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HPSCG0088 STS Perspectives on Security and War

Course Syllabus

2019-20 session | Prof. Brian Balmer | [email protected]

Course Information

Basic course information

Course website:

See Moodle Site

Moodle Web site:

search ‘HPSCGA41’

Assessment: Coursework (4000 words) – 80%, Coursework (1000 words) – 20%

Timetable: www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/hpsc

Prerequisites: ‘no pre-requisites’, ‘course designed for MSc students’

Required texts:

n/a

Course tutor: Prof. Brian Balmer

Contact: [email protected]

020 7679 3924

Web: www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/sts/staff/balmer

Office location:

22 Gordon Square, Room and Room 2.1

Office hours: See Moodle or Office Door

This course focuses on how history, philosophy and social studies of science investigates the

relationship between science, technology and security issues. Our focus will be on security in

relation to war and violence, particularly the control of biological, chemical and nuclear

weapons; automation and simulation in war; the use of non-lethal weapons; and the role of

secrecy, absence and ignorance in security and war. To address this issue, the course will

explore concepts and ideas derived from science and technology studies such as tacit

knowledge; social shaping of technology; actor-network theory; risk; secrecy, uncertainty,

ignorance and science; and bio-politics.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/hpsc

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/sts/staff/balmer

HPSCG0088 STS Perspectives on Security and War 2019-20 session

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Schedule

UCL Week Topic Broad Theme Date

20 Introduction to the Course: STS, Security and War

Overview 15/1

21 How does STS study military technology? 12/1

22 Are scientists responsible for the weapons they create?

Ethics and STS 29/1

23 Disarmament and Arms Control 5/2

24 Tacit Knowledge and Security Epistemology and STS 12/2

24 Short Review Due See Moodle

25 Reading Week 19/2

26 Non-Knowledge and Security: Secrecy, Ignorance and Absence

Epistemology and STS 26/2

27 War Every Day? The securitzation and miliarization of the mundane

Domestic Security 4/3

28 Security and Law: Forensic Science and Lie Detectors

11/3

29 Automatic War The Battlefield 18/3

30 After War: Who Counts the Dead 25/3

College Closed Peace !!

30 Essay deadline See Moodle

Assessments

Summary

Description Deadline Word limit

1 Review (1000 words) (20%) 11/02/2020 1000

2 Essay (4000 words) (80%) 27/04/2020 4000


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Assignments Instructions for the two written assignments are at the end of this course syllabus. Criteria for assessment The departmental marking guidelines for individual items of assessment can be found in the STS Student Handbook. Aims & objectives This course investigates the relationship between science, technology and war, primarily using intellectual tools from history, philosophy and sociology of science. The course explores military science and technologies in their social, political and historical context, and focuses mainly on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. By the end of this course you should:

Be able to apply critical STS thinking to understanding issues around science, technology, war and security.

Have developed knowledge of the history and governance of modern military technologies.

Have been able to write both (a) concise review and (b) an extended essay on topics relevant to the course

Be able to make links between broader concepts in STS and how they apply to the specific domain of war and security.

Course expectations Lectures and seminars Each week there will be a one hour lecture followed by a seminar discussion. You should complete the “seminar reading(s)” for each topic. Reading: The notes that you take in lectures will not be detailed enough to understand a topic or to write an essay on that topic. It is therefore essential that you make use of the reading lists. In essays you are expected read widely and to use (and make reference to) material in addition to that labelled essential reading. You may use material that is not on the reading list but use all readings critically - you don’t necessarily have to agree with everything you read. Where to find the reading material No one text covers this course. Most of the required and optional reading material is kept in the DMS Watson science library. Where possible we will make seminar readings available on Moodle. Unless otherwise marked, assume journal articles are available online through the library Electronic Journals link. All of the seminar readings, unless otherwise noted, can be accessed electronically through the library or Moodle page. There is a reading list on Moodle (right hand column) of digitized readings which would otherwise be more difficult to access. There is also useful material kept in Senate House Library which you can obtain a library card with your


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UCL Identity Card. You are also encouraged to use the Wellcome Library. The Service is a reference library with a large collection of science policy material - including some material on chemical and biological warfare. You are also encouraged to use the internet for research. However make sure you reference the full web address, the site title and date visited. Be critical of what you read. Be very careful of purely descriptive sites, such as Wikipedia – we are looking for analysis and argument in your essays not just re-hashing basic information. Also note that plagiarism, particularly involving internet sources, will be treated as a severe exam irregularity. Attendance Anyone who misses more than 70% lectures or seminars will be asked to provide an explanation. Anyone who fails to provide an adequate documented explanation may be declared INCOMPLETE for the course.


