Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation

1. Introduction and Overview

In April 2008, China attempted to make a routine delivery of ammunition and explosives worth $1.245 million to Zimbabwe by way of South Africa. What followed was anything but routine. The deal sparked an international incident and, in turn, highlighted the often conflicting security and humanitarian imperatives of the contemporary arms trade. A South African investigative news magazine exposed “the ship of shame,” provoking media attention and criticism from all corners of the globe. Because the South African government had approved the shipment for transport from the port of Durban, it too came under fire for helping to arm the repressive Mugabe regime. Churches and civil society groups condemned the decision as amoral and of questionable legality under the South African Constitution. Dockworkers threatened to strike rather than unload the cargo.¹

The arms arrived in Durban just as China was trying to avoid criticism over its own human rights record in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics and as South Africa was facing further embarrassment over its appeasement of Mugabe. Reports of repression, violence, and torture in Zimbabwe following the contested March 2008 election fueled critics’ charges that the weaponry would be used to crack down on the political opposition. To save face at home and abroad, South Africa reversed its decision and barred the transport by court order. Countries across Africa denied port to the ship and urged others to do the same, with the support of Western powers. China ultimately called the ship home, unable to find a port and unwilling to face the reputational damage brought on by fulfilling the deal (Baldauf and Ford 2008).

At the time of the attempted shipment, only the European Union (EU) had imposed a multilateral arms embargo on Zimbabwe. Neither China nor South Africa were party to any convention prohibiting the supply of arms to that country. In fact, there were no international legal restrictions barring the sale of conventional weapons to Zimbabwe. And yet the arms were never delivered. Instead, international and domestic uproar forced South Africa’s hand and turned the ship around. Even so, efforts just months later in July to impose a United Nations (UN) arms embargo and other sanctions on Zimbabwe failed, with South Africa leading a small opposition and Russia and China exercising their veto power (MacFarquhar 2008). Opponents argued that sanctions fell outside the UN Security Council’s mandate to deal only with matters of international peace and security. Supporters, however, believed that trade restrictions would help protect the domestic populace and reinforce the need for good governance to ensure regional and international security.

Conventional arms control is riddled with contradictions like these, presenting states with conflicting security, economic, and normative imperatives. Small arms and light weapons (SALW) and major conventional weapons (MCW)² are responsible for the vast majority of conflict deaths, frequently associated with societal instability, and commonly involved in human rights violations. Calls to control the spread of small arms, now referred to as “the real weapons of mass destruction,”³ and major conventional arms have become widespread in the past decade. Yet conventional arms also have an enduring and legitimate place in world politics. States have long protected their right to choose their arms trade partners as a matter of self-defense, and conventional arms are recognized as essential tools of national and international security. Moreover, arms manufacturers worldwide have an economic stake in more open arms markets and considerable political influence at home. In some countries, such as the United States, domestic law also protects civilians’ right to bear arms. Historically, states have therefore determined their own arms export criteria and eschewed calls for common controls that might stem the flow of weapons to unstable regions. Even today, as states debate the political utility and ethical dilemmas of selling or restricting arms to parties in the Syrian conflict, it is clear that arms remain an important currency in world politics.

Yet despite states’ past reluctance and persistent concerns, the UN General Assembly passed the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on April 2, 2013, in a vote of 154 to 3 (figure 1.1).⁴ It goes into effect on December 24, 2014. For the first time, states have agreed to worldwide, legally binding humanitarian or “responsible” arms trade standards to restrict small and major conventional arms transfers to human rights violators and conflict zones. The ATT marks the culmination of a dramatic policy reversal that began in the 1990s. Once reluctant—or even hostile—to multilateral export controls, most major arms-producing states began to endorse such standards following the Cold War. And, like South Africa, some have also faced unexpected domestic pressure to act on those commitments. Such standards promise little by way of material gain for supplier states but rather impose restrictions on their foreign-policy autonomy and defense sales—no small price to pay as many governments have faced austerity measures at home. Why, then, have major arms-exporting democracies decided to support multilateral, humanitarian arms export controls, such as the ATT? And why have some of those supportive states been more sensitive than others about appearing to implement these normative changes and policy commitments? This book is the first systematic attempt to answer these questions, with important insights for scholars and practitioners of arms trade politics, international security, and global governance.

