Several observers have in recent years discussed the prospects for advancing arms control and disarmament through determined efforts at delegitimizing nuclear weapons. But surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the question of how nuclear weapons are legitimized in the first place. And while there is widespread agreement that struggles for legitimacy make up a pervasive feature of political life generally and nuclear politics specifically, available typologies of legitimation invariably comprise only a subset of the varied ways in which actors struggle to build or retain a social license to operate. Drawing on scholarship on propaganda, marketing, and legitimacy-seeking, this article offers an investigation of the full range of actions nuclear-armed governments and defence contractors undertake to sustain acceptance for the continued development and deployment of nuclear arms. Four broad categories of legitimation are identified: discursive legitimation, institutional legitimation, behavioural legitimation, and legitimation through information control.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41311-022-00404-w | DOI Listing |
Environ Sci Technol
January 2025
Xi'an AMS Center, State Key Laboratory of Loess Science, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Technology and Application, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, P. R. China.
There has been a sharp rise in the extent and scale of human activities since the mid-20th century, termed the "Great Acceleration", and nuclear activities are one of the defining technological processes for this period. Pu released by atmospheric nuclear weapons tests provides an ideal chronostratigraphic marker for labeling this change due to its global fallout feature, temporal mutation, and long half-lives. However, the accumulation dynamics of plutonium from atmospheric deposition to preservation in the sediment is still controversial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHealth Secur
December 2024
Jenna Mandel-Ricci, MPA, MPH, is Chief of Staff; both at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Greater New York Hospital Association held 3 workshops and 2 follow-up meetings with hospital emergency managers and colleagues to determine hospitals' response actions to a scenario of a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device detonation. The scenario incorporated 3 zones of damage (moderate, light, and beyond damage zones) and covered the period of 0 to 72 hours postdetonation divided into 3 24-hour operational periods. The Joint Commission's critical emergency areas were used to determine the objectives and response actions that would be initiated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Environ Radioact
December 2024
Graduate School of Human Environment, Osaka Sangyo University, Osaka, 5748530, Japan.
Tritium, a radioactive isotope produced naturally through cosmic radiation interactions and anthropogenically through nuclear weapons testing, poses potential environmental risks, particularly within the water cycle. This study measured tritium concentrations in surface water across Thailand to establish a baseline dataset for monitoring potential contamination from nuclear activities and accidents. Surface water samples were collected from 14 large reservoirs during the wet season in October 2023 and the dry season in February 2024, providing a total of 28 samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Radiat Res
December 2024
Department of Hematology, Atomic Bomb Disease and Hibakusha Medicine Unit, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan.
Epidemiological studies for atomic bomb (A-bomb) survivors clearly demonstrated that A-bomb radiation increased the risk of hematological neoplasms, such as acute and chronic leukemia, and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) among survivors. Several studies on MDS among survivors investigated its characteristics, and it seems that MDS among survivors has different features from those seen in de novo MDS and therapy-related MDS. In this short review, we describe the differences of clinical features, chromosomal alterations and genome aberrations among them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Radiat Biol
December 2024
Nuclear Engineering Graduate Program, Military Institute of Engineering (IME), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Purpose: This study focuses on analytical computer simulations performed to investigate a hypothetical event where the activation of a radiological dispersion device (RDD) triggers a crisis.
Materials And Methods: The methodology presents steps centered on the initial evaluation phase of the event (initial 100 hours), aiming to evaluate the radiological risks regarding the development of leukemia. Local environmental changes, sex, and age were also used to assess risks.
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