Learn About my
Publications
Pioneering Research in AI, Security, and Global Norms
Explore My Work
Stay up to date with my latest research contributions, ranging from books to journal articles and more.
Journal Articles
Here’s a selection of peer-reviewed articles. For a full list of publications, see below.
Algorithmic Warfare: Taking Stock of a Research Programme
By: Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, Anna Nadibaidze, Guangyu Qiao-Franco and Tom F. A. Watts
Published in: Global Society
Date: November 2024
Summary
This article takes stock of the ongoing debates on algorithmic warfare in the social sciences. It seeks to equip scholars in International Relations and beyond with a critical review of both the empirical context of algorithmic warfare and the different theoretical approaches to studying practices related to the integration of algorithms (including automated, autonomous, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies) into international armed conflict. The review focuses on discussions about (1) the implications of algorithmic warfare for strategic stability, (2) the morality and ethics of algorithmic warfare, (3) how algorithmic warfare relates to the laws and norms of war, and (4) popular imaginaries of algorithmic warfare. The article foregrounds a set of open research questions capable of moving the field toward a more interdisciplinary research agenda, as well as by introducing the contributions made by other articles in this Special Issue.
Artificial Intelligence Technologies and Practical Normativity/Normality: Investigating Practices Beyond the Public Space
By: Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss
Published in: Open Research Europe
Date: March 2024
Summary
This essay critically discusses the interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and norms, focusing on the discipline of International Relations (IR). Here, norms are usually conceptualised as the products of reflection processes where actors debate and decide on “agreeable” standards. IR research on AI governance therefore turns towards international public and deliberative processes and their outcomes. But this risks missing two crucial pathways of how AI technologies may shape norms: first, how practices of designing and using AI technologies performed by actors at sites outside of the public eye make norms; and second, how design and use AI technologies may contribute to not only shaping normativity, in the sense of ideas of oughtness and justice, but also normality, in the sense of the average and the normal. We conclude that AI technologies pose an important challenge for research on norms and consequently require new conceptual and regulative perspectives.
Emergent Normativity: Communities of Practice, Technology, and Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems
By: Ingvild Bode
Published in: Global Studies Quarterly
Date: January 2024
Abstract
Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) are the subject of considerable international debate turning around the extent to which humans remain in control over using force. But what is precisely at stake is less clear as stakeholders have different perspectives on the technologies that animate LAWS. Such differences matter because they shape the substance of the debate, which regulatory options are put on the table, and also normativity on LAWS in the sense of understandings of appropriateness. To understand this process, I draw on practice theories, science and technology studies (STS), and critical norm research. I argue that a constellation of communities of practice (CoPs) shapes the public debate about LAWS and focus on three of these CoPs: diplomats, weapon manufacturers, and journalists. Actors in these CoPs discursively perform practices of boundary-work, in the STS sense, to shape understandings of technologies at the heart of LAWS: automation, autonomy, and AI. I analyze these dynamics empirically in two steps: first, by offering a general-level analysis of practices of boundary-work performed by diplomats at the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS from 2017 to 2022; and second, through examining such practices performed by weapon manufacturers and journalists in relation to the use of loitering munitions, a particular type of LAWS, in the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020).
Books
Here’s an overview of my books. Below you’ll find an overview of chapters I’ve contributed to other books.
Autonomous Weapons and International Norms
By: Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss
Published in: Toronto: McGill-Queen’s University Press
Date: 2022
Summary
In Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss present an innovative study of how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, and how standards manifest and change in practice. Autonomous weapons systems are not a matter for the distant future – some autonomous features, such as in air defence systems, have been in use for decades. They have already incrementally changed use-of-force norms by setting emerging standards for what counts as meaningful human control. As UN discussions drag on with minimal progress, the trend towards autonomizing weapons systems continues.
Individual Agency and Policy Change at the United Nations: The People of the United Nations
By: Ingvild Bode
Published in: London – Routledge
Date: 2015
Summary
This book highlights how temporary international civil servants play a crucial role in initiating processes of legal and institutional change in the United Nations system. These individuals are the “missing” creative elements needed to fully understand the emergence and initial spread of UN ideas such as human development, sovereignty as responsibility, and multifunctional peacekeeping.