FIGURE 1.1. UN ARMS TRADE TREATY VOTE (2013).

CONTROLLING THE ARMS TRADE: THE THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL PUZZLES

At its core, the contemporary conventional arms trade brings together vital interests in security and foreign policy, economics, and human security, confronting states with conflicting demands as they decide their arms trade policy and partners. The creation of the ATT and related initiatives therefore presents a microcosm of the policy pressures and imperatives states face in the post–Cold War world. By taking an in-depth look into the politics of the arms trade, this book provides insights into three important theoretical questions. First, at the state level, what explains commitment to multilateral policies that were once considered impossible or out of the question, even in the absence of material or normative incentives to implement them? International negotiations are not cheap; they require time, political capital, and economic resources. Rather than “mere window dressing,” the resulting agreements may impose costs and bind behavior in expected ways, risk unanticipated costs and consequences over time, and open states up to domestic legal challenges and hypocrisy costs (Goodliffe and Hawkins 2006; Greenhill 2010; Schimmelfennig 2001; Simmons 2009). If states wish to avoid costly restrictions on their behavior, what motivates them to spend resources and take risks on an agreement in the first place?

Second, at the international level, what explains how new norms gain prominence and legitimacy beyond their initial norm entrepreneurs? Scholars often highlight the importance of “norm cascades” to show how new ideas of appropriate behavior become accepted by a critical mass of states and institutionalized in international politics (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Florini 1996; Krook and True 2012). If norm survival hinges on such “tipping points” of state acceptance, then it is essential to dig deeper and theorize the mechanisms that create those tipping points. Why do states—especially those critical states invested in the status quo but without which new norms may flounder—respond to basic forms of social pressure, such as esteem, emulation or conformity, ridicule, and praise (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Johnston 2008; K. Waltz 1979)? As Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink point out, social construction interacts with actors’ “instrumental rationality” to enable new norms to diffuse and take hold (1998:910–11). Delving into the motives behind norm adoption and why socialization can be a powerful influence on rational actors can therefore shed light on how norm cascades work in practice and expectations of state behavior change over time.

Finally, by examining the seeds of normative change in one issue area, scholars can gain insights into the processes that generate shifts in the broader social structure of the international system. The “responsible” arms transfer norm cascade is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of a larger cascade of norms, in which changing ideas of security, transparency, and responsibility make their acceptance possible. New arms trade norms, in turn, can make the international environment more conducive to resolving other debates in favor of responsibility and humanitarianism. At the same time, this case shows that even once institutionalized, change can be slow to come and require a great deal of work by governmental and nongovernmental actors in domestic politics. How and why the system does—and does not—change sits at the heart of international relations (IR) theory, which must meet head on both the material and normative imperatives and constraints confronted by international actors as they shape and are shaped by the system.

“Responsible” arms export control is an ideal case with which to investigate these persistent theoretical questions: states anticipate that new controls will bring heavy material costs without material gains but sign on nevertheless, highlighting new norms in their formal policies but not in their export practice. I argue that top arms supplier states have strategically adopted popular policies out of social concern for their international reputations rather than out of any existing practice or norm internalization. I then show that states’ varied concerns for compliance can be traced primarily to the threat of reputational damage from “irresponsible” arms transfers in domestic politics. These findings are valuable for the theoretical insights they provide into states’ commitment to and compliance with international policy initiatives, as well as into the sources and processes of normative change. They also offer practical lessons for the ATT as it goes into effect. Indeed, the difficulty of achieving conventional arms control makes it an important empirical puzzle in its own right, with consequences for state and human security.

The deck is stacked against conventional arms control (Gray 1992). Conventional arms are the only category of weapon (legally) used since the Cold War and have, until recently, appeared immune from multilateral controls. The major arms-producing states confront not only the responsibility for restricting trade in the interest of peace and security elsewhere, but also domestic economic and security pressures to export to keep their defense industries afloat. As one French government official notes, conventional weapons have been the “last area of freedom” in arms control (interview 60108220; see appendix B for an explanation of the interviews and interview identification codes). Although extensive diplomatic and technical efforts have been made to ban the production, use, and spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, conventional arms have gone largely untouched by the international community. The rare attempts to create conventional arms control in the twentieth century buckled under the weight of states’ sovereignty, foreign-policy, and economic interests.

