Abstract

Based on a case study on the metamorphosis of a private security company responsible for the protection of oil wells during the Yugoslav Serbo–Croat conflict that became an armed band—the Scorpions—we show that this type of organization crystallizes mutually beneficial games that play out between a central power and those involved in local crime of low intensity. These organizations constitute the central players in a politicization of civilian crime and a privatization of political crime—genocide and crimes against humanity constituting the extreme forms. The involvement of private actors such as the Scorpions in armed conflict is considered in the fusion of instrumental and normative logic—a common element in all forms of mercenarism.

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