Governing the Use-of-Force in International Relations: The Post-9/11 US Challenge to International Law
By: Aiden Warren and Ingvild Bode
Published in: Basingstoke – Palgrave Macmillan
Date: 2014
Summary
This book examines US recourse to military force in the post-9/11 era. In particular, it evaluates the extent to which the Bush and Obama administrations viewed legitimizing the greater use-of-force as a necessary solution to thwart the security threat presented by global terrorist networks and WMD proliferation.
Other publications
A selection of book chapters, policy breifs and reports, and submissions of evidence.
For a full list of publications, se below.
Loitering Munitions and Unpredictability: Autonomy in Weapon Systems and Challenges to Human Control
By: Ingvild Bode and Tom Watts
Published by: Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark
Date: May 2023
Type: Report
Summary
Loitering munitions – expendable uncrewed aircraft which can integrate sensorbased analysis to hover over, detect and explode into targets – are an increasingly prominent feature of modern battlefields. Existing studies have examined whether these technologies are changing the character of contemporary warfare, how
the proliferation of loitering munitions impacts regional (and global) security dynamics, and what this may mean for the force structure of militaries across
the world. Building on our earlier study of air defence systems, this report has a different focus. It examines the global acquisition and fielding of loitering
munitions in the context of the debates about autonomous weapon systems. More specifically, it uses available open-source material to investigate whether the use of autonomous and automated technologies as part of the global development, testing, and use of loitering munitions since the 1980s has impacted emerging standards of human control over the use of force.
Meaning-less Human Control: Lessons from Air Defence Systems for the Debate on Autonomous Weapons
By: Ingvild Bode and Tom Watts
Published by: Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark
Date: May 2021
Type: Report
Summary
Autonomous weapons systems (AWS) are the subject of growing debate. At the heart of this debate is whether such systems reduce meaningful human
control over the use of force. Much of the current debate on AWS focuses on future technological developments. Yet, a closer examination of how automated
and autonomous features have already been integrated into the critical functions of air defence systems highlights that, in some situations, human control has
become effectively meaningless. This report argues that air defence systems, whose importance has been neglected in the discussion of AWS, have set
important and problematic precedents for the development and regulation of AWS.
Practice Theories
By: Ingvild Bode
Published in: Kseniya Oksamytna and John Karlsrud (eds) United Nations Peace Operations and International Relations Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 129-148. [peer-reviewed]
Date: 2020
Type: Chapter in book
About the book
United Nations peace operations have undergone multiple transformations over the more than seventy years of their existence. Multidimensional peace operations have organised elections, helped deliver humanitarian assistance, advised on army and police reform, and fought rebel groups. Such operations not only represent a core pillar of the multilateral peace and security architecture but also fundamentally reshape lives of millions of people around the world.
This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of multiple theoretical perspectives on UN peace operations. It offers practical examples of how International Relations theories apply to specific policy issues and simultaneously demonstrates how major debates on UN peace operations – on civilian protection, local ownership, or gender mainstreaming – benefit from theoretical exploration. With insightful contributions from a range of international academics, UN peace operations and International Relations theory is an essential book for scholars, students, and experts working on peace and security and the broader issue of international cooperation.
List of Publications
Books
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. 2022 Autonomous Weapons and International Norms (Toronto: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Available here.
Ingvild Bode. 2015. Individual Agency and Policy Change at the United Nations: The People of the United Nations (London: Routledge). Available here.
Aiden Warren and Ingvild Bode. 2014. Governing the Use-of-Force in International Relations: The Post-9/11 US Challenge to International Law. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Available here.
Journal Articles
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. (2024). “Artificial Intelligence Technologies and Practical Normativity/Normality: Investigating Practices Beyond the Public Space”. Open Research Europe, https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.16536.2
Tom Watts and Ingvild Bode. (2024). “Machine Guardians: The Terminator, AI Narratives, and US Regulatory Discourse on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems”. Cooperation & Conflict 59 (1), 107-128.
Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, Anna Nadibaidze, Guangyu Qiao-Franco & Tom Watts. (2024). “The Study of Algorithmic Warfare: Taking Stock of a Research Programme”. Global Society 38 (1), 1-23.
Ingvild Bode. (2024). “Emergent Normativity: Community of Practices, Technology, and Autonomous Weapons.” Part of a Special Issue on Communities of Practice (edited by Maika Sondaarje, Niklas Bremberg, and Emanuel Adler). Global Studies Quarterly 4(1): https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksad073.
