Investigator(s): Suzette Grillot, Craig Stapley and Molly Hanna
Duration: 2005

For nearly ten years, nongovernmental actors have raised concern about the increased accessibility of small arms and light weapons around the world.  By the late 1990s, hundreds of these nongovernmental actors began to coalesce together in an effort to enhance awareness, conduct research, and affect policy relevant to small arms issues.  How did this NGO coalition emerge?  How does it operate?  How effective has it been?  Where is it headed in the future?  To answer these questions we seek to assess the structure and activities of the SAM based on existing understandings of transnational social movements.  We focus specifically on the emergence, structure, and effectiveness of the SAM – a movement that has, according to many of its own participants, founders, and observers, struggled over its years of operation to achieve its objectives.  Moreover, we offer a comparative analysis of the successful International Campaign to Ban Landmines in an effort to demonstrate similarities and differences in the two transnational organizations.  Our findings lead to a number of recommendations we believe the SAM should heed to become more effective.

Advocacy Politics and Global Gun Control: The Consequences of Competing International Norms

Investigator(s): Suzette Grillot and Chris McDonald
Duration: 2005

In the late 1990s, a transnational network focusing on the global availability, distribution, and circulation of small arms and light weapons emerged to pressure governments to limit and control the flow of guns.  However, this network, unlike that which emerged to battle and ban the manufacture, use, and trade of anti-personnel landmines, has faced numerous challenges and has witnessed few successes.  One of the greatest challenges, in fact, has come from the growing global presence of a competing anti-gun control force.  This paper explores the emergence, structure, and operation of the International Action Network on Small Arms and the international work of the National Rifle Association.  Using a theoretical framework regarding the emergence, structure and operation of transnational advocacy networks, the paper demonstrates how the competing movements have been affected by existing international norms and what this means for the creation and acceptance of new global gun control standards.  Ultimately, the global spread and control of small arms and light weapons has significant implications for international security.  Most violent conflicts today employ such weapons almost exclusively.  Such security issues are, therefore, in need of examination.  And the international networks and norms that may or may not have an impact on such issues require further attention as well.  In the end, this study will shed light on the important issue of small arms and on the role of global norms and networks in the international arena.