Full Description
Challenging nuclearism explores how a deliberate 'normalisation' of nuclear weapons has been constructed, why it has prevailed in international politics for over seventy years and why it is only now being questioned seriously. The book identifies how certain practices have enabled a small group of states to hold vast arsenals of these weapons of mass destruction and how the close control over nuclear decisions by a select group has meant that the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons have been disregarded for decades.
The recent UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will not bring about quick disarmament. It has been decried by the nuclear weapon states. But by rejecting nuclearism and providing a clear denunciation of nuclear weapons, it will challenge nuclear states in a way that has until now not been possible. Challenging nuclearism analyses the origins and repercussions of this pivotal moment in nuclear politics.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The dominance of nuclearism
1 Identifying the elements of nuclearism: Traditional framings normalize nuclear weapons
2 Nuclearism today: Modernization, the persistence of deterrence, and the rise of new dangers
3 Pushing for disarmament: A fruitless exercise
Part II: The transition - from the humanitarian initiative to the prohibition treaty
4 The recent humanitarian context: limiting the 'calamities of war'
5 Creating the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Part III: Rejecting nuclearism
6 Rejecting Nuclearism I: a new discourse; bringing humanitarianism back; new voices and actors; challenging material spending
7 Rejecting Nuclearism II: disrupting the nuclear order
Part IV: Ending nuclearism?
8 Challenges to and likely impacts of the treaty
Conclusion
References
