Documentary data collection

Document analysis and interviews, supplemented by comparison of several theoretical models of relevance to understanding international efforts to ban cluster munitions, were three of the main methods of data collection used to inform this thesis.

A fourth method, participant-observation, produced extensive notes and audio recordings of some pertinent events.

3.1 Documents

Several kinds of documentary data were prominent in the research:

• Documents associated with international talks on cluster munitions such as the diplomatic conferences of the 1970s, the CCW and the Oslo process. These sources included national statements of policy and speeches, diplomatic records of meetings, conference outcome documents, working papers and non-papers, non-governmental organisation (NGO) publications and media reports.

• The policy documents of IOs working in the humanitarian field, especially the ICRC and UN.

• Internal CMC correspondence including campaigning newsletters, advocacy documents and some e-mail messages concerning the evolution of the campaigning call.

• Academic and trade articles published in the weapons field including Arms

Control Today, Disarmament Forum, Foreign Affairs, Jane’s and various

legally oriented journals. • Mainstream media reports.

• Academic studies, including those examining analogous international processes such as the international landmine campaign.

3.2 Interviews

87 interviews were carried out between 2007 and 2010 as part of research for the thesis. Interview respondents fell into several categories, some overlapping:

• Diplomats and politicians of various nationalities involved in international work on cluster munitions in the CCW and Oslo process.

• Representatives of IOs including the ICRC and agencies within the UN family such as UNDP, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and Office for

Disarmament Affairs (ODA).

• Members of NGOs campaigning on cluster munitions.

• People working in the humanitarian field to ameliorate the effects of cluster munitions and other forms of unexploded ordnance (UXO).

• Survivors of cluster munitions and members of their families.

• Analysts of international efforts on cluster munitions including academics, policy researchers and journalists.

The purpose of these interviews was to understand the perspectives of various actors involved in international work on cluster munitions. Triangulation of the accounts of differing actors helped in constructing an evidence-based analytical

narrative, including correcting for misperceptions and inaccuracies extant because of the researcher’s own participation in some events described, for instance, or because of the absence of reliable written accounts (Robson, 2002 371).

People interviewed as part of research for the thesis are listed in Appendix I. Before interviews commenced, it was anticipated that respondents would vary widely in

their sensitivities, and thus a system of informed consent was developed that allowed them to specify precisely how information from their interview could be used. Appendix II contains the consent document used, in very similar form, for all of the interviews, and this is discussed further in Sections 5 and 6.

3.2.1 Interview sample

The group of people interviewed for this research is not a statistically significant representative sample of a known population. It is very difficult to ascertain a

probabilistic sampling frame for the set of all of those relevant to cluster munitions policy either in the period the dissertation examines, or leading up to it. Nor, as Sayer observed, is it necessarily appropriate for individuals interviewed in intensive study of a specific case to be typical members of a taxonomic group containing similar formal attributes (1992 244). In line with this, individuals of interest were selected as research proceeded and an understanding of the membership of a causal group developed.

Correspondingly, non-probabilistic methods were used to obtain an interview sample. Snowball sampling was deployed, which is a method built around referrals (Ruane, 2005 117). In view of the high degree of connectedness of many individuals involved in the CCW and Oslo process, this was judged to be a useful approach.

However, it was also recognised that snowball sampling, if used solely, might exclude interview selection of other respondents helpful in developing aspects of the research. In view of this, theoretical sampling was also used, which is sampling directed by the researcher’s evolving theory for the purposes of making comparisons between and among samples of activities, populations and so on (Strauss, 1987 16-21). For example, interviews were carried out in October 2008 with a range of individuals in

local communities and working in practical UXO disposal in Southern Lebanon to see how perceptions of meaning about cluster munitions compared to those working at the international level. Analysts of past efforts to regulate anti-personnel weapons were also interviewed.

3.2.2 Interview structure

All interview requests were made to individuals directly, rather than to their organisations. Interviews were completely voluntary, and no financial reward was offered for participation in the research.