Certainly, most states have long required permits for the import and export of arms from their borders, but such controls have been a distinctly national prerogative, attached to economic and military security. The arms trade has often served both as a tool of foreign and economic policy and as a symbol of national self-sufficiency and strength (Cahn et al. 1977; Eyre and Suchman 1996; Kolodziej 1979; Moravcsik 1991). UN Charter Article 51 establishes states’ right to provide for their own defense as a fundamental principle of national sovereignty and has been upheld as justification for states to transfer arms as they choose. The sanctity of national sovereignty for the production and transfer of arms was also enshrined from the outset of European integration.⁵ Conventional arms transfers can signal friendship and effectuate alliance between states by demonstrating trust, establishing a security relationship, and enhancing interoperability for joint military operations. Sending arms abroad also can be a less costly form of support than sending troops. Finally, conventional weapons can showcase the technological modernity and military strength of the states that import and export them.

At home, governments commonly perceive arms exports as necessary to sustain their domestic defense industry, employment, balance of trade, and national economic well-being. With defense budgets rarely sufficient to maintain production lines, sales abroad can keep the assembly line moving and facilitate economies of scale. The intimate relationship that results between the state and the defense industry also encourages exports and export promotion in response to industry preferences.⁶ Politicians and constituents who rely on jobs and other benefits tied to defense-based local economies reinforce political support. More generally, publics often back defense industry interests in response to perceived threats to national security.

These sovereignty, security, and economic concerns have not disappeared over time. In some cases, they have been exacerbated by changes in world politics: the decline in defense spending following the end of the Cold War; the beginning of the war on terror; austerity measures imposed in the wake of the global financial crisis; and advent of the Arab Spring. Since the late 1990s, however, numerous multilateral initiatives have established controls on the licit and illicit trade of small and major conventional arms (see appendix A for a list of the key talks and agreements from 1919 to 2014), including the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Moratorium, the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms (UNPOA), and the ATT. Even so, as I show in chapter 3, states have not made dramatic changes in their arms export practice, suggesting that standard explanations for international commitments rooted in material gain and normative obligation may be limited. What, then, accounts for top arms-exporting democracies’ commitment to new arms trade norms, and why are some more concerned about avoiding the appearance of norm violations than others?

OVERVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT: SOCIAL REPUTATION IN INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC POLITICS

The incentives for major exporters to make a dramatic and potentially costly policy shift in favor of “responsible” arms transfer standards are not immediately clear. States expect new policies (if implemented) to generate high material costs without material gain. Existing practice does not reflect an established normative commitment. Defense industry lobbies were initially opposed or inattentive. Public opinion has been largely indifferent. Explanations that rely on material interests, normative obligation, or domestic politics thus come up short. I argue instead that states strategically adopt policies in line with new norms out of concern for their international reputations. Here, maintaining a good reputation with other international actors serves as a social incentive, which can deliver social benefits. Yet policy adoption motivated by such instrumental image building may not lead to compliance, if noncompliance is difficult for other international actors to observe. In fact, supportive states differ in their concern for compliance. I point to domestic politics as the source of this variation, where some states face conditions that make reputational damage from arms trade scandal at home more likely.

Concern for international reputation may pressure states to commit to new policies, but without international accountability mechanisms, those policies’ ability to inspire compliance may be limited. States may avoid implementing costly commitments when noncompliance is likely to go unpunished and norm internalization is weak. Under the right conditions, however, domestic politics can provide incentives for states to avoid the appearance of “irresponsible” arms transfers. In democracies especially, arms trade scandals can capture public attention and harm a government’s reputation among its constituents. For those democracies in which transparency measures make more information available and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are able to take advantage of that information to spotlight “irresponsible” exports in the media, scandal becomes more likely. Those governments become more sensitive to the threat of scandal and impose greater export restraint in cases of clear-cut, severe norm violations to avoid reputational damage at home.

