Assessing Technologies of Political Control
| Date | 01 November 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343399036006009 |
| Published date | 01 November 1999 |
| Author | Brian Rappert |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Assessing Technologies of Political Control*
BRIAN RAPPERT
Department of Sociology, University of York
In recent years, governments around the world have spent significant amounts of money researching,
developing and deploying new technology for their security forces. This article seeks to further the
understanding of these so-called ‘technologies of political control’, by exploring three questions: How
can we understand the consequences of this technology? What kind of knowledge is important in
assessing them? What strategies could form a basis for controlling them? It is maintained that answers
to these questions depend on the underlying assumptions made about the relation between technology
and wider societal relations. Developing a more adequate understanding of technologies of political
control requires a further examining of these assumptions in light of the ‘politics’ of technology.
New Policing Technology
The last few decades have seen the continued
deployment of a variety of technologies por-
trayed as necessary measures to increase the
scope, efficiency and effectiveness of para-
military and police operations. A partial
listing of these would include new chemical,
kinetic and electrical less-than-lethal
weapons such as CS and pepper gas sprays
and plastic bullets; multi-purpose riot tanks;
and surveillance and ‘data-veillance’ equip-
ment such as bugging and tapping devices,
vehicle recognition systems and national and
international communications interceptions
networks. While these technologies might
serve legitimate purposes, their deployment
has raised concerns. The applications and
contexts of use of such technologies are mul-
tiple and not always foreseeable. Many of the
less-than-lethal weapons, for example, are
portrayed as non-lethal in character and
design, though the manner in which they are
used in practice does not always bear this
out. Some have argued that such tech-
nologies are contributing to the mili-
tarization of police forces and the
paramilitarization of militaries. The function
that such developments serve in maintaining
established relations of power and authority
has led some commentators to label this
diverse set of artefacts and associated skills as
‘technologies of political control’.
Given this potentially worrying situation,
those concerned about technologies of pol-
itical control are faced with many pressing
questions: What impact do the various tech-
nologies have on practices of the police, para-
militaries or the public? What criteria could
form a basis for their regulation? What kind of
knowledge would be required as part of that
process? Any number of approaches might
inform attempts to address these questions,
with legal and medical assessments being
the most obvious and perhaps well-known.
The main focus here is either on
the compatibility of the deployment of
* The author would like to thank Pete Abel, Paul Rosen,
David Skinner, Steve Wright and two anonymous
reviewers from JPR for their comments on earlier drafts of
this article.
741
journal of
peace
R
ESEARCH
© 1999 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 36, no. 6, 1999, pp. 741–750
Sage Publications (London, Thousand
Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433(199911)36:6; 741–750; 010658]
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