What discourse analysis can tell us about Defense policy making? The case of military contractors on ships

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1 What discourse analysis can tell us about Defense policy making? The case of military contractors on ships INTRODUCTION On the 3 rd January 2014, a bill on private activities to protect maritime vessels was submitted to the French Parliament by Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Prime Minister, Philippe Martin, Minister for Sustainable Development and Ecology, and Frédéric Cuvillier, State Secretary for Transport, Sea and Fishing. The content of the proposal was the authorization of ship-owners to use private combatants (in French: équipes privées de protection des navires (EPPN)) to protect ships against piracy. The proposal was voted in on 1 st July 2014, a result of a rapid process. However, the work beforehand was extensive, lasting over 2 years and under two different Presidents. Indeed, the use of EPPN cannot be taken for granted, because this relates to the notion of private military companies (PMC), often associated with mercenaries. While both the British and U.S. forces have significantly used PMC since the 1990s, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq, France has, at least formally, long been regarded as resistant to PMC. This was expressed in the law of 14 th April 2003 forbidding the use of mercenaries in international conflicts where France is implicated. Rather than maintaining a strong opposition, France cultivated legal uncertainty on the subject, as no existing frame neither condemns nor allows French companies that provide security and defense services. Why did the government and its deputies allow EPPN when there was evidence of their reluctance to lose this sovereign function? How can this change in policy be explained? Several authors have studied the process of a policy change in the Defense field, particularly since Patrick Vennesson 1 repositioned Defense policy as a research topic for political scientists. To name a few, I can mention Bastien Irondelle 2, William Genieys 3, Lucie Béraud- Sudreau 4 or Julien Demotes-Mainard 5. Their research focuses on an explanation of the 1 VENNESSON, P. (2000), «Introduction. La défense : objet de science politique», dans VENNESSON, P. (dir.), Politiques de défense : Institutions, innovations, européanisation, Paris, L Harmattan, p IRONDELLE B (2003), «Civil-Military Relations and the End of Conscription in France», Security Studies, 12(3), p ; IRONDELLE, B. (2011), La Réforme des armées en France, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po. 3 GENIEYS, W. (2004), (dir.), Le Choix des armes. Théories, acteurs et politiques, Paris, CNRS Éditions. 4 BEREAUD-SUDREAU L. (2014), «Un Changement politisé dans la politique de Défense. Le cas des ventes d armes.», Gouvernement et Action Publique, 3(3), p

2 changes in different actors, elites and institutions, with for instance the concept of programmatic actors 6. Personally, I wanted to consider the discursive institutionalism in order to throw more light on the change in Defense policy. My paper is based on the work of Vivian A. Schmidt 7. I believe that discourse is a lot more than a talk. It is both a vehicle for containing ideas and an interactive process by which ideas are conveyed. Discourse can be a tool for persuasion, constraint, legitimation, or domination, in other words it can be a reason for policy change. Working on narrative logics can be a way to understand the perceived constraints for actors, the background ideational abilities, similar to Bourdieu s concept of the habitus 8, that may lead to institutional repetition and inertia. It can also help understand the strategies put in place to initiate change in public policy, the foreground discursive abilities, similar to the communicative action of Jürgen Habermas 9. Studying what I call legitimating narrative strategy allows me to understand the global framework which actors adapt in order to push policy forward in the way that suits them. This study was conducted in February to May 2014, during the development of the policy, through 25 semi-directive interviews with major actors and work on grey literature. The first part of this paper focuses on the actors that are involved and which challenges they identified as needing to be overcome for the bill to go ahead. The second part explains the chosen legitimating narrative strategy and its variations, based on an economic discourse, looking to the market framework of Pierre Muller 10. ARMATEURS DE FRANCE (ADF) AND THE CLUSTER MARITIME FRANCAIS (CMF), MEDIATORS FIGHTING TO DEFUSE THE FEAR OF MERCENARIES The mediators: Armateurs de France (ADF) and the Cluster Maritime Français (CMF) 5 DEMOTES-MAINARD, J. (2013), L Abandon des programmes d armement aux États-Unis : la fin de la Guerre froide et le changement de paradigme de l acquisition militaire, thèse de doctorat en science politique, Université Montpellier-1. 6 GENYES W., op.cit. ; BERAUD-SUDREAU, op.cit. 7 SCHMIDT V.A. (2008), «Discursive institutionalism : the explanatory power of ideas and discourse», Annual review of political science, 11, p BOURDIEU P. (1980), Le Sens Pratique, Minuit 9 HABERMAS J. (1997), Théorie de l agir communicationnel, Fayard 10 MULLER P (1989)., Airbus, l ambition européenne. Logique d Etat, logique de marché, Paris, L Harmattan, collection «Logiques Sociales» 2