Governments thus attempt to shape the perceptions that other actors have of them (i.e., their reputations) in line with their national identity and values. They do this because of the social benefits a good reputation can bring. When their reputation is threatened—for example, by scandal or NGO shaming—governments may adjust their policies or practice to counter negative claims. In this way, policy support as a means to enhance, maintain, or repair reputation is a rational strategy to obtain social ends. Accounting for states as both strategic and social actors, social reputation can therefore be a powerful if often overlooked and undertheorized force in foreign-policy making. It can provide an explanation for a range of state and NGO behavior, including why states invest in agreements whose provisions place costly restrictions on their basic security and economic decision making.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARMS EXPORT CONTROLS

Conventional arms are the building blocks of armed forces around the world. In 2011, world military expenditures were estimated at $1.738 trillion and 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI] 2012:147). In the same year, according to the Congressional Research Service, the value of conventional arms transfer agreements (i.e., orders for future delivery) amounted to approximately $85.3 billion, with more than 83 percent going to agreements with developing countries (Grimmett and Kerr 2012). For top arms-producing states, typically located in the developed world,⁷ arms transfers have long been seen as an important tool of foreign influence and military power, a source of national security and employment, and key to defense industry survival. Governments have used arms transfers to achieve foreign-policy goals, sway other governments’ policy preferences, and sustain production lines, employment, and defense industry health at home. For these countries, arms export promotion—not restraint—has long been the rule in practice, and policy changes rarely attract public attention.

For individuals in many recipient states, however, arms export decisions made elsewhere can directly affect daily life. Arms transfers can destabilize fragmented countries, prolong conflict and make it more deadly, and increase the difficulty of postconflict reconstruction.⁸ Conventional arms are the most commonly used tools of war, causing the vast majority of conflict-related deaths. Experts estimate that 128 armed conflicts since 1989 have directly or indirectly caused at least 250,000 deaths annually, and an additional 300,000 nonconflict deaths per year have been perpetrated with firearms (Amnesty International 2010). These numbers are disproportionately made up of women and children, who are more likely to be internally displaced and suffer higher rates of mortality and health problems stemming from conflict (Southall and O’Hare 2002). Even in the rare cases where arms are not the primary tools of conflict, they may still play a prominent role. Although machetes are commonly considered the main instrument of killing in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, foreign arms sales fueled the conflict (Goose and Smyth 1994). Mass killings in some communes were carried out by firearms and were made more widespread and deadly by firearms in others (Verwimp 2006). After conflict, the widespread availability of arms puts pressure on weak governance structures and slows economic development (Musah 2002; Stohl and Grillot 2009).

Both small and major conventional arms are also associated with worse human rights performance in some recipient states.⁹ Lerna Yanik observes that between 1999 and 2003—after humanitarian export controls had taken a prominent place on the international agenda—“almost half of the global arms trade ended up in the hands of countries with poor human rights records” (2006:363). This relationship is, of course, complex. Governments can use arms directly to repress popular dissent (Klare 1984) or indirectly to strengthen the role of the military in society (Maniruzzaman 1992; Musah 2002), with adverse consequences for human rights. Amnesty International (2010) estimates that 60 percent of documented human rights violations involve the use of small arms and light weapons. Major conventional weapons may also allow repressive governments to increase the scale of oppression: recall the iconic images of tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square in 1989 or reports of the Turkish government’s use of military aircraft to attack Kurdish villages in the mid-1990s. Conflict and human rights violations can also come hand in hand: governments involved in internal conflict are significantly more likely to engage in repressive practices in the interest of maintaining security and order (Blanton 1999).

Examples abound of both legal and illicit arms transfers fueling conflict and human rights violations. In addition, the vast majority of weapons sold illicitly started as legally manufactured and sold weapons but were diverted later to the black market (Marsh 2002). Thus, even if some states adopt national restrictions on weapons exports to areas of instability and repressive governments, the realities of a global market are that recipients denied weapons from one supplier can likely find them from another for the right price. As a result, starting in the 1980s, some “affected” states, NGOs, and experts began to advocate for common “responsible” export criteria rooted in human rights and conflict prevention. As I explain more fully later, their efforts, together with key political events in the 1990s, have put conventional arms control on the international agenda. Once ignored, SALW have joined major conventional weapons as targets of multilateral humanitarian export restrictions.