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Week 1 Introduction to the Course: Science, Security and War

Essential Reading: Roland, A (2003) ‘Science, technology, and war’, in Mary Jo Nye (ed.), The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 5: The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.561-578. (Very useful, if compressed, summary of relationships between science, technology and war in C20th century) [E-book] Kaldor, M (2013) ‘In defence of new wars’, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2(1) [Open Access Online] Recommended Reading: David Edgerton, ‘Significance’, ‘War’, and ‘Killing’ in The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900, London: Profile Books, 2006. [War chapter in digital Moodle readings] These are readings that set the broad context for the course and contain useful background material - particularly if you feel there is a gap in your knowledge. Howard, M. (2009). War in European history. London: Oxford University Press. (A short, authoritative and readable history of war – the 2009 edition brings the history up to post-Cold war). Kaldor, M. (2007). New and Old Wars. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. (Post-cold war) Wolfe, A. (2012). Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America (Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science) (Short, extremely readable overview of science in Cold War USA) Siracusa, JM (2015) Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP) (Short readable history of nuclear weapons)


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Week 2 How Does STS Study Military Technology?

Lecture: Where does new military technology come from? What role does science play in the invention of new military technologies? What does it mean to claim that a technology is ‘socially shaped’? Seminar Reading: Background: If you have not studied any sociology of technology before then: Matthew Ford (2017), Weapon of Choice: Small Arms and the Culture of Military Innovation (London: Hurst) Chapter 1 is good background on different approaches to sociology of technology [E-book]. Seminar Focus: Grint, K. and Woolgar, S. (1997). ‘What’s Social About Being Shot?’ in The machine at work. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. pp140-168 [Moodle digital readings] Additional Reading Alex Roland, (2010). Was the Nuclear Arms Race Deterministic? Technology and Culture, 51(2), pp.444-461. Weber, Rachel (1997) “Manufacturing Gender in Commercial and Military Cockpit Design,” Science, Technology and Human Values 23: 235-53. Stone, J. (2012). ‘The Point of the Bayonet’. Technology and Culture, 53(4), pp.885-908. Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, (eds.) (1999) The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd Edition). ‘Military Technology. Introduction’, (Open University Press) pp.343-350. Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge and Nuclear Weapons Destruction, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. David Edgerton, ‘Significance’, ‘War’, and ‘Killing’ in The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900, London: Profile Books, 2006. [War chapter in digital Moodle readings] Soeters, J (2018), Sociology and Military Studies: Classical and Current Foundations (London: Routledge), Chapter 14 (Bruno Latour: Science and Technology in Society and in the Military)[E-book] Schouten, P (2014). Security as controversy: Reassembling security at Amsterdam Airport, Security Dialogue, Vol. 45(1) 23–42 Leander, Anna (2013), Technological Agency in the Co-Constitution of Legal Expertise and the US Drone Program, Leiden Journal of International Law; Cambridge Vol. 26, Iss. 4, (Dec 2013): 811- 831.


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Daniel Neyland & Norma Mollers (2017) ‘Algorithmic IF ... THEN rules and the conditions and consequences of power’, Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 45-62. DeLanda, M (2016), Assemblage Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), Introduction and Chapter 3 (Assemblages and the Weapons of War) [E-book] Specific Case Studies Discussed in the Lecture: Collins, H. and Pinch, T. (1998). ‘A Clean Kill? : The role of Patriot in the Gulf War’, The golem at large. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. [E-book] Janet Abbate, ‘Cold war and white heat: the origins and meanings of packet switching’ in MacKenzie and Wajcman (eds.) The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd Edition), 1999, Chapter 25 M. Armacost, ‘The Thor-Jupiter Controversy’ in MacKenzie and Wajcman (eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd Edition), 1999 Chapter 28. Paul Forman, ‘Behind Quantum Electronics: National security as basis for physical research in the United States, 1940-1960’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences (1987) 18(1) pp.149-229 . Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change, London: Oxford University Press, 1976. (For the stirrup case.)

Week 2 Are Scientists Responsible for the Weapons they Create?

This lecture will explore two senses of this moral question. What are the responsibilities of scientists doing research on weapons? Secondly, are scientists responsible for how those weapons are used? The lecture will explore how scientists have dealt with these issues during the 20th Century. Seminar Reading: Thorpe, C. (2004). Violence and the Scientific Vocation. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(3), pp.59-84. Additional Reading Thorpe, C (2007), Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) chapters 6 and 7. [E-book on order] (Analyses physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s views on the moral responsibility of the scientist) Hugh Gusterson, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 (See Chapter 3 ‘Becoming a Weapons Scientist).(Digitised on Moodle Reading List) Bridger, S. (2015). Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research (Cambridge MA: Harvard