3 The main actors who ask for EPPN are French ship-owners that have been victim to piracy. To support their interests, they are represented by the Armateurs de France (ADF) and the Cluster Maritime Français (CMF), who have the necessary resources to be heard by political actors. They play the role of mediators, as precised by Pierre Muller 11. ADF is the professional union of transportation and marine services companies. It has a mandate to speak on behalf of the companies to the government and the deputies. The CMF brings together all sectors of maritime work, from the industry to the services, with more than 200 companies. Its task is to build French maritime power. ADF and the CMF have common objectives and work together. The French Institute of the Sea, an association that aims to make the sea known and loved by French people, also supports them. They represent CGM-CMA, the worldwide market leader of maritime transportation, with 22,000 employees, 4,500 of whom in France, a revenue in 2014 of 16.7 billion USD and the first private employer in Marseille, where it is based. Being the spokesperson of these huge industries gives them political visibility and attention from various political authorities as well as the media. They hold substantial resources in terms of expertise, position, relations and negotiation, doing long-lasting sustainable work. They have real influence and lobbying action through various media, including conferences, press releases or events like The Fundamentals of Economy and Sea, organized with the newspaper Le Marin, where people from the public and private sector exchange ideas together. ADF was also registered to be represented at Parliament in 2013 as a lobby. Association of the EPPN with mercenaries: a problem to solve ADF and the CMF asked the French government for the first time to help them against piracy following the hostage taking on the Ponant ship in The government created several onboard protection teams (in French: Equipes de Protection Embarquées (EPE)) from the national Marine in However, these teams received quick disapproval for not being flexible enough for their needs, and requests came in for contractors, the EPPN. A first draft was written under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy in This draft allowed for private military companies, on the ground and on the sea, a result of a parliamentary report 11 MULLER P (2013), Les politiques publiques, PUF 3

4 from February However, the presidential elections, with a new left majority and a renewal of political actors, stopped the negotiations. As ADF said in one of my interviews, It was too controversial to allow PMC on the ground, they were identified as barbouze [a French slang for mercenary], and the draft of our bill was penalized for that even though we were almost at the end of the process before the political changeover of We had to start again from the beginning because there were several people, for strong philosophical reasons, who were against PMC. After the hostage taking on the French chemical tanker, l Adour, in 2013, ADF and the CMF mobilized all of their resources to convince political actors and the deputy of the usefulness of EPPN. For ADF and the CMF, the failure of the first draft was the assimilation of PMC with mercenary activities, and the fear of a public and political debate. The need to make a distinction between PMC on the ground and PMC on the sea To avoid being assimilated with mercenaries, ADF and the CMF made a distinction between the use of PMC on the ground and on the sea. The idea supported was that PMC on the sea had nothing in common with PMC on the ground. So, if a law would authorize the EPPN, it would not have a direct legal consequence for the PMC on the ground. To this end, while the parliamentary report from 2012 has always been quoted by the supporters of the PMC on the ground, ADF and the CMF set it aside. They acknowledged that it broke a taboo, but they preferred to refer to the report of the deputy Arnaud Leroy from 2013 on the competitiveness of marine transportation to legitimize the EPPN. Indeed, this report advocates the use of the EPPN, and Arnaud Leroy became the main rapporteur of the draft for the Sustainable Development and Country Planning Committee. Likewise, the denomination équipe de protection privée des navires (EPPN) came up after the hostage taking of This name is strategic at two levels: primarily, it is a way to stay close to the denomination of the onboard protection team, in French équipes de protection embarquée (EPE) for the marines, thus distinguishing between the public and the private model; secondly, in using EPPN, they claim their maritime particularity and therefore segment the reflection on the PMC. This strategy influenced the selection of the ministry in charge of the new draft. The Ministry of Ecology and Transport was chosen in the end. It was a perfect way to avoid the 12 Rapport d information n 4350 sur les sociétés militaires privées de MM. Christian Ménard et Jean- Claude Viollet, députés, fait au nom de la commission de la défense nationale et des forces armées, du 14 février