In 1998, the EU adopted the Code of Conduct on Arms Exports to restrict arms transfers to human rights violators and conflict zones, and in 2006, after years of discussion, the UN began formally working toward an ATT. The ATT, which goes into effect in December 2014, internationalizes and expands those standards promoted by “affected” states and pioneered by the EU. It explicitly prohibits the transfer of small and major conventional arms that “would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements” (Art. 6, sec. 3).¹⁰ It also includes criteria requiring states to deny arms in cases of an “overriding risk” that they might undermine peace and security or facilitate human rights violations; to consider the risk that arms will be used to facilitate “serious acts of violence against women and children”; and to take measures to prevent diversion to the black market (Art. 7, 11). Yet the ATT’s secretariat will have no enforcement authority. State parties are instead charged with ensuring their own implementation and enforcement of treaty provisions. Thus, alongside ATT supporters’ hope and enthusiasm, difficult questions and concerns exist about its potential effectiveness—a point for which this book has important implications.

METHODS AND CASE SELECTION

The question of why major arms supplier states have supported “responsible” arms transfer standards requires an in-depth examination of domestic and international politics. It also relies on knowing how well those standards reflect states’ arms export practice in order to evaluate explanations that expect compliance to accompany or even precede policy commitment. I use qualitative historical and interview data with case study methods alongside quantitative arms export data to demonstrate broad normative changes in the international community and explain major exporters’ response to those changes. This multimethod approach enables a close analysis of potential explanations and mechanisms, while avoiding the assumption that the rationale for states’ commitment will be reflected in their compliant practice.¹¹

HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL TRENDS

I begin by examining historical and statistical trends to provide a broad overview of arms export policies and practices over time. Historical cases of failed arms export controls in the twentieth century reveal deep political resistance to multilateral commitments. Although many sources of resistance remain, I identify a confluence of events in the 1990s that changed the normative environment surrounding the international arms trade and set the stage for a dramatic policy shift. This historical overview both sets up the central puzzle and puts in perspective the magnitude and importance of the change in major exporters’ policy after the end of the Cold War.

Quantitative data complement the historical analysis to show the relationship between states’ policy and practice. An analysis of small and major conventional arms export deliveries between 1981 and 2010 asks whether and when top supplier states reduce transfers to human rights violators in line with new policies.¹² This analysis is particularly valuable because it accommodates a larger population of cases to illustrate trends in arms trade behavior over time. It also shows whether and how arms export practice maps onto changing policy and helps to weigh explanations that expect states’ practice to reflect their commitment. Normative explanations are more viable if states exhibit “responsible” arms exports in practice as well as in policy. Alternatively, if states expect material gain from new multilateral initiatives, then practice should come to reflect policy, or vice versa, if those initiatives simply codify existing practice. Yet by uncoupling policy and practice, the analysis also serves as a reminder that commitment and compliance need not come hand in hand. Explanations of states’ policy choices in light of such a policy–practice gap are therefore necessary.

The statistical analyses forge new ground in arms trade research. First, contrary to existing quantitative analyses (e.g., Blanton 2005), it widens the focus beyond U.S. exports. Although the United States is certainly important, as the dominant supplier it may not reflect global trends. This book looks at arms exports from twenty-two top supplier states, including the United States. Second, it treats SALW and MCW transfers separately to reflect their historically separate policy treatment, rather than aggregating them or excluding small arms. Finally, it uses statistics to test how norms codified in state policy affect state practice and to investigate “claims that norms influence behavior” (Klotz and Lynch 2007:18). As Emilie Hafner-Burton and James Ron note, statistical analyses are often more skeptical about the prospects for behavioral change than case studies, in part because the latter deal more frequently with norm creation and the former with norm implementation (2009:369, 385). As a result, this study takes advantage of the complementary strengths of quantitative and qualitative research to assess norm creation and norm implementation, state policy and state practice.

