Destroying Arms in Sri Lanka

Trauma Recovery and Changing Norms in Burundi

Arms Collection in Afghanistan

Click here to download this 30 minute interview.

Small Arms and Light Weapon (SALW) Control, a fairly new category of Security Studies, has been innovated and championed by Dr. Edward Laurance, Professor and Gordon Paul Smith Chair of International Policy Studies at Monterey Institute.  With five decades of experience in the military, working for the UN, research, teaching at Naval Postgraduate School and Monterey Institute of International Studies, Dr Laurance’s knowledge is truly enlightening.

He shares with Policy Pace hostess Paula LeRoy particulars of the challenges and advances of small arms control. Among the topics are increased violence in the world, the origins of focus on small arms control, DDR techniques, and changing norms.

The conversation includes successes such as Operation Ceasefire in Boston, and failures such as the DDR in El Salvador. Dr Laurance summarizes the four lenses of armed conflict analysis: people, perpetrators, instruments and institutions that are featured in the new concise OECD book Armed Violence Reduction: Enabling Development.

The interview draws upon Dr. Laurance’s numerous publications, involvement with the Small Arms Survey, United Nations, Conventional Arms Control, and Development Expertise.

Please let us know if this interview was informative, your suggestions, what other interviews you would like posted, and if you would like to be an interviewer for Policy Pace, by commenting here or at policypace@live.com.  Thank you!

** the comment “everyone in Texas has a gun, but there are few homicides” was an obvious exaggeration, meaning ‘there is a strong consensus advocating gun ownership in many parts of Texas (but few homocides).’ Sorry if I offended anyone.