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University Press) (Chapters 3-4) (E-book). Brian Balmer, ‘Killing “Without the Distressing Preliminaries”: Scientists’ Defence of the British Biological Warfare Programme’, Minerva (2002) 40, pp57-75 EITHER Daniel Charles, ‘Chapter 9: “The greatest period of his life”’, in Between Genius and Genocide: the Tragedy of Fritz Haber, Father of Chemical Warfare, London: Jonathan Cape, 2005 (Haber stands in contrast to Oppenheimer in the ways they handled their vocation and violence) OR Szöllösi-Janze M. (2017) ‘The Scientist as Expert: Fritz Haber and German Chemical Warfare During the First World War and Beyond’. In: Friedrich B., Hoffmann D., Renn J., Schmaltz F., Wolf M. (eds) One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences. (Springer, Cham)(Open Access) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_2 Cropley, D (et al) (eds) (2010), The Dark Side of Creativity (Cambridge: CUP) Human Experiments and the Military Susan Lindee, ‘The Repatriation of Atomic Bomb Victim Body Parts to Japan: Natural Objects and Diplomacy,” Osiris (1999) 13, pp.376-409. (Argues that the material body parts from bomb victims, and the way they are (mis)treated, are a way of ‘instantiating’ (i.e. making concrete) abstract ideas such as victory in war). Alex Mankoo (2018), “Controlling and Caring for Public Bodies: Gas Tests in WWII Britain,” in Chemical Bodies: The Techno-Politics of Control (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) (Digitized Moodle Reading List). Schmidt, U (2015), Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments (Oxford: OUP). Jonathan D. Moreno, Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, London: Routledge, 2001. (All useful, but esp Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7)

Week 3 Disarmament and Arms Control:

Can Chemical and Biological Weapons Be Controlled?

What factors guide the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (atomic, biological and chemical weapons)? How can we prevent the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction? What role do international treaties play? The lecture will focus on chemical and biological weapons control. Seminar Readings: The readings have been chosen to address three possible sources of biological weapons threat: nation states; so-called ‘dual use research of concern’, and bioterrorism. Lentzos, F. (2013). Hard to Prove: Compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. King's

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_2


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College London. (available online via Moodle) McLeish, C. and Nightingale, P. (2007). Biosecurity, bioterrorism and the governance of science: The increasing convergence of science and security policy. Research Policy, 36(10), pp.1635-1654. Chevrier, I (2007), Why do conclusions from the experts vary? In Wenger, A. and Wollenmann, R. (2007).

Bioterrorism. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. [E-book] Additional Reading Arms Control Treaties: Moodie, Amanda (2015), ‘In Good Health? The Biological Weapons Convention and the "Medicalization"

of Security’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 22, No.1, pp.71-82. Enia, J and Fields, J (2014), The Relative Efficacy of the Biological and Chemical Weapon Regimes, The Non-Proliferation Review Vol 21(1): 43-64. Chemical Weapons Kenyon, I (2000) ‘Chemical Weapons in the Twentieth Century: their Use and their Control’, The CBW Conventions Bulletin No.48 (June 2000) pp.1-15. Available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/ Edwards, B. & Cacciatori, M. (2018), The politics of international chemical weapon justice: The case of

Syria, 2011-2017, Contemporary Security Policy. 39, 2, p. 280-297. Coleman, K. (2005). A history of chemical warfare. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. McLeish, C and Balmer, B (2012) ‘Discovery of the V-series nerve agents during pesticide research’, in

Tucker, J (ed) Tucker, J (2012), Innovation, Dual-Use and Security: Managing the Risks of Emerging Biological and Chemical Technologies (Cambridge MA: MIT Press) (Chapters 1 and 2).(E-book ordered for the library).

Biological Weapons: Lentzos, F (ed) (2016) Biological Threats in the Twenty-First Century (London: World Scientific). Up to date collection covering many aspects of the BW threat (E-book) Guillemin, J (2005), Biological Weapons: From State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, New York ; Chichester: Columbia University Press (Chapters 1, 8 and 9) Balmer, B (2015), 'The Social Dimension of Technology: The Control of Chemical and Biological Weapons'

in Gonzalez, W.J. (ed) New Perspectives on Technology, Values and Ethics: Theoretical and Practical Discussions. (Dordrecht: Springer) pp.167-182. [Moodle E-reading list]

Lentzos, F (2014), ‘The risk of bioweapons use: Considering the evidence base’ BioSocieties (2014) 9, 84–93.[Roundtable discussion with experts about the risk of from BW]