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. (2023). “Technologische Herausforderungen: Künstliche Intelligenz, Normativität, Normalität und Praktiken jenseits des öffentlichen Raums.” (Technological Challenges: Artificial Intelligence, Normativity, Normality, and Practices Beyond the Public Space). Zeitschrift für International Beziehungen 30(2): 124-134. [in German]
Ingvild Bode. (2023). “Practice-based and Public-Deliberative Normativity: Retaining Human Control over the Use of Force”. European Journal of International Relations 29(4): 990-1016. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231163392.
Ingvild Bode. (2023). “Contesting Use-of-Force Norms through Technological Practices”. Heidelberg Journal of International Law 83(1), 39-64. Link.
Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, Anna Nadibaidze, Guangyu Qiao-Franco, and Thomas Watts. (2023). “Prospects for the Global Governance of Autonomous Weapons: Comparing Chinese, Russian, and US Practices”. Ethics & Information Technology 25, DOI: 10.1007/s10676-023-09678-x.
Rockwell Clancy, Qin Zhu, and Ingvild Bode. (2023). “The Need for and Nature of a Normative, Cultural Psychology of Weaponised AI”. Ethics & Information Society 25, DOI: 10.1007/s10676-023-09680-3.
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. (2023) “Constructing Expertise? The Front- and Back-Door Regulation of AI’s Military Applications in Europe” Journal of European Public Policy. 30(7), 1230-1254. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2023.2174169.
Guangyu Qiao-Franco and Ingvild Bode. (2023) “Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and Chinese Practices of Human-Machine Interaction”. Chinese Journal of International Politics. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poac024.
Ingvild Bode. 2020. ‘Women or Leaders? Practices of Narrating the United Nations Secretariat as a Gendered Institution’. International Studies Review 22 (1), 347-369. First published online: 01/2019.
Ingvild Bode. 2019. ‘Norm-making and the Global South: Attempts to Regulate Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems.’ Global Policy 10 (3), 359-364.
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. 2019. ‘Introduction to the Special Section: The Autonomisation of Weapons Systems: Challenges to International Relations.’ Global Policy 10 (3), 327-330. [editorial]
Ingvild Bode and John Karlsrud. 2019. ‘Implementation in Practice: The Use of Force to Protect Civilians in Peacekeeping Operations.’ European Journal of International Relations 25 (2), 458-485. First published online: 10/2018. Open access.
Andrea den Boer and Ingvild Bode. 2018. ‘Gendering Security: Connecting Theory and Practice.’ Global Society 32 (4), 365-373. [editorial]
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. 2018. ‘Autonomous Weapons Systems and Changing Norms’. Review of International Studies 44 (3), 393-413. First published online: 02/2018. Open Access.
Ingvild Bode. 2018. ‘Reflective Practices at the Security Council: Children and Armed Conflict and the Three United Nations.’ European Journal of International Relations 24(2). First published online: 08/2017. Open Access
Ingvild Bode and Seunghoon Emilia Heo. 2017. ‘World War II Narratives in Contemporary Germany and Japan: How University Students Understand Their Past.’ International Studies Perspectives 18 (2), 131-154. First published: 12/2016.
Aiden Warren and Ingvild Bode. 2015. ‘Altering the Playing Field: The US Redefinition of the Use-Of-Force from Bush to Obama.’ Contemporary Security Policy 36(2), 174-199.
Ingvild Bode. 2015. ‘Akteure des Stillstands oder des Wandels? Die Einflussmöglichkeiten von UN-Bediensteten auf Prozesse des Politikwandels in den UN.’ (Agents of Change or Agents of the Status Quo? The Influence Possibilities of UN Officials on Processes of Chance in the United Nations) [in German] Vereinte Nationen 1/2015, 257-62.
Ingvild Bode. 2014. ‘Francis Deng and the Concern for Internally Displaced Persons: Intellectual Leadership in the United Nations.’ Global Governance 20(2), 277-298. [peer-reviewed]
Other Publications
Book chapters
Ingvild Bode & Hendrik Huelss. [Forthcoming]. “Artificial Intelligence and the Production of Knowledge and Expertise in International Relations”. In: Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Katarzyna Kaczmarska, Xymena Kurowska, Birgit Poopuu, and Andrea Warnecke (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Ingvild Bode and Shimona Mohan. [Forthcoming]. “Narratives and Imaginations of Weaponised Artificial Intelligence Technologies in India”. In: Christian Baechle and Jascha Bareis (eds) The Realities of Autonomous Weapons, Bristol University Press.
