Book Review: Anna Stavrianakis, Taking Aim at the Arms Trade: NGOs, Global Civil Society and the World Military Order (London and New York: Zed Books, 2010, 224 pp., US$39.95 pbk)
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298110400011212 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | N.A.J. Taylor |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews 205
religious fundamentalism, this is largely overlooked in favour of an analysis of technical
capacity. Yet, why terrorists want WMD is also a key issue in formulating policies of
preventative response. Moreover, the construction of threat is not considered. The War
on Terror is an excellent example of the way in which mass destructive effects can be
manipulated in accordance with certain interests – a trend discussed elsewhere in the
field of WMD terrorism as part of a growing literature on risk – and this potentially
affects the arguments and recommendations outlined in this book. Finally, there could be
a greater cohesion of argument. For example, the authors make the very important point
that WMD are not exclusively ‘mass’; WMD may also be used on a small scale. However,
this means that discussion of WMD varies across this spectrum of destruction throughout
the book and it is often unclear what level of destructive effect is being examined.
Ultimately, this is fundamentally a factual introduction and not an advanced text.
However, this is its main strength in that it allows the reader to effectively take a step
back from the wider debate and clarify the scientific basis of a complicated argument. As
such, this volume is a valuable and informative resource on WMD terrorism. Especially
in a field of research so heavily connected to scientific measures – such as the technical
difficulties in constructing weapons – this is an essential primer for anyone working in
WMD terrorism, particularly anyone who does not come from a strong scientific back-
ground. The authors explain the science of non-state WMD use with impressive clarity
and, in a debate where facts are rare, make an important contribution to the ongoing
discussion on this issue.
Michelle Bentley
Michelle Bentley is a PhD Researcher at the University of Southampton, UK.
Anna Stavrianakis, Taking Aim at the Arms Trade: NGOs, Global Civil Society and the World Military
Order (London and New York: Zed Books, 2010, 224 pp., US$39.95 pbk).
A liberal institutionalist view of international politics contends that alongside the spheres
of the state and market, there exists a ‘global civil society’. In this view, global civil
society is everything that is neither profit-seeking nor a function of the state, in addition
to being characterised as simultaneously progressive, global and non-violent.
In Taking Aim at the Arms Trade, Stavrianakis asks us to lay bare the shortcomings
of liberal conceptualisations of global civil society in order to understand and probe its
efficacy in relation to conventional arms control. Drawing on postcolonial and Marxist
critiques of global civil society, as well as Gramscian notions of ‘hegemony’ and ‘anti-
hegemony’ where global civil society serves to both challenge and maintain the hegemonic
status quo, the author envisions international politics consisting of two networks of actors:
‘one comprising NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and the development agencies,
the other comprising arms capital and the defence-industrial branches of the state’ (p. 163).
Within this dual, complementary network of actors, Stavrianakis’s primary interest is in
the strategies and structure of NGOs since the Cold War given their capacity to act as
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