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/


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Dual-Use Rappert, B. (2014). Why has Not There been More Research of Concern?. Frontiers in Public Health, 2. McCleish, C (2006), ‘Science and Censorship in an Age of Bioweapons Threat’, Science as Culture 15(3), pp.215-36. Examines the way in which threat is ‘framed’ in terms of dual-use. Tucker JB (1994), ‘Dilemmas of a Dual-Use Technology: Toxins in Medicine and Warfare’, Politics and the Life Sciences Vol.13 No.1 pp51-62. Bezuidenhout, Louise. 2014. “Moving Life Science Ethics Debates beyond National Borders: Some Empirical Observations.” Science and Engineering Ethics 20 (2): 445–67. Buchanan, A and Kelley, M (2013), ‘Biodefence and the Production of Knowledge: Rethinking The Problem’, Journal of Medical Ethics 39: 195-204. Four STS articles all on pandemic flu and dual use: Porter, H (2016), ‘Ferreting things out: Biosecurity, pandemic flu and the transformation of experimental

systems’, Biosocieties Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 22–45 Lakoff, A (2017), ‘A fragile assemblage: Mutant bird flu and the limits of risk assessment’, Social Studies

of Science Volume: 47 issue: 3, page(s): 376-397. Engel-Glatter, S.C. (2014), Dual-use research and the H5N1 bird flu: Is restricting publication the solution

to biosecurity issues?, Science and Public Policy (Volume 41, Issue 3, Pages 370–383 Vogel, K (2014), ‘Expert Knowledge in Intelligence Assessments: Bird Flu and Bioterrorism’, International

Security Volume 38 (3): 39-71

Week 4 Tacit Knowledge and Security

The concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ has a long history within STS and has more recently been adopted by various scholars within and beyond STS in relation to security and arms control. The concept is now starting to be used in arms control discussions beyond academia. Yet, while undoubtedly a useful concept, there is surprisingly little literature that is critical or challenges ‘tacit knowledge’. Seminar Reading Dennis, MA (2013). “Tacit Knowledge as a Factor in the Proliferation of WMD: The Example of Nuclear

Weapons.” Studies in Intelligence 57 (3): 1–9. Available at: https://bit.ly/2WzhXHA

https://bit.ly/2WzhXHA


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Additional Reading Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi, ‘Tacit knowledge, weapons design, and the uninvention of nuclear weapons’ American Journal of Sociology 101(1) (1995), pp.44-99. [a seminal STS discussion of ‘tacit knowledge’ and arms control] Schmidt, K (2012), ‘The trouble with ‘tacit knowledge’’, Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21:163-225 [Not about security but one of the few critiques of ‘tacit knowledge’] Vogel, Kathleen M. (2008), ‘Framing biosecurity: an alternative to the biotech revolution model?’, Science and Public Policy, Volume 35, Number 1, February 2008 , pp. 45-54(10). Revill, J. and Jefferson, C. (2013). Tacit knowledge and the biological weapons regime. Science and Public Policy, 41(5), pp.597-610. Ouagrham-Gormley, S. (2012). Barriers to Bioweapons: Intangible Obstacles to Proliferation. International Security, 36(4), pp.80-114. Marris, C., Jefferson, C. and Lentzos, F. (2014). Negotiating the dynamics of uncomfortable knowledge:

The case of dual use and synthetic biology. BioSocieties, 9(4), pp.393-420. Not about security but useful for digging into ‘tacit knowledge’: Lynch, M. (2002). Protocols, practices, and the reproduction of technique in molecular biology. British

Journal of Sociology, 53(2), pp.203-220. (Interesting critique of ‘tacit knowledge’ in the article). Collins, H. (1985). Changing order. London: Sage Publications. (Chapter 3 on replicating the TEA laser) Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (esp Part 2)

Week 5 Non-Knowledge and Security: Secrecy, Ignorance, Absence

Security is a field where uncertainty, secrecy and other forms of non-knowledge are ubiquitous. STS has recently turned from looking at the construction on knowledge to also look at these various forms of non-knowledge. If there can be a sociology of scientific knowledge, can there equally be a sociology of ignorance? With respect to secrecy, a combination of STS with the geography of knowledge has promised to re-think the dynamics of secrecy. Seminar Reading

Paglen, T. (2010). Goatsucker: toward a spatial theory of state secrecy. Environment and Planning D:

Society and Space, 28(5), pp.759-771.


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Additional Reading

Galison, P. 2004. Removing knowledge. Critical Inquiry, 31(1), 229-43.

Rappert, B (2012), How To Look Good in a War: Justifying and Challenging State Violence, London:

Pluto. Chapter 3: ‘Disabling discourses: International Law, Legitimacy and the Politics of Balance’

[E-book]

Masco, J. 2001. ‘Lie detectors: of secrets and hypersecurity in Los Alamos’. Public Culture, 14(3), 441-

67.

Aradau, C (2017)’ Assembling (non)knowledge: security, law, and surveillance in a digital

world’ International Political Sociology 11:327-42.

