Technology and Agency in International Relations (Emerging Technologies, Ethics and International Affairs)

223 Pages·2019·6.649 MB·English

by  Marijn Hoijtink (editor), Matthias Leese (editor)

Technology and Agency in International
Relations
This book responds to a gap in the literature in International Relations (IR)
byintegratingtechnologymoresystematicallyintoanalysesofglobalpolitics.
Technology facilitates, accelerates, automates, and exercises capabilities that
are greater than human abilities. And yet, within IR, the role of technology
oftenremainsunder-studied.Buildingoninsightsfromscienceandtechnology
studies (STS), assemblage theory and new materialism, this volume asks how
internationalpoliticsaremadepossible,knowable,anddurablebyandthrough
technology. The contributors provide empirically rich and pertinent accounts
ofavarietyoftechnologiesrelevanttothediscipline,includingdrones,algo-
rithms,satelliteimagery,bordermanagementdatabases,andblockchains.
Problematizing various technologically mediated issues, such as secrecy,
violence, and questions of how authority and evidence become constituted
in international contexts, this book will be of interest to scholars in IR, in
particular those who work in the subfields of (critical) security studies,
International Political Economy, and Global Governance.
Marijn Hoijtink is an Assistant Professor in International Relations at VU
Amsterdam.
Matthias Leese is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies
(CSS), ETH Zurich.
Emerging Technologies, Ethics and International Affairs
Series Editors: Steven Barela, Jai C. Galliott, Avery Plaw,
Katina Michael
This series examines the crucial ethical, legal and public policy questions
arising from or exacerbated by the design, development and eventual adop-
tion of new technologies across all related fields, from education and engin-
eering to medicine and military affairs. The books revolve around two key
themes:
(cid:129) Moral issues in research, engineering and design
(cid:129) Ethical, legal and political/policy issues in the use and regulation of
Technology
This series encourages submission of cutting-edge research monographs and
edited collections with a particular focus on forward-looking ideas concerning
innovativeorasyetundevelopedtechnologies.Whilstthereisanexpectationthat
authors will be well grounded in philosophy, law or political science, consider-
ationwillbegiventofuture-orientatedworksthatcrossthesedisciplinarybound-
aries. The interdisciplinary nature of the series editorial team offers the best
possibleexaminationofworksthataddressthe‘ethical,legalandsocial’implica-
tionsofemergingtechnologies.
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com
/Emerging-Technologies-Ethics-and-International-Affairs/book-series/ASHSER-
1408
Emerging Technologies in Diverse Forensic Sciences
Ronn Johnson
Cyber Attacks and International Law on the Use of Force
The Turn to Information Ethics
Samuli Haataja
Global Environmental Governance in the Information Age
Civil Society Organizations and Digital Media
Jérôme Duberry
Technology and Agency in
International Relations
Edited by Marijn Hoijtink and
Matthias Leese
Firstpublished2019
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Contents
Listoftablesandfigures vii
Listofcontributors viii
Foreword xi
1 How(not)totalkabouttechnology:InternationalRelations
andthequestionofagency 1
MATTHIASLEESE&MARIJNHOIJTINK
2 Co-production:Thestudyofproductiveprocessesatthelevelof
materialityanddiscourse 24
KATJALINDSKOVJACOBSEN&LINDAMONSEES
3 Configuringwarfare:Automation,control,agency 42
MATTHIASLEESE
4 Securityandtechnology:Unravelingthepoliticsinsatellite
imageryofNorthKorea 66
PHILIPPOLBRICH
5 Vision,visuality,andagencyintheUSdroneprogram 88
ALEXEDNEY-BROWNE
6 Whatdoestechnologydo?Blockchains,co-production,and
extensionsofliberalmarketgovernanceinAnglo-American
finance 113
MALCOLMCAMPBELL-VERDUYN
7 Whoconnectsthedots?Agentsandagencyinpredictivepolicing 141
MAREILEKAUFMANN
vi Contents
8 Designingdigitalborders:TheVisaInformationSystem(VIS) 164
GEORGIOSGLOUFTSIOS
9 Technology,agency,critique:AninterviewwithClaudiaAradau 188
CLAUDIAARADAU,MARIJNHOIJTINK,&MATTHIASLEESE
Index 204
Tables and Figures
Tables
3.1 LevelsofAutomation 52
3.2 SelectedLevelsofAutomationvis-à-vislooptasks;scenario:UAV
flyingoveroperationalzone;taskcategoriesbasedon 56
Figures
6.1 Co-producingauthorityinglobalgovernance 122
Contributors
The Editors
Marijn Hoijtink is an Assistant Professor in International Relations at VU
Amsterdam. Her research interests include emerging security technologies
and their relation to the politics of risk, militarism, and weapons
