The analysis thus far suggests that weaknesses in the conceptualization of small arms control are more fundamental than many scholar-practitioners imagine. The emerging dominant paradigm is an improvement on conventional security studies in a number of ways. It moves beyond great power politics, has a broader set of concerns beyond state security that include human security, focuses on the majority world and their security concerns, and attempts to take local subjectivities seriously. Despite this, small arms control is marked by the application of categories derived from an idealized account of Northern historical development. It thus remains Eurocentric in that it ‘derives its core categories and assumptions about world politics from a par- ticular understanding of European experience’.120 Not only has conceptual work stalled, but a Eurocentric conceptualization of organized violence and its control means that programmes will continue to fail. Beyond this, small arms control is also marked by a series of exclusions, which point to the lack of a common frame for understanding armed violence. This serves to produce the South as a site of intervention, contributing to the mutual constitution of both North and South. Furthermore, the internationalizing policy community that has emerged in relation to small arms control is itself marked by North-South hierarchies. Overall, then, small arms control is better understood as a moment in the reproduction of imperial relations.
The emerging dominant paradigm moves beyond great power politics, has concerns that include human security and attempts to take local subjectivities seriously Despite this, small arms control is marked by categories derived from an idealized account of Northern historical development. It remains Eurocentric a Eurocentric conceptualization of organized violence and its control means that programmes will continue to fail. small arms control is marked by a series of exclusions This serves to produce the South as a site of intervention marked by North-South hierarchies in the reproduction of imperial relations.