Membership has its Privileges: Targeted Killing Norms and the Firewall of International Society

Keating, Vincent Charles (2022) “Membership has its Privileges: Targeted Killing Norms and the Firewall of International Society” International Studies Quarterly 66(3), sqac040.

Over the last two decades, the United States has used targeted killing operations to achieve its political objectives with very little criticism from most states in the international system. With the proliferation of drone technology, social constructivists have worries that this widespread use and lack of condemnation might mean we are heading to a ‘norm cascade,’ where targeted killing becomes a widespread means for all states to conduct their relations, overturning previously held norms against assassination. 

This paper suggests that this fear might be overstated. By (re)introducing the distinction between and international system and an international society found in the English School of International Politics, it argues that the society of states acts as a ‘firewall’ against the general acceptance of these operations, which explains why, despite the increasing availability of the technology and the lack of concerted opposition against these operations, they have thus far been limited to violent non-state actors outside of our contemporary international society.