BIG STATES WITH BIG STAKES

Case study process tracing and interview data move beyond the broad trends provided by the historical and statistical analyses by examining in-depth states’ support for “responsible” export policies, their varying concern about compliance, and the role of social reputation. Case studies “compensate for less range by gains in depth” (Eckstein 1975:122; see also George and Bennett 2005). By analyzing the political dynamics of arms transfer policy in five major exporting democracies (table 1.1), I explore states’ motivations behind their commitment or opposition to new policies as well as their concerns for compliance.

TABLE 1.1. SELECTED CASES: FIVE MAJOR ARMS-EXPORTING DEMOCRACIES

Supplier	SALW Supplier	MCW Supplier	Democracy?	Support for Transfer Controls, 1998–2014*
Belgium	Top 5	Top 20	Yes	Yes
France	Top 20	Top 5	Yes	Yes
Germany	Top 5	Top 5	Yes	Yes
United Kingdom	Top 20	Top 5	Yes	Yes
United States**	Top 5	Top 5	Yes	No/Yes

*This support is primarily for the 1998 EU Code of Conduct (EU members only); the 2001 UNPOA and its review conferences, which debated but did not approve including transfer controls; and the formal ATT process, which began in 2006.

**Only the United States voted no on the 2006 UN General Assembly resolution to initiate the ATT process. It was also an opposition state in the UN small arms conferences between 2001 and 2008.

Note: Russia, a top-five supplier of both SALW and MCW, is not included here because it is not fully democratic. Italy, although a top-five SALW supplier and a democracy, has also been excluded because its policies and practices generally reflect those of the other European cases. China did not become a top-five MCW supplier (at the expense of the United Kingdom) until 2012 and is not democratic.

Case selection is nonrandom, based on two key characteristics thought to influence the likelihood of states’ support for multilateral humanitarian export standards.¹³ First, I select “big” exporters of small or major conventional arms (both in two of the country cases). According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS) and SIPRI, the chosen cases are historically top suppliers, including at the time they chose to support major multilateral initiatives, such as the EU Code of Conduct and the ATT. Yet, unlike states less invested in global arms markets, these states have clear economic incentives not to endorse external controls. Moreover, whereas states adversely affected by “irresponsible” arms exports may have a direct interest in new controls, major exporter states are rarely also affected states. Instead, they have a large material stake in blocking new controls. Indeed, with the mixed exception of the United States, big exporters consistently opposed multilateral standards in the past. Most exporters’ support of recent initiatives is therefore not only crucial if new export controls are ultimately to help reduce arms supplies to troubled areas—making them “critical states” in the norm cascade—but also the most puzzling.

Second, among the major exporters, I have selected full democracies. Many scholars find that democracies in particular have a common commitment to human rights rules and norms and international law more broadly (Burley 1992; Simmons 1998). As such, they are “most likely cases” for supporting new export criteria. Indeed, if democratic suppliers were not signing on, the chances of nondemocratic suppliers doing so would presumably be slim to none. Yet the meaningful variation in the principal outcome—state support—is also among democracies: the United States was the most vocal opponent of UN arms export initiatives and the only “no” vote on the ATT until 2009, when it reversed its position. In contrast, nondemocratic major exporters (e.g., Russia and later China) have taken a backseat, abstaining from voting rather than blocking popular initiatives. On the compliance side, democracies are also more vulnerable to domestic pressures to implement new policies (Simmons 2009). I therefore hold regime type constant under the assumption that democracies are the most susceptible to pressures to support and implement new policies.

