-happy Blackwater Cowboys”’. ¹⁰³ Such critical accounts have frequently made use of gender ideologies and argued their point by referring to different concepts of ideal versus deviant masculinity. Analysis of The New York Times reporting on private contractors between 2009 and 2011, for example, shows that they were predominantly portrayed as greedy and unpatriotic, contrasting them with the disciplined, patriotic, self-sacrificing state soldier:

The military was often outright hostile to contractors, for being amateurish, overpaid and, often, trigger-happy. Contractors often shot with little discrimination – and few if any consequences – at unarmed Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces, American troops and even other contractors, stirring public outrage and undermining much of what the coalition forces were sent to accomplish. … For all the contractors’ bravado – Iraq was packed with beefy men with beards and flak jackets – and for all the debates about their necessity, it is clear from the documents that the contractors appeared notably ineffective at keeping themselves and the people they were paid to protect from being killed. ¹⁰⁴

On a superficial level, the shift [between regular and private forces] means that most of those representing the United States in the war will be wearing the scruffy cargo pants, polo shirts, baseball caps and other casual accouterments favored by overseas contractors rather than the fatigues and flight suits of the military. … Responding to the Congressional research report, Frederick D. Barton, a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was highly questionable whether contractors brought the same commitment and willingness to take risks as the men and women of the military or the diplomatic services. ¹⁰⁵

I’m old-fashioned: When America is acting abroad, I prefer our public services to be provided as much as possible by public servants motivated by, and schooled in, the common good and simple patriotism – not profits or private ambitions. ¹⁰⁶

Public debate on military privatization is thus highly gendered. Academic discourse on PMCs, too, has contributed to the reproduction of the image of the private contractor as ‘the epitome of masculinity’. ¹⁰⁷

The gendering of private security at the ideological level must be understood in the context of different gendered discourses, particularly on the state military and state warfare. Foremost, transformations of gender ideologies in the regular forces towards more professionalized images are to be considered. In the regular forces, masculine ideals have diversified in the course of military modernization. As a consequence, stereotypes went beyond the dualism of ‘war-prone men’ and ‘peaceful women’. Various ideals of masculinity coexist, depending on occupation and level of organizational hierarchy. ¹⁰⁸ One driving force behind these developments was the integration of women, which also adjusted constructions of military femininity to forms and degrees of women’s military participation. Because the armed forces became more dependent on the female workforce, a more gender-neutral definition of military professionalism became increasingly accepted, and so did women in non-combat occupations. ¹⁰⁹ As a result, combat, rather than military service as such, became the main ‘construction site’ of military masculinity, ¹¹⁰ reaffirming the military as a ‘male-defining institution’ ¹¹¹ despite the integration of women.

Another reaction to increasing female participation in the military and job losses in male-dominated areas during the 1990s were discourses on the ‘feminization’ of the US armed forces through which hegemonic, militarized versions of masculinity were reconstructed. Opponents of gender equality and military reform claimed that it was this ‘feminization’ that destroyed military effectiveness and led to the shrinking ability of the US military to engage in ‘real war’. ¹¹² In this view, gender equality in the services had wider cultural implications and demasculinized not only the US military but also the nation as a whole. These discourses depicted military women as symbols of professionalized, ‘unheroic’ warfare, who lacked a warrior ethos and military sense of honour. ¹¹³ In this context, military modernization and new orientations in foreign policy such as humanitarian interventions were also criticized as ‘effeminate’. Military gender integration thus provides an important background for the current gendering of discourses on military privatization.

Discourses on the ‘War on Terror’ provide another relevant context for the reconstruction of militarized masculinities in both the state and the private sector. Even though the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq saw the highest female participation rates in warfare in US history, discourses between 2001 and 2005 relied heavily on dualistic gender ideologies. The renewed emphasis on ground combat, neo-conservative power gains, anti-feminist policies in the civilian area and a large-scale intervention based on the rhetoric of a ‘clash of cultures’ promoted the utilization of traditional gender images and underscored masculinist protectionism. ¹¹⁴ These narratives contributed to a remasculinization of discourses on war and the military. Susan Jeffords identifies war narratives as a framework through which changes in gender relations are read and the dominance of the masculine over the feminine is reasserted. ¹¹⁵ Debates on private security are thus also to be read as comments on gender integration in the regular forces and as changes in gender relations in US society.

