Statecrafting ignorance: Strategies for managing burdens, secrecy, and conflict

Abstract

In acknowledgment of the demands of studying state secrecy, this chapter asks how novel possibilities for knowing can be fashioned. It does so in relation to the place of secrecy within international diplomatic and security negotiations associated with humanitarian disarmament. A conversational account is given regarding how “cluster bombs” become subject to a major international ban in 2008. Tensions, uncertainties, and contradictions associated with knowing and conveying matters that cannot be wholly known or conveyed are worked through. With these moves, a form of writing is sought that sensitizes readers to how absences figure within debates about social problems and the study of those debates, as well as how ignorance born out of secrecy helps secure an understanding of the world. Uncertainties, no-go areas, and blind spots are looked to as analytical and practical resources.

Citation

Rappert, B., Moyes, R. and Other, A.N. (2011), "Statecrafting ignorance: Strategies for managing burdens, secrecy, and conflict", Maret, S. (Ed.) Government Secrecy (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 301-324. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0196-1152(2011)0000019020