Ingvild Bode and Guangyu Qiao-Franco. [Forthcoming]. ”AI Geopolitics and International Relations: A Divided World Behind Contested Conceptions of Human Control”. In: Regine Paul, Emma Carmel, and Jennifer Cobbe (eds) Handbook on Public Policy and AI, Edward Elgar.
Ingvild Bode and Anna Nadibaidze. [Forthcoming]. “Autonomous Drones”. In: James Rogers (ed). The De Gruyter Handbook on Drone Warfare (Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter).
Ingvild Bode. 2020. ‘Use of Force in Peace Operations.’ In Oliver Richmond and Gëzim Visoka (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Peace and Conflict Studies (PEPCS). Online only. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_83-1.
Ingvild Bode. 2020. ‘Practice Theories.’ In Kseniya Oksamytna and John Karlsrud (eds) United Nations Peace Operations and International Relations Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 129-148. [peer-reviewed]
Ingvild Bode. 2018. ‘Expertise as Social Practice: The Individual Construction of Experts.’ In Christian Henrich-Franke, Christian Lahusen, Robert Kaiser, and Andrea Schneiker (eds) Transnational Expertise (Baden-Baden: Nomos), pp. 101-126.
Ingvild Bode. 2017. ‘Manifestly Failing and Unable or Unwilling as Intervention Formulas: A Critical Analysis.’ In Aiden Warren and Damian Grenfell (eds) Rethinking Intervention: Security and the Limits of Humanitarian Intervention (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 164-191. [peer-reviewed]
Ingvild Bode. 2014. ‘Storytelling in den Vereinten Nationen: Mahbub ul Haq und menschliche Entwicklung’ (Storytelling at the United Nations: Mahbub ul Haq and Human Development) [in German] In Frank Gadinger, Sebastian Jarzebski, and Taylan Yildiz (eds) Political Narratives: Possibilities for an Analytical Concept in Political Science (Wiesbaden: Springer), pp. 339-362.
Volker Rittberger, Julian Bergmann, and Ingvild Bode. (eds) 2010. Wer regiert die Welt und mit welchem Recht (Who Rules the World and With Whose Authority?) [in German] (Baden Baden: Nomos).
Ingvild Bode. 2009. ‘Empowered Individuals – Individual Agency in Global Governance.’ In: Arie M. Kacowicz (ed.) In the Spirit of Einstein: Germans and Israelis on Ethics and International Order (Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations & the Einstein Centre), pp. 31-44.
Policy briefs and reports
Ingvild Bode and Tom Watts. 2023. “Loitering Munitions and Unpredictability: New Challenges to Human Control”. Centre for War Studies. Link.
Ingvild Bode and Tom Watts. 2021. “Meaningless Human Control: Lessons from Air Defence Systems for the Debate on Autonomous Weapons”. Published by Centre for War Studies and Drone Wars UK. Link.
Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss. 2017. ‘Implications of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems for International Peace and Security.’ Policy brief circulated in advance of the First Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on LAWS at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva (Centre for the Analysis of International Conflicts, University of Kent: Canterbury).
Submissions of evidence
Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, and Anna Nadibaidze. 2023. Written Evidence to the UK House of Lords Select Committee “AI in Weapon Systems”. Link.
Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, Anna Nadibaidze, Guangyu Qiao-Franco, Tom Watts. 2021. Written Contribution by the AutoNorms project. Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. Link.
Ingvild Bode. 2021. Written Evidence on the future norms of warfare to the project “The Future Rules of Warfare” by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Link.
Ingvild Bode, Anna Nadibaidze, Hendrik Huelss & Tom Watts. 2021. Written Evidence to UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Enquiry on “Tech and the future of UK foreign policy”. Link. Update 07/2022: Evidence cited in House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. 2022. “Encoding Values: Putting Tech at the Heart of UK Foreign Policy”. Third Report of Session 2022/2023. HC 170, p. 19. Link.
