CfP: Nuclear Diplomacies: Their Past, Present, and Future. Two-stage workshop

a. SOKENDAI’s Hayama Campus in Kanagawa, Japan, November

​9-11,  2018

b. National Technical University of Athens, Greece, June 2019

editorial sponsorship: History + Technology, an international journal supported by the History Department of Drexel University

 Responding to the recent North Korea crisis the US President Donald Trump tweeted on August 30, 2017 that “talking is not the answer.” Minutes later the US Defense Secretary James Mattis argued to reporters, contradicting President Trump’s statement that “We’re never out of diplomatic solutions.” While the president undermines the role of diplomacy, diplomats and scientists remind us in the blandest way the power of science diplomacy, one of the emerging key elements of the Cold War era. 

A turning point in the global socio-economic environment for science and technology, the Cold War has been strongly connected to the rapid growth of government and military spending on research and development; the development of closer ties between the military and the academia; the proliferation of large scale research projects. It was the time that international relations began to play even more significant roles in shaping science and technology than before, highlighting the role of diplomacy in resolving political conflicts among nations with an emphasis on those dealing with nuclear energy and military programs.

But although for scientists international collaborations have long been constitutive and natural part of their work even in periods of intense political upheavals, to diplomats and policy makers the institutional link of science to diplomacy has been fairly new. In 2009 in a founding text the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) described science diplomacy through three types of activities: a. science informs issues of diplomatic concern (science in diplomacy); b. diplomacy facilitates scientific cooperation on an international level (diplomacy for science) and c. science functions as a diplomatic tool when other diplomatic mechanisms fail (science for diplomacy). A year later the British Royal Society organized a landmark meeting in collaboration to the AAAS enforcing the idea that although science diplomacy is not new, it has never been more important. Given the recent US-North Korean conflict over the latter’s nuclear program, nuclear diplomacy emerges once again as key in international relations. 

This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on the history of nuclear sciences and the role of international organizations in shaping nuclear diplomacy; diplomatic historians and political scientists focusing on the ways nuclear scientists and engineers have contributed, and, continue to do so, in international negotiations. We are interested in papers employing historical, philosophical, sociological methods and methodological tools from political sciences and international relations in order to

a. investigate the notion of nuclear diplomacy/ies and explore its various aspects including diplomacy concerning nuclear energy production as well as the circulation of related knowledge and materials.

b. critically analyze those national, political,economic, and technological interests that have shaped nuclear diplomacies throughout the post World War Period (without excluding earlier instances of nuclear diplomacies)

c. understand the significance of nuclear diplomacies in today’s international geopolitical order and their future evolvement.  

Possible topics include, but not limited to, nuclear diplomacy in and around international organizations such as IAEA; bilateral negotiations as well as public diplomacy in relation to exchange of material and human resources; science diplomacy concerning radiation protection, nuclear safeguards, and technical assistance programs; and the historical role of diplomats and science/technical experts in negotiating nuclear agreements.

This workshop is also concerned with the historical formulation of nuclear issues as a discrete diplomatic and cultural concern. This concern may point to conducts beyond the official actions of institutions and states, and the possibility of yet to be identified material and discursive factors in those conducts. We welcome papers examining historically indeterminate nature of nuclear knowledge, subjects, and power.

The first workshop takes place in SOKENDAI’s Hayama Campus in Kanagawa, Japan, which is located approximately two hours from the Haneda Airport. Accommodations and meals will be provided, but participants are responsible to fund their transportation.

Paper proposals (no more than 400 words) are due February 15^th, 2018. Participants will be notified by mid-March 2018. Those accepted are expected to submit full first draft papers on August 30, 2018.

A second-follow up workshop will take place in June 2019 in Athens, Greece where full papers are expected to be submitted and presented. The two workshops will lead to the publication of a peer review collected volume.

Launching a pilot effort we call editorial sponsorship, the editors of History + Technology will provide editorial support during the two workshops, with the aim of helping participants produce manuscripts for a special issue of the journal based on the project’s themes, and for submission to other publications.