Clean Hands Warfare And Delegated Violenc

In my research on “clean hands” warfare and delegated violence, I examine how states involved in Middle East conflicts use private military companies to wage war while preserving a formal image of restraint. I am particularly interested in the paradox between the state’s claimed monopoly over legitimate violence and its growing reliance on private actors to carry out coercive tasks. In this project, I trace specific episodes in which governments chose PMCs instead of regular forces, and I ask what this tells us about responsibility, plausible deniability and the political management of reputation.

My aim is not simply to describe where PMCs operate, but to understand why they are chosen and how their use is framed to keep official hands “clean.” By reconstructing decision‑making and public narratives around PMC deployment, I show that outsourcing violence can be a deliberate state strategy, rather than just a symptom of weakness or institutional failure. This work feeds directly into my broader PhD project, where I explore how the classical idea of the monopoly of violence is being reshaped through the use of private military actors in the Middle East.