Citation

Mutimer D. Contemp. Secur. Policy 2006; 27(1): 29-44.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13523260600602248

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Evaluations of the 2001 Conference on the illicit trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons and the Programme of Action (PoA) which it produced cover the gamut from success to failure. This essay does not seek to explain the success or failure of the Conference, nor does it look forward to the 2006 Conference and beyond to see what possibilities there are for global public policy on SALW. It is concerned, rather, with the topography of the issue which will come to the table in 2006. By means of Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘effective history’, the essay investigates the problem that the PoA has produced. It shows how that problem is constituted around two key features: small arms and light weapons as a particular category of technology, and the division between the licit and illicit trade. It demonstrates both the contingency of this framing and the effects that it has produced. In particular, it shows how this framing makes possible a set of ‘proliferation control’ practices similar to those applied to other forms of military technology, and how it masks forms of gun violence, particularly those directed against women.