Private Military Companies, Necropower and Fragile States

Abstract Private military companies (PMCs) have gained prominence in the international arena since the end of the Cold War. Offering a wide range of services, these companies have been contracted by state and private actors to operate in international conflicts. The use of these companies, however, has raised suspicions about the legitimacy of their actions, especially when they provide agents for direct involvement in conflicts occurring in fragile states. This is because these groups have promoted massacres against unarmed civilian populations, which no longer constitute collateral damage but rather a target. A target of necropower exercised by PMCs in the context of what Achilles Mbembe termed contemporary wars, where war is not only waged by states and their regular armies, but where coercion has become a market product, and military service can be bought and sold. The objective of this article, therefore, is to analyse the actions of PMCs in conflict situations in fragile states as an exercise of necropower, where technologies of destruction are used and sovereign decisions are made about life and death. To this end, the methodology employed is a conceptual and theoretical analysis, applying Foucault, Agamben, and Mbembe’s concepts to the PMCs’ actions in fragile states.