research, and the global circulation of security and military technologies.
She has recently received a four-year Veni grant from The Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to study the politics of engin-
eering lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Matthias Leese is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies
(CSS), ETH Zurich. His research is primarily interested in the social
effects produced at the intersection between security and technology, and
pays specific attention to the normative repercussions of new security
technologies across society, both in intended and unintended forms. His
work covers various application contexts of security technologies, includ-
ing airports, borders, policing, and R&D activities.
The Contributors
Claudia Aradau is Professor of International Politics in the Department of
War Studies, King’s College, London. Her research has developed
a critical political analysis of security practices and their transformations.
Among her publications are Politics of Catastrophe: Genealogies of the
Unknown (with Rens van Munster, 2011) and Critical Security Methods:
New Frameworks for Analysis (co-edited with Jef Huysmans, Andrew
Neal, and Nadine Voelkner, 2014). Her recent work examines security
assemblages in the digital age, with a particular focus on the production
of (non)knowledge. She is currently writing a book with Tobias Blanke
on algorithmic reason and the new government of self and other. She is
on the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy. She is also chair of the
Science, Technology, and Art Section (STAIR) of the International Stud-
ies Association (2018–2019).
Contributors ix
Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn is Assistant Profes-
sor in International Political Economy at the University of Groningen.
His research explores on the roles of emergent technologies, non-state
actors, and expert knowledge in contemporary global governance. He is
the editor of Bitcoin and Beyond: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains and
Global Governance (Routledge, 2018) and authorof Professional Authority
After the Global Financial Crisis: Defending Mammon in Anglo-America
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2017).
Alex Edney-Browne is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the
University of Melbourne. Her thesis examines the emotional and psycho-
social effects of drone warfare for people living under drones in Afghanistan
andUSAirForcedroneveterans.
Georgios Glouftsios works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Inter-
national Studies, Universityof Trento, Italy. His research is situated at the
intersections of the broader transdisciplinary fields of Critical Security
Studies and Science and Technology Studies. More specifically, his current
research explores the security dimension of the Copernicus space pro-
gramme by focusing on how satellite technologies are used in the context
ofEUCSDPmissions.Inthepast,hisresearchfocusedonthedesign,use,
andoperationalmanagementoflarge-scaleITsystemsdeployedforborder
security,lawenforcement,andmigrationmanagementpurposesintheEU.
Mareile Kaufmann has been studying digital technologies and their dialogue
with society for almost a decade. She teaches and researches as a post-
doctoral researcher at Oslo University (Criminology) and at the Peace
Research Institute, Oslo, in a secondary position. Mareile’s current pro-
jects look at understandings of crime in digitized societies, as well as the
use of technologies in policing, surveillance, and digital countercultures.
Katja Lindskov Jacobsen is a senior researcher at the University of Copen-
hagen in the Department of Political Science’s Centre for Military Stud-
ies. Her research centres on contemporary interventionism in the global
South – with a specific interest in Africa – in part focusing on familiar
institutions, like the UNHCR, UNODC, or UN peace operations, and in
part looking at the role of new technologies (biometrics) and/or domains
(maritime) of interventions. She is the author of The Politics of Humani-
tarian Technology (2015) and her research has been published in Inter-
national Affairs, Security Dialogue, Citizenship Studies, and Journal of
Intervention and Statebuilding among others.
Linda Monsees is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Goethe University Frankfurt
ClusterofExcellence“TheFormationofNormativeOrders.”Priortothat,
she worked at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies and the Bremen
Graduate School of Social Sciences. Her research focuses on networked
technology, especially digital encryption. She combines perspectives from