5 feared debates and too strong media exposure if it were the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Once this distinction was made, ADF and the CMF built a legitimizing discourse based on the French economic competitiveness, to convince the political actors of the need to authorize the EPPN. THE EPPN OR DEATH (OF THE FRENCH ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS) It is possible to distinguish three positions of this legitimating narrative strategy: the threat of ships flagging out, the requirement to converge legislation to match other countries and an unavoidable principle of reality. The threat of ships flagging out Against piracy, ADF and the CMF chose the strategy of inciting fear to attain their success. They threatened the government with flagging out if they were not allowed to use the EPPN. The argument is economic: no EPPN means no competitiveness, and that means a decrease of the French economic power. This threat is mentioned in a press release in 2014 from ADF and CMF: The proposed law related to the private activities of ship protection is essential for the security of the ships and its crews, as well as the competitiveness of the French flag. This argument is also mentioned in the report of the deputy Arnaud Leroy on transport competitiveness in 2013 where he wrote, The temptation of flagging out several ships is now an option that we should not exclude. Arnaud Leroy also described the possibility of flagging out during my interview as a real threat. ADF summarized their main argument in my interview: France lost contracts and charter parties. [ ] It is a real issue for the competitiveness of the flag. Some charterers will not chose a French-owned ship because it is not enough safe. Some foreign companies that have subsidiaries in France decide not to use ships with French flags in some parts of the world. This is a big issue! So the official goal of the proposed law was not to create a new market of armed contractors but to answer a need of the ship-owners in a twofold reality: piracy and the economic issue. As a deputy said in my interview: Mercenaries are used for war, but we are not there for war, we are there to protect an economic activity it is definitely not the same scenario. The proposed law is thus presented as necessary for French economical and strategic 5

6 interests. The requirement for a legislative convergence with the other countries ADF and the CMF wanted to show that the use of EPPN was inevitable, based on a comparison with the legal framework of other European countries example. They put forward the necessity to align policy between countries and for the French legislation to meet the level of the European legal framework. ADF told me: While France was at the forefront of the implementation of Atalante [the European operation against piracy], for the deployment of military security teams, France falls behind other countries since we are the only State to not have legalized private teams on board. It s a real issue for the competitiveness of the flag. This point is also made in the report of the Sustainable Development and Country Planning Committee by the rapporteur Arnaud Leroy 13 with a comparative table to bring to light the delay of France on the EPPN. To justify the proposal, he told me: When we were a majority to not allow the EPPN, it was not an issue in terms of competitiveness. But France is nearly the last country in Europe to implement the EPPN. So we needed to act. This wish to standardize the policy between the countries also appears in the engagement letter from the President, François Hollande, to his councilor Jean-Marie Guehenno on the 13 th of July 2012, relating to the creation of a Commission for the white paper of 2013: The commission will associate for the first time some representatives from Germany and United Kingdom, highlighting the full opening of our work to their European and international dimension. A deputy used this same argument: To avoid the hemorrhage of our ships we model ourselves on the other Europeans countries. Thus, the more flexible European legal framework that mainly allows for the use of the EPPN is another argument to legitimate the law proposal. The EPPN, an unavoidable principle of reality In the same logic, ADF and the CMF wanted to show how necessary EPPN are with a principle of reality. In the white paper of 2013 from the Ministry of Defense, as part of the chapter The increased threats and risks of globalization that relates to maritime aspects, we 13 Rapport n 1674 sur le projet de loi relatif aux activités privées de protection des navires d Arnaud Leroy fait au nom de la Commission du développement durable et de l aménagement du territoire le 9 avril 2014, p.35 6