Van Verren, E (2019), ‘Secrecy’s Subjects: Special Operators in the US Shadow War’, European

Journal of International Security, 4:386-414.

Balmer, B (2012), Secrecy and Science: A Historical Sociology of Biological and Chemical Warfare

(Farnham: Ashgate) (Chapter 1 for a review of literature on science and secrecy; Chapter 7 for the

VX nerve gas case study) [E-book].

Revill, J and Edwards, B (2015), ‘What counts as the Hostile Use of Chemicals?’, in Rappert, B. and Balmer, B (eds) Absence in science, security and policy: From research agendas to global strategy (Basingstoke: Palgrave) Chapter 8. (digitized on Moodle)

Paglen, T. 2009. Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World. New

York: Dutton.

Dennis, M.A. 2007. ‘Secrecy and science revisited: from politics to historical practice and back’, in

The Historiography of Contemporary Science, Technology and Medicine: Writing Recent Science,

edited by R.E. Doel, and T. Söderqvist. London: Routledge, 172-84.

McLeish, C (2010) “Opening up the secret city of Stepnogorsk: biological weapons in the Former

Soviet Union”, Area vol 42. no 1, 2010, pp60-69.

Forsyth, I. (2013). Designs on the desert: camouflage, deception and the militarization of space.

Cultural Geographies, 21(2), pp.247-265.

B. Rappert and B.Balmer (2015), 'Ignorance is Strength? Intelligence, Security and National Secrets'

in Gross, M and McGoey, L (eds), Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies (London:

Routledge,)


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Not about security but relevant:

Merton, R. (1973). The normative structure of science, in The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and

Empirical Investigations, edited by N. Storer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 267-78.

Kempener, J (2011), ‘Forbidden Knowledge: Public Controversy and the Production of

Nonknowledge’, Sociological Forum 26(3): 475-500.

Week 6 War Every Day?

The securitzation and miliarization of the mundane and everyday life

How does military science and technology creep into civilian life? Are uses of non-lethal weapons, or the merging of public health and biosecurity issues, for instance, to be welcomed or challenged? Seminar Reading: Woolgar, S and Neyland, D (2014), ‘Mundane terror’, in Woolgar, S and Neyland, D, Mundane Governance: Autonomy and Accountability (Oxford: OUP) Chapter 8 [UCL Library E-book] Additional Reading Preparedness and Emergencies Cooper, M (2006), ‘Preempting Emergence: The Biological Turn of the War on Terror’, Theory, Culture and Society, Volume 23.4, July 2006, pp. 113-135. Collier, S. (2008). Enacting catastrophe: preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization. Economy and Society, 37(2), pp.224-250. Lakoff, A. (2007). Preparing for the Next Emergency. Public Culture, 19(2), pp.247-271. Agamben, G. (2005). State of exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CCTV Goold, B, Loader, I and Thumala, A (2013), The Banality Of Security: The Curious Case of Surveillance Cameras, Brit. J. Criminol. (2013) 53, 977–996 [Considers how some security technologies become normalized and others attract controversy] Borders Schouten, P (2014). Security as controversy: Reassembling security at Amsterdam Airport, Security Dialogue Vol. 45(1): 23–42. Bourne, M., Johnson, H. and Lisle, D. (2015) ‘Laboratizing the border: The production, translation and


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anticipation of security technologies’, Security Dialogue, 46(4), pp. 307–325. Lisle, D and Bourne, M (2019), ‘The many lives of border automation: Turbulence, coordination and care’, Social Studies of Science, Volume: 49 issue: 5, page(s): 682-706 Non-lethal weapons Rappert, B. 2001. “Scenarios on the Future of Non-lethal Weapons” Contemporary Security Policy 22(1): 50-74. Feigenbaum, A (2017), Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of World War I to the Streets of Today (London: Verso) Especially Chapter 5 (The Science of Making Tear Gas ‘Safe’) Davison, N (2009), NonLethal Weapons (Basingstoke: Palgrave) Securitization and Militarization Kelle, A (2007) ‘The Securitization of International Public Health. Implications for Global Health Governance and the Biological Weapons Prohibition Regime’, in Global Governance, Vol.13, No.2, pp.217-235. Pugliese, J (2016), ‘Drone casino mimesis: Telewarfare and civil militarization’, Journal of Sociology Vol 52, Issue 3, pp. 500 – 521. Elbe, S. (2006). Should HIV/AIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIV/AIDS and Security. Int Studies Q, 50(1), pp.119-144.

