In Germany, the laender hold most of the powers relevant for disaster management (regarding both critical infrastructure and civilian protection). After the end of the cold war, they had realized a substantial peace dividend. Yet after 9/11, they have been confronted with a number of new (or newly realized) challenges, and a new pattern of disaster management governance evolved that requires more intense co-operation between the laender and other levels of the political system. Furthermore, in the light of fiscal austerity and a certain euphoria for privatization, private security companies have become very much involved in formal and informal disaster management networks with state actors on the European, national, laender and local level. Our paper traces the development of this involvement in detail, explains its causes and gauges its impacts in terms of both effectiveness and democratic accountability. It is based on more than twenty expert interviews with state and private actors on all levels of governance (and in five different laender at this level of particular concern), and it especially focuses on the involvement of hospitals in emergency planning, electrical power network management (including reactions to blackout), and recent changes at firefigthers’ coordination centers. Since the case of the US is so dominant in the existing literature on private security companies, our final concern is to reflect our findings in the light of experiences in the US context.
