Conveners
Political Economy, Technology and the Defence Industry
- Kristen Harkness (University of St. Andrews)
- Marc DeVore (University of St. Andrews)
Description
This panel aims to explore how economic, industrial, and technological dynamics influence defence issues. The war in Ukraine, the strategic competition between China and the United States, and the European quest for strategic autonomy or technological sovereignty (among other factors) highlight how issues related to technological innovation, industrial policy and economic competitiveness are increasingly important for understanding geopolitical competition, and how the traditional distinction between high politics (security) and low politics (economics) is increasingly blurred. Understanding the links between economics, industry and technology is important because we are seeing partly contradictory trends. On the one hand, the return of war to the European continent and the numerous global crises and wars has refocused attention on the productive and innovative capacity of the defence industry and on the fundamental role of the state in directing economic, technological and industrial efforts for security and defence purposes. On the other hand, technological innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, cloud computing, machine learning and quantum computing is being driven by a mix of private actors - big tech and start-ups - and in value chains far removed from the traditional defence-industrial pipeline. This panel invites diverse papers that explore the links between political economy, technology, and defence, and welcomes contributions from all theoretical approaches and disciplines. Papers may focus on national, multilateral, or comparative dimensions and may be either empirically rich case studies and/or more theoretical explorations. Contributions may relate to, but are not limited to, the three areas: (1) The role of technological innovation in the security and defence sector; (2) The reconfiguration of the role of private actors (big tech and start-ups) and defence industries and their impact on defence procurement, the defence market and arms transfers; and (3) The role of the state and industrial policy in steering technological innovation and economic competitiveness in the security and defence sector.
The European Union’s defence innovation ambitions have evolved significantly since the early 2000s, driven by an increasing need for technological sovereignty amid the resurgence of great power competition. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further accelerated interest in defence R&D, drawing greater attention from both the public and private sectors within the EU. Taking the...
Why and how does Russia engage in the arms trade? Scholars have
largely focused on why Russia participates in the arms trade, often
neglecting the equally crucial question of how it conducts this trade. Yet, understanding the mechanisms by which Russia promotes arms sales
provides deeper insights into why it does so. While many portray Russia’s arms trade as driven by economic or strategic...
This paper aims to answer who has been at the centre of the development of Unmanned Systems in Ukraine following February 2022, and how these actors have become organised into constellations that enhance military adaptability. With private actors being central as funders, producers and suppliers of drones, Ukraine demonstrates the contemporary role of the state and the military in guiding and...
In an era of hostile geopolitics, states of all stripes are striving to fortify domestic defense industries and secure defense supply lines. Despite increasing scholarly attention on national strategies of self-reliance—especially in rising powers in the global south—the concept and its associated policy of ‘defense indigenization’ (DI) remains little understood on a conceptual and empirical...