7 can read, States experience an increasing need to control the content and the destination of the maritime flow. This results in new asymmetrical treats as demonstrated by the reappearance of the piracy. France needs an answer for a principle of reality : the inability of the Marines to provide security and to protect all ships in a global environment. This point was made by ADF during my interview: Facing a principle of reality, facing the increase of piracy, facing the need for protection of crews, we conclude that we need private protection when we cannot use a military, sovereign protection. The same argument was made by a deputy in my interview: One of the reasons why the pro-sovereign lobby concedes a little to their opponents, if we talk in ideological terms, is the principle of reality. It s because we don t have the capacity any more to satisfy all of the needs. This links with the analysis made by Bastien Irondelle on the French military reform 14. He shows that actors highlight strategic rationality in their discourse on reform. This suggests an argument for inevitability, also named by a actors in one of my interviews as the course of History. The cut of budgets, the announcements of the white paper and the economic constraints, are all evidence for the supporters of private security of the inevitability of the use of EPPN for France. This links with the concept of desectorization of the Defense, to use the term from Bastien Irondelle 15, which refers to a phenomenon of alignment of the Defense to general policy norms, reducing the exceptionalism of the Defense 16. As Bastien Irondelle highlighted, since the military reform started by the President Jacques Chirac in 1996, there has been a sustained willingness to reduce the budgets and the workforce of the Ministry of Defense, in order to focus the armies on their core competencies, linked to their modernization. In this way, the implementation of the General Public Policy Review (RGPP) in 2007, then the Public Action Modernization (MAP) in 2012 after the change of the government majority, there has been a drastic cut of the Defense budgets, coupled with a decrease in human resources, as highlighted in the consecutive white papers and the Military Planning Law (LPM). The white paper of 2008 predicted between 2009 and 1015 a cut of 55,000 personnel, and the white paper of 2013, a cut of 34,000 personnel between 2014 and This resolution to reduce the spending without distinction between the ministries is 14 IRONDELLE B., Op. cit. 15 Ibid 16 BUREAU J.-F. (1997), «La réforme militaire en France: une mutation identitaire», Politique étrangère, 1, p

8 present in the engagement letter from François Hollande to Jean-Marie Guehenno in He specifies: The commission under your Chairmanship will take into account the necessity to contribute to improve public finances engaged by the Government to ensure the return to equilibrium by In this context, the Ministry will have to control our spending in the same proportions as the others missions of the State. Outsourcing has therefore become a possibility in answer to the reduction of budgets and using the EPPN is in line with this principle of reality. This narrative frame of legitimization is based on an economic argument, linked to New Public Management and neo-liberalism ideology. For ADF and the CMF, building a narrative strategy on those arguments can be perceived as fundamental to their success. It shows us the framework to which they adapt themselves and submit their discourse to be heard in order to convince political actors. In this case, a link can be made with the market framework developed by Pierre Muller 17 in his analysis of Airbus, where the market is the normative frame of reference. CONCLUSION To sum up my paper, I tried to reproduce a policy narrative model, from the work of Claudio Radaelli 18, to understand the narrative logic in action. Sequence 1: The analysis of the past - The maritime commerce is a fundamental sector for France - Piracy has always existed and is still out of control in some parts of the world Sequence 2: The analysis of the present - There is a consensus to maintain the competitiveness of the French flag - The onboard protection teams from the State are inadequate - There is a threat to flag out from the ship-owners - In a context of economic crisis, and for strategic reasons, France can t afford to lose in competitiveness - Marine cannot afford to put more onboard protection teams Sequence 3: The negative scenario If France does not allow the EPPN, it will lose its competitiveness, the ship-owners will flag out and insecurity because of piracy will grow Sequence 4: The positive scenario 17 MULLER P (1989)., op. cit. 18 RADAELLI C. (2000), «Logiques de pouvoirs et récits dans les politiques publiques de l Union Européenne», Revue française de science politique, 50 (2), p

9 If France allows the EPPN, it will win in competitiveness, avoid more hostage taking, will decrease the maritime threat, and will benefit from economic and strategic outcomes. Sequence 5: Conclusion France should pass the law to allow the ownerships to use the EPPN Thanks to the mobilization of the mediators, ADF and the CMF, their narrative frame of legitimization operated, their discourse has been used by the political actors and the deputy and the law was voted within a few months without media exposure or controversy. The way ADF and the CMF produce their discourse and spread it was fundamental, as they align the discourse of the ship-owners and that of the political actors, using a coordinative discourse. They also succeeded in legitimatizing the political decision to allow private security on the sea, avoiding any issue with the mass media and the public sphere, thanks to a communicative discourse 19. With this paper, I seek to demonstrate how powerful the narrative logic can be if it is used in a proper way. To conclude, I try to show that when a actors start to elaborate a narrative frame to legitimate their action, they will identify a framework and try to adapt their discourse to it, as the only way to success. The framework may be vital for the actors, but it also can be used to reach their goals. In a way, the actors can turn the framework to their advantage, or even twist it. 19 SCHMIDT V. A. (2006), Democracy in Europe. The EU and National Polities, Oxford University Press ; SCHMIDT V. A. (2008), «Discursive institutionalism : the explanatory power of ideas and discourse», Annual review of political science, 11, p