This book conceptualizes the increasing employment of private military and security companies (PMSCs) onboard ships as a form of institutional isomorphism, combining the functionalist, ideational, political and organizational arguments used to account for the privatization of security on land into a synthetic explanation of the commercialization of vessel protection. In response to the increase in pirate attacks in the Horn of Africa, countries worldwide have increasingly authorized the presence of armed guards from PMCSs onboard merchant ships. This widespread trend towards the use of PMSCs to provide vessel protection is in stark contrast to the states commitment to retain a monopoly on violence and discourage the presence of arms on civilian vessels. This book explores why countries around the globe have departed from these norms.
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1. Introduction: protecting merchant vessels from pirates.
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2. Piracy and counter-piracy in the Twenty-first century.
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3. From divergence to isomorphism in vessel protection policy: a theoretical framework.
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4. Privateers versus pirates? The United Kingdom case.
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5. Vessel protection in the Netherlands: a belated commercialisation?.
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6. From hybrid to commercial vessel protection: the Italian case.
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7. Vessel protection in other European countries.
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8. Open registries and vessel protection: Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands.
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9. Isomorphic convergence in vessel protection.
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10. Conclusion: vessel protection between private and maritime security studies.
Eugenio Cusumano is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. He wrote extensively on non-state actors involvement in crisis management on journals like Security Dialogue and the Journal of Strategic Studies and edited volumes published by Palgrave, Oxford and Stanford University Press.
Stefano Ruzza is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Turin, Italy. He is also a Head of Program at T.wai - Torino World Affairs Institute, lectures in Italian Army advanced educational programmes, and is responsible for the Italian translation of the SIPRI Yearbook Summary.
