Non-lethal Weapons as Legitimising Forces?: Technology, Politics and the Management of Conflict

Whether in international military interventions or routine policing activities the use of force raises a host of questions about appropriateness, necessity and proportionality. Recently attention has focused on the possibility of so-called "non-lethal" weapons to provide greater legitimacy to the use of force by minimizing injury. Acoustic weapons that shatter windows and cause internal damage, electromagnetic pulse beams designed to knock individuals down and cause seizures, and chemical agents that act as calmatives are all envisioned. This study describes the current "state of the art" weapons and focuses on their justifications through a combination of insights from security and peace studies, criminology, and science and technology studies. This publication should be of interest to anyone concerned about past and future development of force and the operation of risky technologies. Police and military practitioners, members of non-governmental organizations and students of technology studies,criminology, science policy, security studies, risk and social movements should find this book of interest.

Brian Rappert is a Research Fellow in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham, UK.