Interviews for this thesis were qualitative in type, and mostly unstructured in format. By this it is meant that, beyond a few relatively initial administrative and orienting questions at the beginning of the interview (e.g. “what is your job title?” and “Tell me how you initially became aware of cluster munitions?”), flexibility was permitted in how respondents offered their accounts. Interview questions asked were grounded in the context of the subjects being discussed in the interview, or of interest in terms of obtaining data for the research based on a rough list of topics, as well as probes to follow up on points mentioned or not mentioned by the respondent (Ruane, 2005 151). Such unstructured interviews are frequently used in qualitative research designs (Robson, 2002 270-272). This allowed my preconceptions to be challenged, and for qualitative data about the respondent’s thoughts, perceptions and feelings to be collected. Respondents were not forced into an interview mode in which they could only answer in terms of a conceptual grid bestowed by the researcher (Sayer, 1992 245).

On occasion, small groups were interviewed. This was largely for practical reasons, for instance because the research was carried out on the margins of

respondents’ other meetings and it was not possible to interview each person individually. While this created certain challenges (for instance, the potential for “groupthink”, or respondents tailoring their responses to avoid conflict with others present) group interviews also had certain advantages. One advantage was that a larger number of respondents could be interviewed. Secondly, in certain cases the format allowed group internal dynamics to be observed. Thirdly, such situations sometimes highlighted differing understandings about social “facts” and meanings the respondents themselves may have been unaware of.

Barring technical problems, all interviews were recorded and stored as

compressed audio files on a memory card, then transferred to my computer, on which these files were protected from unauthorised access by passwords. Appendix II describes the protocol used to handle issues including respondent confidentiality. Finally, all files were archived on a hard-drive in my physical safekeeping.

3.3 Literature review

3.3.1 Academic theoretical analysis

The thesis draws most on these domains of academic literature:

1. Orthodox positivist IR theory, and in particular neorealism and neoliberalism. 2. Post-positivist interpretivist theory, especially constructivism and critical theory. 3. Critical realist theory.

4. IR literature seeking to compare processes such the MBT and CCM campaigns, for instance within the rubric of humanitarian disarmament/arms control.

3.3.2 Policy-level and legal analysis

Although not situated within explicit theoretical frameworks, a number of different forms of analysis of international activity on cluster munitions were published both during and shortly following the Oslo process. These are significant for their insights into thinking at the time among some of those involved in cluster munition efforts, those seeking to influence them, and some of those seeking to understand them. They reflect underlying conceptions of the policy issues at stake. In certain cases these analyses, like those of Goose (2008), Nash (2006) and Rappert (2008) were implicitly interpretivist in orientation. More recent policy studies have further contended

explanations for the emergence of achievement of the CCM (Docherty, 2010) (Bolton and Nash, 2010) (Groves and Bromund, 2011), and some offered analysis of possible lessons shared from the Ottawa and Oslo processes (Atwood et al., 2009).

A good deal of the legally oriented literature analysing the formation of efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions over the last decade is also relevant. Boothby (2005 , 2009), Breitegger (2005), Maresca (2006), Nystuen (2009), Wiebe (2008) and Woudenberg (2008 , Woudenberg and Wormgoor, 2010) are prominent in this regard. In 2010, a detailed legal commentary of the CCM appeared, which currently is the most comprehensive analysis of the treaty text: it is a major resource in seeking to understand, for instance, the basis of argumentation for specific provisions of the CCM and their anticipated normative consequences (2010).

3.4 Participant-observation

Participant-observation is a research technique in which the researcher observes a social collectivity of which he or she is also a member (Abercrombie et al., 2000 256).

Participating in some of the events described in this thesis, I attempted to document them to the extent possible in notes, audio recordings, photographs and other materials in research for the thesis and for the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). This method raises issues of various kinds. Perhaps the most serious issues are that participant-observation makes considerable demands on the researcher’s powers of observation, and reflexivity so as to avoid unacceptable levels of bias. It is certainly not possible to produce objective or “untainted” data independent of the medium through which it was collected (that is, the researcher’s perceptions). Participant-observation also makes replicating studies in any positivist sense problematic (May, 1997 153-55).

However, as noted above, critical realist ontology does not presuppose that events or relationships can be observed independently of theories or concepts, as human beings already conceptualise when acquiring sense-data from the world (Sayer, 1992 51-65). As such, sources accumulated over the course of participant-observation of international efforts on cluster munitions can—when appropriately triangulated with other sources—be useful both as records of events, and as impressions of the state of evolution of key meanings in the phenomenon being studied, especially how the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions are perceived at different points in time.

4. Data analysis