Global Weapons Governance Discourses

The management of weapons, be it consensual (such as treaties) or imposed by military victors, has been a subject of critical importance across history. But how do different discourses of weapons governance generate different practices? How are these practices then put to use? What do they end up doing? And how do these discourses interact with each other? These are some of the essential questions this book tackles.Academic IR positivist literature generally describes weapons simply: the apolitical means of violence at domestic and international levels, or the material manifestation of independent processes of technological development and dissemination. This book points out the crucial wider dynamics which are missed by this positivist interpretation. In truth, weapons governance is a field wherein a great range of different social constructs can be found, each with specific ideas about how weapons, people, states, international relations and security should be organised in order to achieve a particular political project. Readers will find in this book a roadmap for navigating this field. By the end, they will be able to recognise what types of weapons governance discourses they are exposed to and will be equipped with the tools required to critically analyse those discursive practices and their effects.There is an intense competition happening at all times between different weapons governance discourses, and it is becoming increasingly important to have the awareness and knowledge necessary to recognise what discourses are dominant and what discourses are suppressed.