Requiem for Risk: Non-knowledge and Domination in the Governance of Weapons Circulation

Abstract

Analyses of risk in international political sociology and critical security studies have unpicked its operation as a preventive and preemptive political technology. This article examines the countercase of the governance of weapons circulation, in which risk has been mobilized as a permissive technology. Examining UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen, I demonstrate how risk assessment constitutes a regime of recklessness in which risk is made not to matter in three main ways: systematic not-knowing about international humanitarian law violations; claims of unintentional harm and practices of reputation management; and future-proofing the inherent temporality of risk. I argue that risk has served to facilitate arms exports despite the potential for harm: it has been mobilized as a mode of domination. This does not suggest a failure of risk as a governance strategy or a contradiction in its operation, however. Rather, it illustrates the generative character of risk as a regulatory technology in contexts marked by asymmetrical power dynamics. If the potential for domination is built into the operation of risk, we need a requiem for risk and a search for alternative grounds of repoliticization that can generate more adequate modes of regulation and accountability.

Superweapons and the myth of technological peace

“…These insights build upon important work already done to reveal how foreign policy practices such as nuclear threat-making, arms racing, and uncritical military research and development are licensed discursively (Cohn, 1987; Emery, 2021; Stavrianakis, 2019, 2020). Engagement with these themes is especially important, as nuclear weapons are unlikely to be the final iteration of this discourse.…”

Legitimering mellom normer og interesser. Norges våpeneksport til land som kriger i Jemen

“…Slike forsøk på overbevisning har man sett hos britiske myndigheter, som kom i en langvarig rettstvist da organisasjonen Campaign Against the Arms Trade saksøkte myndighetene for vedvarende våpeneksport til Saudi-Arabia under krigen i Jemen. Stavrianakis (2017Stavrianakis ( , 2020 viser hvordan britiske myndigheter håndterer kritikk ved å repetere at det britiske regelverket er blant verdens strengeste, ved å benekte bevis for at Saudi-Arabia har brutt humanitaerretten i Jemen, og ved å vektlegge lovnader fra Saudi-Arabia om at koalisjonen ikke med intensjon bryter humanitaerretten i Jemen. I britenes kritikkhåndtering nedtones materielle motiver, og eksporten legitimeres ved å forsikre og benekte.…”

Seeking a Responsible Arms Trade to Reduce Human Suffering in Yemen

“…Similar considerations on the way international obligations in the field of arms trade regulation are formulated and the different significance they are given have also been made with respect to the ATT (Stavrianakis 2020). Particularly, the advocates (mostly exporting states) and the opponents (particularly NGOs) of the arms trade have fundamentally different views on whom such a system should protect, with the former mostly concerned with the reputation of their defence industry and the security of their armies abroad, and the latter with preventing populations in the global South from suffering the consequences of poorly regulated arms trade in terms of IHL and human rights violations.…”

“…The Court of Appeal in London also provided additional clarifications related to the implementation of relevant obligations in the EU Common Position, and, particularly, those regarding the assessment of the recipient's attitude towards IHL principles, important for the scrutiny traditionally exercised by NGOs in this domain. It also provided additional elements for researchers and academics in formulating a critique of the value and effectiveness of risk assessment as a tool to inform arms export decisions and stressed the discrepancies in the way this is conceived by arms exporting states and opponents to the arms trade (Stavrianakis 2020).…”