^aInstitut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences-Po/CERI), 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75337 Paris Cedex 07, France. E-mail: christianolssonfr@yahoo.fr

Abstract

This article aims at exploring some of the political processes related to the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These interventions include private actors such as private military and security companies (PMCs and PSCs) on the one hand, and humanitarian organizations on the other, being mobilized in the war effort. The main theoretical argument is that the theory of securitization might be instrumental to the comprehension of the concept of the political. Such a conceptualization of the political facilitates the analysis of the outcome of the social practices involved in military interventions. It allows for a different interpretation of the political processes induced in 'local' societies by the private and civilian actors — PMCs and PSCs on the one hand, and humanitarian organizations on the other — involved along with the military in the civil–military 'assemblage' of contemporary interventions. In this way, I argue against international policies without local politics and conflict-resolution without political solution.