Suchergebnisse

This thesis seeks to better understand the formation and implementation of the restrictions that the EU and EU member states have imposed on exports of military and security equipment. Specifically, the thesis develops two norms-based theoretical frameworks for understanding how and why particular restrictions become integrated in states' national and collective export controls, why others are rejected, and the different ways this integration occurs. To develop these frameworks this thesis carries out two case studies comparing aspects of Sweden's, the UK's and the USA's arms export controls and examining the emergence of the EU's export control 'regime', conducts a review of past research on export controls, produces a historical narrative summarizing the evolution of states' restrictions on exports of military and security equipment, and draws from key aspects of the literature on norms in the fields of international relations and organizational theory. The first theoretical framework posits that the process of adopting particular restrictions on exports of military and security equipment can be best understood as a competition between different constitutive and regulative norms. Applying this 'competing norms' framework creates a better understanding of why certain efforts to impose restrictions fail while others succeed. The second theoretical framework is informed by the concept of organized hypocrisy and helps explain the outcomes that can emerge when different norms support and oppose the adoption of particular restrictions. Applying this 'organized hypocrisy' framework shows how export controls can be viewed as consisting of 'talk', 'decision' and 'action' and that each aspect can be adjusted in response to the pressures exerted by different norms. The thesis applies these theoretical frameworks in two case studies that explore recent processes of revising aspects of Sweden's arms export controls and the EU's export control regime. This thesis makes several novel contributions to the study of the trade ...

"This article looks at the end-use controls of the US and European states, the application of new technologies for tracking, controlling and deactivating arms in this area, and recent debates about arms transfers to the Middle East. States' end-use controls are employed in the pursuit of a variety of normative, economic and strategic objectives. However, the article finds that only the US has used new technologies to improve its end-use controls and only in the pursuit of strategic objectives. The article also argues that recent arms transfers to non-state armed groups in Libya and Syria may undermine broader attempts to improve global standards in end-use controls." (author's abstract)

In recent years there has been a concerted attempt to harmonize European policies on arms exports. Of particular importance is the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, which lays out standard criteria for assessing applications for arms export licences. This process has been interpreted as the 'Europeanization' of EU arms export policies, understood as the process whereby key areas of national decision–making become increasingly subject to systems of multilevel governance. By analysing quantitative arms export data, this article assesses the impact that this process of Europeanization has had on the arms exports of EU Member States, that is, the extent to which it has created more harmonized and/or more restrictive arms export policies. The article finds that while certain of the normative values promoted by the EU Code are having an impact on Member State arms export policies, others are not. Meanwhile, there is little evidence of harmonization of arms export policies among Member States. This raises questions about the extent to which processes of Europeanization can be expected to impact on Member State behaviour in key areas of foreign and security policy and about the ability of the EU to act as a normative power.