Light Weapons - Heavy Problems : A study on the impact of international treaties on domestic security

Sammanfattning: Not enough focus has been put on causes of security in previous research; this thesis contributes by addressing this gap by exploring the potential impacts of international measures on domestic security, and aims to answer the research question: How can international treaties exert an impact on domestic security? The level of security prior to ratification of a UN’ treaty aiming to increase security by addressing the proliferation of illicit firearms; the Firearms Protocol, is compared to five years after ratification, to explore whether the hypothesis in this thesis finds any support: a state which has ratified the Firearms Protocol should have experienced an increase in security domestically. The argument is that international treaties exert an impact on domestic security through norm internalization in two steps; elite transformation and domestic empowerment. El Salvador and Sweden are the cases studied, with the method of Structured Focused Comparison, where questionnaires are used to measure both security and internalization of norms. The findings show that there is no direct connection between ratification and domestic security; however others interesting observations were made, such as a potential relationship between putting issues about the proliferation of illicit firearms high on the political agenda, and perceptions of security.