Broader public discourses on the state–market relationship, in which the male–female dichotomy is increasingly associated with the constructed dualism between the market and the state, are a further context to be considered. These allow private armed forces to represent themselves as the efficient, assertive, masculine counterpart to the inefficient, weak, democratic and gender-integrated state military. Joachim and Schneiker assess that PMCs position themselves as a superior security provider by devaluing other security actors, such as conventional military forces, as weak, incapable and ineffective. ¹¹⁶ The state is invoked as inapt by some companies such as Pistris, which claims, for example, that ‘[m]any nations currently lack the necessary resources to control their coastlines’. ¹¹⁷ The trade association of contractor firms, the International Stability Operations Association (ISOA), goes even further stating that governments and their militaries have ‘too often been absent from critical humanitarian missions, [while] the private sector has always been willing to step up to the plate to provide critical services, even in some remarkably risky operations’. ¹¹⁸ The reliance on Western countries and their troops is portrayed as irresponsible, a threat to peace, a ‘death sentence for millions’ ¹¹⁹ and ‘irrational’: ¹²⁰ ‘In contrast to states and international organizations, PMSCs pride themselves of being able to provide both all encompassing protection as well as custom-tailored solutions and that they are willing to go anywhere, anytime, whatever the risk entails’. ¹²¹ These representations are highly gendered and redefine the gendered public–private divide under neo-liberal conditions: While masculinity in private security is being redefined to include more professionalized, managerial and even compassionate elements, the division of labour between the state and the private military industry remains coded in hierarchical gendered terms.

General trends towards privatization also affect the discursive level by increasing the influence of private actors such as think tanks and consultant companies in security ¹²² and foreign policy debates. ¹²³ A new class of private security experts has developed whose interpretation of problems and conflicts as ‘security threats’ has become more relevant in the context of the state’s alleged ‘inefficiency’ to provide public services. This ‘securitization’ contributes to the depoliticization and militarization of foreign policy, reflected in increasing Pentagon budgets and shrinking funds for the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. ¹²⁴ The growing influence of private actors in policy debates also affects military gender integration. Private organizations fighting equality in the services have played an increasingly influential role. ¹²⁵ During the Bush Junior presidency, neo-liberal and neo-conservative forces aligned to fight women’s integration by referring to traditional family values, sexual morals, lack of women’s mental suitability and their allegedly necessary protection. Parts of the military and the political leadership have outsourced anti-feminist agendas to these agents. ¹²⁶ The increasing relevance of private actors in military policy has therefore led to a re- traditionalization of gender images in public discourses.

In the course of military privatization, gender discourses and ideologies are remasculinized in the sense that masculinity is being redefined as the efficient guarantor of national security. Masculinity concepts are diversified, partly as a reaction to public criticism, to reinstate masculinity’s superior status in relation to military matters. By drawing on pre-existing discourses of (state) ‘feminization’ and combining them with neo-liberal understandings of the state–market relationship, the discursive and ideological dominance of the masculine over the feminine is being strengthened.

Conclusions

Military privatization effectively excludes women from military jobs and leaves those working in the industry less protected by state policies. Gender equality in the military sector is partly moved outside the reach of state regulations, while in the course of neo-liberal state restructuring, women’s status is attacked in other policy fields. Furthermore, a new arena is created in which militarized masculinity is reconstructed as a state- supporting ideal. Although we cannot speak of a simple backlash to more traditional, aggressive and war-prone constructions, masculinity is being reaffirmed as a core competence in warfare and a privileged category with regard to matters of national security and foreign policy. Hierarchic gender ideologies are strengthened as a framework through which military labour is distributed not only between men and women but also between different national, social and racialized groups.

These gendered effects of military privatization are not simply a result of state erosion to the advantage of the private security industry. They indicate a shifting of boundaries between the gendered state and the gendered private (market) sphere. Hence, the state and state discourses are to be considered as the contexts for the gendering of military privatization rather than the egalitarian counterpart to the private industry. Not only the masculinist culture of PMCs in itself excludes women but also the interaction between different sets of discrimination in both public and private structures. These results emphasize the historical institutionalization of male dominance in the state, question the alleged successes of women’s formal integration into state institutions and show that masculinist gender arrangements adapt to new conditions as the state transforms and the boundaries between state and market shift in the course of neo-liberal state restructuring. If the narrative of the disciplined state soldier and the hyper-masculine private contractor is being reproduced in academic discourse, this gendered nature of Western statehood is concealed and thus further reified.

Gender-critical inquiry into military privatization suggests that an open, process- oriented definition of the state is crucial for grasping these shifts in the relationship between state and market, which is fluid, historically grown, constantly changing and the object of multiple political power struggles. The gendered dynamics of state transformations defy a clear distinctness between the public and the private, which has defined much of conventional state theory. Shifts of boundaries between these spheres set in motion changes in gender relations, and in the case of military privatization, a process of remasculinization has been shown to be the result. By introducing feminist theories of the state into the research field and combining them with approaches to masculinity, this study thus contributes to the understanding of the neo-liberal reconstruction of the state as a gendered process in which power relations transform but the hierarchic relationship between masculinity and femininity is being upheld.