Rethinking the Political Science Fiction Nexus: Global Policy Making and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

Charli Carpenter

Globe on a Conference TableA burgeoning literature in IR asserts there is a relationship between pop cultural artifacts and global policy processes, but this relationship is rarely explored using observational data. To fill this gap, I provide an evidence-based exploration of the relationship between science-fiction narratives and global public policy in an important emerging political arena: norm-building efforts around the prohibition of fully autonomous weapons. Drawing on in-depth interviews with advocacy elites, and participant-observation at key campaign events, I explore and expand on constitutive theories about the impact of science fiction on “real-world” politics.

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Perspectives on Politics, Volume 14, Issue 01, March 2016, pp 53 – 69
Published online by Cambridge University Press 21 Mar 2016