Security Professionals for Hire: Exploring the Many Faces of Private Security Expertise

Abstract

Private security companies (PSCs) do not merely provide protective services; they also sell specific understandings of the world and of security problems. Promoting their services, PSCs project images of professional security expertise. This article contributes to our knowledge of commercial security experts by analysing the ways in which images of expertise are constructed, focusing on the contracting of a PSC in 2008 by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Drawing on material from interviews, the company website and the contracting process, the article explores ‘public’ and ‘professional’ self-images, and shows how these images differ in important respects, underlining the need to see private security expertise as multifaceted and contradictory. The article also reveals problems of using categories such as ‘public’ and ‘private’ when analysing private security, thus feeding into the debate on definition, and provides important insights into the potential role of PSCs in shaping understandings of, and decisions on, security issues.