Why Blackwater? Motives of the USA to deploy Private Military Companies

Although the deployment of Private Military Companies (PMCs) is said to undermine the sovereignty of states, the US deployed several PMCs to Afghanistan and Iraq in the course of the War on Terror. Consequently, the research question asks why the USA has deployed Blackwater, a PMC, to these countries. Drawing on a theoretical framework of security governance and approaches of the intersubjectivity of norms and interest representation, and using the design of causal-process tracing the findings are the following: PMCs are deployed because they are believed to be a cheap alternative and because they can provide resources which US agencies lack. Additionally, Blackwater in particular was deployed because, among others, its CEO has had close connections within and influence on the US administration. Moreover, the individual interpretation of sovereignty by the North-Americans is not considered to be undermined by the deployment of PMCs.