Using interviews with key players in the policy-making process (government, defense industry, and NGO representatives), NGO and news reports, speeches, and government documents, I examine how new standards gain acceptance in domestic and international political debates.¹⁴ This process-tracing approach enables me to identify the causal mechanisms connecting the independent variables to the outcome in question (George and Bennett 2005). The interviews address governments’ reasoning behind their policy and practice as well as advocates’ strategies for influencing government decision making. In addition, I examine public opinion, the positions of key advocacy groups, and the timing of advocacy-group support or opposition to determine the role of domestic pressures. In conjunction with the statistical trends, the qualitative analysis can therefore help parse between the explanations and ultimately provide substantive support for the reputational argument.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework for the book and makes a two-part argument about reputation as a social mechanism. First, it introduces a social logic of reputation in international affairs. I argue that states may commit to popular policies as a means to maintain their reputations as “responsible” members of the international community and acquire the social benefits such a reputation can bring. Yet where international accountability measures are weak, states may collect social reputational gains without engaging in costly implementation. Second, the chapter looks to reputation in domestic politics to fill this accountability gap. I contend that variation in governments’ concern for compliance stems from variation in their perception that grossly noncompliant exports will come to light and damage their domestic reputations. More specifically, when domestic NGOs with expertise and access to arms trade reports can spotlight “irresponsible” export decisions in the media, governments’ domestic reputations and legitimacy may come under fire. These conditions can push governments to make a public effort to adhere more closely to new standards—at least in clear-cut cases of norm violations—to avoid reputational damage brought on by scandal at home.

Chapter 3 analyzes the “business as usual” of conventional arms exports. It provides an overview of the twentieth century’s failed multilateral attempts to regulate the global arms trade, highlighting both entrenched norms of sovereignty and the dramatic shift presented by the success of contemporary policy initiatives. I then identify key events in the 1990s that explain the origins of new “responsible” arms export norms. Finally, I investigate how these changes in policy expectations map onto small and major conventional arms export trends between 1981 and 2010. I find that although some change has occurred at the margins, state practice has been largely inattentive to recipients’ human rights records over time. This policy–practice gap casts doubt on explanations that rely on normative obligation or material incentives to explain policy commitment. Instead, it shows that states have supported new initiatives in spite of their underlying export preferences, not because of them.

Building on the trends outlined in chapter 3, the remainder of the book examines major democratic exporters’ response to new arms export norms. In chapter 4, I explain why these states have put aside past opposition to multilateral arms export controls in favor of “responsible” arms trade initiatives. I find that states’ concern for their reputations as “good international citizens” propels them to support and promote socially appropriate policies they might not otherwise. For states deeply embedded in international institutions as a part of their national identity and values, the choice of policies to improve, reinforce, or mend their social reputation is a strategic one. Even if practice is slow to change, states’ broader socialization into the international community and desire to be recognized by their peers push them to adopt new policies, particularly following the success of other popular initiatives. This initial instrumental commitment nevertheless opens the door for NGOs to use naming and shaming, rhetorical entrapment, and hypocrisy costs to encourage compliance and norm internalization down the road.

Chapter 5 turns to domestic reputation to explain variation in states’ concern for compliance with new rules and norms. Although public attention to arms export policies is typically low, news of extremely “irresponsible” arms transfers can generate scandal in domestic politics. Scandals can damage governments’ reputations at home, leading to loss of legitimacy and other political costs, particularly in democracies. Interviews suggest that governments that perceive a greater threat of public condemnation for “bad” export deals may exercise greater caution in choosing their import partners. I argue that governments are more sensitive to scandal when arms export information is publicly available and civil society actors are willing to mine that information to spotlight potentially controversial export deals. As a result, the growth of transparency measures and NGO watchdogs in some states may prompt greater concerns about avoiding exports at least in the most clear-cut cases of noncompliance. This finding is especially important for the ATT, which has no formal enforcement mechanisms of its own, as it seeks to motivate implementation among state parties.

In the final chapter, I examine the theoretical arguments in the context of three examples of non-European exporters: Brazil, Israel, and South Africa. I conclude with policy implications that provide reasons for both pessimism and optimism for the prospects of the new ATT. On the one hand, I show that arms transfer practice is hard to change and continues to defy states’ policy commitments. Even in states that value international laws and norms, change takes place at the margins, where the reputational costs of “irresponsible” policy and practice are most threatening. On the other hand, states once hostile to shared export controls are now leading the international community on new initiatives. Small arms alone have gone from being overlooked and ignored to being a prominent policy concern on the global agenda. Although norm internalization may require more time, states have demonstrated increasingly widespread acceptance of new policies. In turn, policy commitments in international fora combined with domestic accountability can begin a dynamic in which supplier states implement policies designed to enhance security and human rights outside their own borders and around the world.