History and Development -- Overseas Trade in Early Modernity and the Emergence of Embryonic Private Military Companies -- Does History Repeat Itself? A Comparative Analysis of Private Military Entities -- The Privatization of Military Affairs: A Historical Look into the Evolution of the Private Military Industry -- The Private Military Company: An Entity at the Center of Overlapping Spheres of Commercial Activity and Responsibility -- Soldiers of Misfortune: Is the Demise of National Armed Forces a Core Contributing Factor in the Rise of Private Security Companies? -- Private Security Companies: Agents of Democracy or Simply Mercenaries? -- Case Studies -- Searching for Resources, Offering Security ... Private Military Companies in Sierra Leone -- Contracting in the Fog of War ... Private Security Providers in Iraq: A Principal-Agent Analysis -- Privatization of Maritime Security in Southeast Asia -- No Contractors on the Battlefield: The Dutch Military’s Reluctance to Outsource -- Privatization in the German Armed Forces -- The Private Security Industry in Kenya: Issues and Challenges -- Private Security Guards as a Socio-Professional Group in Bulgaria -- The Civilianization of the US Military: Army and Navy Case Studies of the Effects of Civilian Integration on Military Personnel -- Problems and Prospects -- Human Rights and Private Military Companies: A Double-Edged Sword too Dangerous to Use? -- Liaisons Dangereuses: The Cooperation between Private Security Companies and Humanitarian Aid Agencies -- Private Security Companies and Civil-Military Cooperation -- Effective Peacekeeping and the Privatization of Security -- Norms versus Rationality: Why Democracies Use Private Military Companies in Civil Wars -- Back to the Future: Private Military Contractors and Political Theory in the Modern Democratic State -- Legal Issues and Patterns of Regulation -- Private Military Companies: The New Mercenaries? — An International Law Analysis -- Private Security and Military Companies under the International Law of Armed Conflict -- The Notion of ‘Direct Participation in Hostilities’ and Its Implications on the Use of Private Contractors under International Humanitarian Law -- Who is Responsible? The Use of PMCs in Armed Conflict and International Law -- Private Military Companies and Domestic Law in South Africa -- National Regulatory Regimes for PSMCs and their Activities: Benefits and Shortcomings -- Selling Security: Trade-Offs in State Regulation of the Private Security Industry -- Informal Regulation: An Economic Perspective on the Private Security Industry -- Conclusion -- PSMCs: Lessons Learned and Where to Go from here.