The Development of Peaceful Nuclear Energy: Three Configurations of Knowledge and Power
| Date | 01 June 1979 |
| Published date | 01 June 1979 |
| Author | C.E.S. Franks |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207903400202 |
| Subject Matter | Knowledge and Power |
C.E.S.
FRANKS
The
development
of
peaceful
nuclear
energy:
three
configurations
of
knowledge
and
power
Nuclear
power
programmes
in
Britain,
the
United
States,
and
Canada
have
passed
through
three
phases.
At
first,
together with
the
military
atom,
they
were
treated
as
matters
of
state,
then
they
became
matters
of
government,
and,
finally,
long
after
peaceful
nuclear
power
had
become
a
major
industrial
activity,
they
be-
came
matters
of politics.
Each
of
these
phases
had
a
characteristic
pattern
of
knowledge
and
power, progressing
from
the
utmost
se-
crecy
and
narrow
range
of
influential
participants
when
it
was
a
matter
of
state,
to
extreme diffusion
and
dispersal
now
that
it
has
become
a
matter
of
politics.
The
bitterness and
emotional
fervour
of
arguments
between
proponents and
defenders
of
nuclear
energy,
and
the
exaggerated
hopes
and
fears
it
still
raises,
find
their
roots
in
its
political
handling
in the
early
phases.
There
are
differences
in
the
way
the
three countries
have
handled
nuclear
issues.
Britain
has always
emphasized
consensus
more,
and
kept
the
circle
of
power
smaller,
than
the
United
States,
while
Canada
has
been
more
or
less
in
between. Nevertheless, the
similarity
in
progress
from
matter
of
state
to
matter
of
politics
is
more
striking than
the
differences.
ATOMIC
ENERGY
AS
A
MATTER
OF
STATE
A
matter
of
state
is
an
issue
that
is
considered
essential
for
the
survival
of
the
state.
It is
handled
by
the
executive
alone,
is
treated
with
extreme
secrecy,
and the
argument
which justifies
it
is
that
of
reason
of
state,
a
doctrine
which
in
its
extreme
limits
subordinates
constitutional
principles
and
the
rule
of
law
to
the
safety
of
the
Associate
professor
of
political
studies, Queen's University,
Kingston.
188
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
state.'
In
effect,
reason
of
state
postulates
that
there
are
no
limits
to
what
the
state
may
do
to
ensure
its
survival
when
threatened
by
war,
invasion,
insurrection,
terrorism, or
other
dangers.
The
doc-
trine
contains
a
strong
element
of
political
theology,
not
just
in
the assertion
of
an
absolute
value, the
state,
but
also
in
the
way
matters
of
state are
handled:
the
restriction
of
knowledge
to
an
inner
chosen
circle;
the
existence of secret
mysteries
(arcana
imperii);
and
the
requirement
of
trust
and faith
on
the
part
of
the
ignorant
governed
towards
the adepts,
their
statesmen
and
leaders.
In
the
time
of
Queen
Elizabeth
I,
the
realm
of
issues
treated
as
matters
of
state
included
the
royal
succession,
the
reli-
gious
settlement
and
the
church
in
general,
all exchequer
matters,
administration,
and the
granting
of
monopolies
and,
of
course,
foreign
policy
and
the
making
of
war
and
peace.
2
With
the
advent
of
rationalist
liberalism,
many
of these
areas
have
been
demysti-
fied
and
now
fall
into
the
realm
of
public
politics. Nevertheless,
there
are
still substantial
areas
which
remain
as
matters
of
state.
The
declaration
of
war
and
peace,
or
of
a
real
or
apprehended
in-
surrection,
the
conduct
of espionage,
counter-espionage,
and
se-
curity
activities
in
general,
are
still
treated
as
though
they
were
matters
of
state.
Atomic
energy,
with
its
origins
in
the
urgent
secrecy
of
war,
and
its
role
as
a
vital
instrument
of strategic
policy
during
the
Cold
War,
began
as
a
matter
of
state.
The
obsession
of the
allies
with
secrecy,
and
their
attempts
to
keep
atomic
secrets
during
the
Second
World
War
and
the Cold
War,
are
too well-known
to
need
repeating
here;
3
in
retrospect,
the
curious element
is
the
belief
that
there
were
important
atomic
secrets
that
could
be
kept.
The
only
really
important
secret
was
that
an
atomic
bomb would
work,
i
A
useful
treatment
of
matters
of
state
is:
C.J.
Friedrich,
Constitutional
Reason
of
State:
The
Survival
of
Constitutional Order
(Providence
1957).
2
Samuel
H.
Beer,
Modern
British
Politics:
A
Study
of
Parties and
Pressure
Groups
(London
1965),
pp
6-7.
3
See
Margaret
Gowing,
Britain
and
Atomic Energy,
1939-1945
(London
1964),
and
Richard
G.
Hewlett
and
Oscar
E.
Anderson,
Jr,
The
New
World,
1939/
1946:
A
History
of
the United
States
Atomic
Energy
Commission,
vol.
i
(Uni-
versity
Park,
Penn,
1967).
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