A new “nuclear normalcy”?
| Published date | 01 October 2019 |
| Date | 01 October 2019 |
| Author | Sonja D Schmid |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088218796674 |
| Subject Matter | Part I: Techno-political aspects of nuclearity |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088218796674
Journal of International Political Theory
2019, Vol. 15(3) 297 –315
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088218796674
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A new “nuclear normalcy”?
Sonja D Schmid
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract
This article focuses on a part of the “nuclear condition” that is often overlooked
in philosophical discussions: that of materiality. Connecting the spheres of nuclear
weapons (and associated security threats), and of nuclear power generation (and
associated safety concerns), are the materials that bombs and electricity can be
made of, and the machines that produce either enriched uranium or plutonium. We
now have evidence of just how fragile the machines and devices were (and are) that
sustained the nuclear age, but also how tenuous and artificial the boundary is that
we assume between “peaceful” and “military” purposes. And yet, each new “nuclear
deal” affirms this boundary, and the possibility of its existence. While the community
of scholars and policymakers who prioritize nuclear security strive to label as many
steps of the process as “special,” and therefore subject to inspection, accounting, and
international control, multinational power companies and national nuclear industries
promote “technical fixes” for lingering safety concerns, and advance the opposite
strategy: to “normalize” many processes to the point of including severe accident
response into the industry’s business-as-usual. The article argues that different
kinds of “nuclearities” have increasingly become accepted as “normal”: on one
hand, international diplomacy that foregrounds legal and regulatory strategies to nip
potential nuclear weapons programs in the bud, and on the other, national nuclear
power programs growing their fleets and attempting to expand their market reach. By
accepting the divide between the “security community” and the “safety community”
as the new “nuclear normalcy,” the shared nuclear materiality threatens to slip out of
view, or at the very least, out of focus.
Keywords
Climate change, materiality, normalization, nuclear energy, nuclear terrorism
Corresponding author:
Sonja D Schmid, Department of Science, Technology and Society, College of Liberal Arts and Human
Sciences, Virginia Tech, Falls Church, VA 22043, USA.
Email: sschmid@vt.edu
796674IPT0010.1177/1755088218796674Journal of International Political TheorySchmid
research-article2018
Article
298 Journal of International Political Theory 15(3)
Introduction
This article contributes a perspective from Science and Technology Studies (STS) on the
“nuclear condition” to complement other critical reflections that foreground arms control
diplomacy and global nuclear governance, a perspective that emphasizes materiality as a
fundamental feature of the nuclear condition. I argue that today, we are looking at two
different kinds of nuclearities that have emerged over the past six decades: that of nuclear
weapons, which focuses on security, and that of nuclear energy, which emphasizes safety.
Each of these nuclearities is embodied by a community of experts, organizations, and
practices. These communities are carefully delineated from each other, to the extent that
we take their essential difference for granted and accept their separation as “normal.”
This “new nuclear normalcy” accepts these two communities growing increasingly spe-
cialized and restricted, but threatens to obstruct the indispensable debate over the status
and role of their shared nuclear materiality.1
History provides us with ample evidence of just how fragile and artificial the bound-
ary is that we assume between “peaceful” and “military” purposes. Although recognized
as very problematic, each new “nuclear deal” affirms this boundary and the possibility of
its existence. This essay reclaims the significance of the material commonalities among
the two communities. I argue that by accepting an artificial boundary as normal, we lose
sight of the practices that sustain different kinds of “normalcy,” the disturbances that
could question either notion of “normalcy,” and the very “abnormal” practices prevailing
in both of these communities. Rather than helping us address the lingering problems of
the nuclear age, I argue, this “nuclear normalcy” is what generates some of the most vex-
ing problems in the first place.
Gabrielle Hecht has insightfully commented that what we consider “nuclear” is not
set in stone, but depends on a number of assumptions that reflect historical, geographical,
and political contexts. Hecht defines “nuclearity” as “a technopolitical phenomenon that
emerges from political and cultural configurations of technical and scientific things,
from the social relations where knowledge is produced. Nuclearity is not the same eve-
rywhere […] Nuclearity is not the same for everyone […] Nuclearity is not the same at
all moments in time” (Hecht, 2012: 15, emphases in original). In other words, how
exactly “nuclearity” is defined affects the way problems are framed and prioritized, and
which solutions to these problems are deemed acceptable. For example, for those
engaged in nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives, as well as those charged with
maintaining the safety and security of existing arsenals, the biggest concern is about
nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, and about material proliferating that might
enable states to start or sustain a nuclear weapons program. By contrast, nuclear engi-
neers working in the commercial nuclear sector worry most about operational nuclear
safety, cost, and profits. Hecht conceptualizes such differences in terms of “nuclear
ontologies,” and building on her work I focus on the respective ontologies of the “secu-
rity community” and the “safety community.” According to Hecht, nuclear ontologies
encompass the different ways nuclear things (from uranium ore to nuclear warheads), but
also related practices, organizational forms, and legal frameworks, have been classified
as either “exceptional” or “banal.”
My argument asserts yet another variation of nuclearity: that of “nuclear normalcy.”
This notion suggests that the risks associated with nuclear technologies—starting with the
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