Maryam Jamshidi (NYU School of Law) has posted Privatization, Popular Sovereignty, and U.S. National Security on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Scholars have lamented the threat to liberal, democratic values posed by government outsourcing to for-profit companies and contractors. They have, however, largely ignored the implications for democracy where government work is delegated to private citizen volunteers. These “citizen privatizers” are volunteering in various parts of government, particularly in the national security sector, where they are reporting suspicious activities to local authorities, working with local and federal law enforcement to implement government policies in their communities, and serving as private attorneys general to enforce the government’s counter-terrorism objectives. This Article argues that these and other forms of citizen privatization potentially threaten democracy by undermining a value at the heart of the American form of government – popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty, or the “will of the people,” is critical to ensuring that government remains answerable and accountable to its citizens. It depends upon a vibrant civil society, public deliberation on matters of popular concern, and respect for dissent, all of which require a meaningful separation between the people and the state. In flattening that separation, citizen privatizers potentially threaten these three key elements of popular sovereignty. Focusing on the national security space, this Article present a new theory of privatization that demonstrates when and how citizen privatizers may threaten liberal democracy and when the public may be best served by suspending these privatization programs.