The Anti-Mercenary Norm and United Nations’ Use of Private Military and Security Companies: From Norm Entrepreneurship to Organized Hypocrisy

A prominent anti-mercenary norm entrepreneur in the second half of twentieth century, United Nations (UN) has become an equally user Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) services twenty-first century. In this article, we explain gap between UN talk action on private providers security as a form organized hypocrisy. To map mismatch rhetoric behaviour measurable fashion, combined official data use PMSCs with in-depth content analysis reports written by Working Group Mercenaries examination Department Safety (UNDSS) contracting policy. The Group’s very negative portrayal UNDSS caveat that armed contractors should only be used last resort stands stark contrast agencies’ widespread providers. Although decoupling is often inevitable for complex organizations simultaneously pursuing contradictory objectives like UN, our findings have important implications peacekeeping. Most notably, hypocrisy danger challenging UN’s credibility entrepreneur, hindering effectiveness its outsourcing practices delaying reform peacekeeping crisis management at large.