A tainted trade? Moral ambivalence and legitimation work in the private security industry.
A tainted trade? Moral ambivalence and legitimation work in the private security industry.
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受污染的贸易？
DOI：
10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01365.x
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
I. Loader
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Angélica Thumala;B. Goold;I. Loader
私营保安业经常被描述为-而且通常是自我描述为-一个不断扩大的行业，对自己在世界上的地位充满信心，并确信自己有能力满足日益增长的安全需求。但仔细观察行业参与者谈论其过去、现在和未来的方式，就会发现这种自我推销伴随着对行业状况和合法性的不安。在本文中，我们分析了自我理解的那些谁卖的安全-在采访中透露的主要行业参与者和一系列的贸易材料-为了突出和剖析这种矛盾的构成要素。本分析首先描述了目前被认为困扰该行业的声誉问题，以及这些困难所揭示的对其地位和价值的潜在担忧。然后，我们研究了安全参与者如何使用各种专业化的叙述来寻求合法的行业。四个这样的叙述被确定-监管，教育，协会和借款-其中每一个都试图证明私人保安和提高行业的社会价值。这些合法性主张的惊人之处在于，它们往往不以市场条件来证明出售证券的正当性。最后，我们问为什么会这样，并认为市场的理由是'关闭'的道德矛盾，重视行业的产品交易，不能保证提供的条件，其消费者的渴望。
The private security industry is often represented - and typically represents itself - as an expanding business, confident of its place in the world and sure of its ability to meet a rising demand for security. But closer inspection of the ways in which industry players talk about its past, present and future suggests that this self-promotion is accompanied by unease about the industry's condition and legitimacy. In this paper, we analyse the self-understandings of those who sell security - as revealed in interviews conducted with key industry players and in a range of trade materials - in order to highlight and dissect the constitutive elements of this ambivalence. This analysis begins by describing the reputational problems that are currently thought to beset the industry and the underlying fears about its status and worth that these difficulties disclose. We then examine how security players seek to legitimate the industry using various narratives of professionalization. Four such narratives are identified - regulation, education, association and borrowing - each of which seeks to justify private security and enhance the industry's social worth. What is striking about these legitimation claims is that they tend not to justify the selling of security in market terms. In conclusion we ask why this is the case and argue that market justifications are 'closed-off' by a moral ambivalence that attaches to an industry trading in products which cannot guarantee to deliver the condition that its consumers crave.