This book tackles essential questions about weapons governance: How do different discourses generate different practices? How are weapons governance practices put into use? What effects do these differing practices have? And how do these discourses interact with each other? Whether it be consensual (such as treaties), or imposed by military victors, the governance of weapons has been a subject of critical importance across all of history. Positivist literature in the field of international relations (IR) generally describes weapons simply: the means of violence at domestic and international levels, or the consequence of technological development and dissemination. This book points out the crucial wider dynamics that 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.