Week 7 Security and Law: Forensic Science and Lie Detectors

STS has built up a rich body of literature looking at science and the law. Although much of this work touches on broader criminological themes than security, much of it is relevant to thinking about how technology, crime and security inter-relate. Seminar Readings Simon A. Cole, Michael Lynch (2006) ‘The Social and Legal Construction of Suspects’ Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 2: 39-60 . Additional Reading Maschke, K (2008) ‘DNA and Law Enforcement’ in From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/BriefingBook/ Jasanoff, S. (2006). Just evidence: the limits of science in the legal process. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 34(2): 328–341.

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/BriefingBook/


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Lynch, M and McNally, R (2003), "Science", "common sense", and DNA evidence: a legal controversy about the public understanding of science, Public Understanding of Science, 12(1): 83-104. (Detailed case study that challenges the distinction between ‘common sense’ and ‘scientific’ evidence) Skinner, D and Wienroth, M (2019), ‘Was this an ending? The destruction of samples and deletion of records from the UK Police National DNA Database’, BJHS Themes Vol. 4 pp. 99-121 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjhs-themes/article/was-this-an-ending-the-destruction-of-samples-and-deletion-of-records-from-the-uk-police-national-dna-database/B9454A08928AAE907FB0C8FF7103CFA3 Roberts, P. (2013). Renegotiating forensic cultures: Between law, science and criminal justice. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44(1), pp.47-59. (Argues that law and science are not separate domains) Heinnemann, T et al (2012), ‘Risky Profiles: Societal Dimensions of Forensic Uses of DNA Profiling Technology’, New Genetics and Society 31(3): 249-258 (This is an introduction to a special edition of this journal, with all the articles dealing with DNA profiling – read this intro to see whether the other articles are going to be helpful) Dahl, J. Y. and Sætnan, A. (2009). ‘It all happened so slowly’—on controlling function creep in forensic DNA databases. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 3(37): 83–103. Wallace, H (2006), ‘The UK National Database: Balancing Crime Detection, Human Rights and Privacy’, EMBO Reports, Vol 7 (Special Issue) pp26-30 (slightly dated but covers some key objections to DNA databases) Other crime technologies:

Rusconi, E. and Mitchener-Nissen, T. (2013). Prospects of functional magnetic resonance imaging as

lie detector. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7:1-12.

Balmer, A.S. (2015), "Telling Tales: Some episodes from the multiple lives of the polygraph machine." In Knowledge, Technology and Law, 104-118. Oxon: Routledge, 2015. [E-book].

Facial recognition. There are plenty of journalistic articles on this topic, rather less STS analysis. This newspaper article digs below the surface and asks about the decisions and theories underpinning the algorithms: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/06/facial-recognition-software-emotional-science

Week 8 Automatic War

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjhs-themes/article/was-this-an-ending-the-destruction-of-samples-and-deletion-of-records-from-the-uk-police-national-dna-database/B9454A08928AAE907FB0C8FF7103CFA3



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/06/facial-recognition-software-emotional-science

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/06/facial-recognition-software-emotional-science


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The application of information technologies to warfare is not new. However, since the Vietnam War there has been an intensification of the trend, with talk of an ‘automated battlefield’, a ‘revolution in military affairs’ and the widespread deployment of apparently autonomous weapons – self-guiding missiles, drones and so on. Seminar Reading Sullins, P (2013), An Ethical Analysis of the Case for Robotic Weapons Arms Control, in 5th International Conference on Cyber Conflict K. Podins, J. Stinissen, M. Maybaum (Eds.) https://ccdcoe.org/cycon/2013/proceedings/d2r1s9_sullins.pdf Sharkey, N., Suchman, L (2013), Wishful mnemonics and autonomous killing machines Proceedings of the AISB. 136, p. 14-22. https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/65657/1/Sharkey_Suchman_AISBQ_136.pdf Additional Reading Suchman, L (2015) ‘Situational Awareness: Deadly Bioconvergence At The Boundaries Of Bodies And Machines’, MediaTropes eJournal Vol V, No 1 (2015): 1–24 http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/22126/17971 Suchman, et al (2017), ‘Tracking and Targeting: Sociotechnologies of (In)security’, Science, Technology and Human Values Volume: 42 issue: 6, page(s): 983-1002 (This is an introduction to a special edition, so you might want to read this first and other articles in the special edition that interest you). Robert Sparrow (2009), ‘Building a Better WarBot: Ethical Issues in the Design of Unmanned Systems for Military Applications’, Science and Engineering Ethics 15(2), pp. 169-187 Gusterson, H. “Toward an anthropology of drones.” In M. Evangelista and H. Shue, eds., The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms from Flying Fortresses to Drones. Cornell Univ. Press, pp. 191-206. (E-book) (Also see his new book Drone: Remote Control Warfare (Cambridge: MIT Press)) Shaw, I. G.R. (2017) Robot Wars: US Empire and geopolitics in the robotic age. Security Dialogue, 48(5), pp. 451-470 Kosek, Jake. 2010. “Ecologies of Empire: On the New Uses of the Honeybee.” Cultural Anthropology 25 (4): 650–78. Cybersecurity Myriam Dunn Cavelty (2018), Cybersecurity Research Meets Science and Technology Studies, Politics and Governance , Volume 6, Issue 2, Pages 22–30 Daniel Neyland & Norma Mollers (2017) Algorithmic IF ... THEN rules and the conditions and consequences of power, Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 45-62

https://ccdcoe.org/cycon/2013/proceedings/d2r1s9_sullins.pdf

http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/22126/17971


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Simulation and Gaming Robert Paul Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1994, pp. 3-15. (E-book) Ghamari-Tabrizi, S. (2000). ‘Simulating the Unthinkable: Gaming Future War in the 1950s and 1960s.’ Social Studies of Science, 30(2), pp.163-223. James der Derian (2001), Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, (Boulder, CO: Westview (Engaging academic travelogue through the world of military simulation and its links to the entertainment industry). Crogan, P (2011), Gameplay mode : war, simulation, and technoculture (University of Minnesota Press)(especially the intro and chapters 1 and 3).[E-book] Stahl, Roger (2009). Militainment, Inc.: War, media, and popular culture. London: Routledge. (Chapter 1 and 4). [E-book] You can also access a film based on the book, also called Militainment, Inc, through UCL library – warning there are some scenes of war violence – the sections entitled Clean War and Techno-fetishism (17 mins 30s to 41 mins) are the most relevant for this course. Useful Material not specifically from an STS perspective: Sharkey, N. (2010). Saying ‘No!’ to Lethal Autonomous Targeting. Journal of Military Ethics, 9(4), pp.369-383. Sparrow, ‘Predators or Plowshares? Arms control of robotic weapons’, IEEE Technology and Society (Spring 2009) pp. 25-29. Available via: http://www.sevenhorizons.org/docs/SparrowPredatorsorPlowshares.pdf Rosa Brooks, ‘What’s not wrong with drones?’, and ‘Take two drones and call me in the morning’, in Foreign Policy September 5th and 12th 2012. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/05/whats_not_wrong_with_drones http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/12/take_two_drones_and_call_me_in_the_morning

Week 9 After War: Who Counts the Dead?

After war, casualties must be counted (but how?), weapons such as land mines or unexploded cluster munitions must be cleared (but how, and could their use have been prevented or controlled?) and the infrastructure essential to civilian life must be repaired (but why was it attacked in the first place?). The breaks the topic into three strands: Who watches the dead? Who knows the dead? Who counts the dead?

http://www.sevenhorizons.org/docs/SparrowPredatorsorPlowshares.pdf

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/05/whats_not_wrong_with_drones

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/12/take_two_drones_and_call_me_in_the_morning


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Seminar Readings Rappert, B. (2012). States of ignorance: the unmaking and remaking of death tolls. Economy and Society, 41(1), pp.42-63. Additional Reading Martin, A. and Lynch, M. (2009). Counting Things and People: The Practices and Politics of Counting. Social Problems, 56(2), pp.243-266. (More general than just about security) Nelson, D (2015), Who Counts? The Mathematics of Death and Life after Genocide (Washington: Duke University Press) – especially Part I (Chapters 0 and 1) and Part II (Chapter 2 and 3) [E-book] Stone, J (2007), ‘Technology and the problem of civilian casualties in war’, in Brian Rappert (ed.), Technology and Security: Governing Threats in the New Millennium, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.133-151 (Digitized on Moodle Reading List) Stephen Graham (2005), ‘Switching cities off’, City 9(2): 169-84 (About attacking infrastructure as a theme of modern warfare.) Susan Lindee, ‘The Repatriation of Atomic Bomb Victim Body Parts to Japan: Natural Objects and Diplomacy,” Osiris (1999) 13, pp.376-409. (Argues that the material body parts from bomb victims, and the way they are (mis)treated, are a way of ‘instantiating’ (i.e. making concrete) abstract ideas such as victory in war)). Bureaucratization and Killing Zygmunt Bauman (1989), ‘The Uniqueness and Normality of the Holocaust’, Chapter 4 in Modernity and the Holocaust, Cambridge: Polity Press. [E-book] Soeters, J (2018), Sociology and Military Studies: Classical and Current Foundations (London: Routledge), Chapter 1 (Bureaucracy, leadership and military music) [E-book] Carol Cohn (1987), ‘Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals’, Signs (1987) 124, pp.687-718 OR Carol Cohn (1987), “Nuclear Language and How We Learned to Pat the Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 43(5):17-24 (June). Henry T. Nash (1980) ‘The Bureaucratization of Homicide’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 36:4,22-27 Slovic, P. (2007). ”If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide. Judgment and Decision Making, 2, 79-95. Available at www.decisionresearch.org Asaro, Peter M. 2013. “The Labor of Surveillance and Bureaucratized Killing: New Subjectivities of

http://www.decisionresearch.org/


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Military Drone Operators.” Social Semiotics 23 (2): 196–224. War and Media Michael Mandelbaum, ‘Vietnam: the television war’, Daedalus (1982) 111, pp. 157-169 Stahl, Roger (2009). Militainment, Inc.: War, media, and popular culture. London: Routledge. (Chapter 1). [E-book] You can also access a film based on the book, also called Militainment, Inc, through UCL library – warning there are some scenes of war violence – the sections entitled Clean War and Techno-fetishism (17 mins 30s to 41 mins) are the most relevant for this course. Wald, P (2008), Contagious: Cultures, Carriers and the Outbreak Narrative (Durham: Duke University

Press) Chapter 4 (Viral Cultures: Microbes and Politics in the Cold War) – for links between viruses, Cold War politics and science fiction. [E-book]


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Coursework Assignments Assignment 1. Review

By this stage of the MSc course you should be able to read, understand and start to provide your own evaluation of research articles that draw on STS approaches when dealing with war and security. First read the chapter:

Vogel, Kathleen et al (2017), “Knowledge and Security”, in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies 4th,, edited by Ulrike Felt et al. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2017, Section V, 973-100. [Available online through UCL Library] This is an up to date review of the ‘state of the art’ of research in STS and security. Perhaps wait until at least week 2 (after the class) of the course to begin reading it.

Select one research article or chapter (or whole book if you’re feeling ambitious) from the chapter bibliography at the end of the Vogel et al chapter on a topic that you are not intending to choose for your long essay. Avoid any short news items or very descriptive background pieces as there will be less to agree or disagree with. You must make this a different topic to your essay two topic (you are permitted some overlap, but it should mainly link to a different topic). Write a 1000 (+/-10%) word critical review of the article/chapter/book.

The review should have a title of your choosing, and you should also clearly state which piece you are reviewing. [don’t add this to the word count]

You should also read at least 3-4 pieces from the most relevant topic on the reading list or material cited in the Vogel chapter as contextual material. You can also search out your own contextual material.

The review should describe and explain the main argument(s) presented in the article/chapter/book. Your review should also leave space for critical discussion of the material presented in the piece (e.g. strengths, weaknesses, comparison with other literature on the topic, or with other approaches on the course, does it really achieve what it claims to have done?). Hint: It helps here to have one main message that runs through your review.

Once you have cited your main review article/chapter/book for the first time, after that you can simply refer to the page number(s) in brackets instead of citing each time. Other citations to contextual reading should be fully cited (see standard referencing conventions such as Harvard or Chicago for in text and in bibliography formats).

Assignment 2. Essay

You may choose your own title in discussion with me or use (or adapt) one of the indicative essay questions at the end of the syllabus Essays should be 3600-4000 words long, with references cited in the main text and a list of references at the end. Do not cite material in the end references that you have not used in the


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main text. Essay font should be no smaller than 12 point type, essays should have page numbers, be 1.5 line spaced and include a word count at the end. Please read the guidelines on how to write an essay. If you are not used to writing essays then you should also read chapter 5 of A. Northedge’s The Good Study Guide. Essays must be submitted via Moodle/Turnitin. In order to be deemed ‘complete’ on this module students must attempt both of the written assignments.

Essay Questions These are indicative questions for your essays. If there are topics that interest you or you want to adapt a question to take a direction that is more in line with your specific interests, then please discuss with me during office hours.

1. How, if at all, are military technologies socially shaped? What, if any, are the limitations of the ‘social shaping’ approach?

2. Are scientists responsible for the weapons they create?

3. Are there better ways to think about the so-called dual-use dilemma than in terms of ‘dual-use’?

4. Does ‘tacit knowledge’ present a serious barrier to the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction? [or you might want to focus on one type of weapon]

5. Is secret military science simply open science done behind closed doors?

6. How do security technologies ‘spread’ into everyday life? Do these new security technologies make daily life more or less secure?

7. “Just as science can free the innocent, it can also identify the guilty” (Romney cited in Jasanoff 2006). To what extent can DNA profiling and/or lie detectors live up to this expectation?

8. Critically discuss Sullin’s contention that ‘If you are a politician in a liberal democracy, then the technology of unmanned weapons is the answer to your dreams’.

9. “Mathematics is and are inseparable from politics” (Nelson 2015, p4). Critically discuss this claim in relation to counting casualties during and after war.

hpscg0088 sts perspectives on security and war course syllabus€¦ · program, leiden journal of...

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