How do some large-scale adverse events receive major media coverage and become crises for public actors while others are treated as routine events? This article reinvestigates this question based on a case study of the media treatment in France of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents.

This article focuses on Egyptian interpretations of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US at the end of the Second World War. It surveys the reactions and responses of influential thinkers between 1945 and 1951, a crucial period prior to decolonisation. The objective of this research is to capture a specific moment in time and understand how it shaped imaginations of the future. The article argues that the bombings of Japan generated fantasies and anxieties about the postcolonial future.

How was the atomic age visualized in Egypt in the years immediately after the creation of the bomb? What role did gendered images, symbols and metaphors play in narrating and normalizing nuclear technology? How can these help us understand nuclear policy today? This article engages visual and textual media, including satirical magazines, cultural journals and film.

Les trois ouvrages étudiés ici font tous du secret nucléaire un objet de sciences sociales. Leur lecture permet à la fois de mieux le comprendre, mais aussi d’identifier les pistes de recherches qu’il ouvre à la science politique : comprendre comment l’État en vient à changer sous l’influence des armes nucléaires, évaluer cet effet en termes de gouvernance démocratique et déterminer le champ du connaissable et de l’imaginable en matière nucléaire.

In this article, we interrogate some of the central assumptions in the literature on Iran’s nuclear behavior, including the role of the United States as a benevolent hegemon, the revisionist character of the Iranian government, the utility and efficacy of sanctions, and the widespread assumption that Iran is bent on obtaining and even using the bomb. We maintain that contemporary debates on the Iranian nuclear issue display similarities to Kremlinology during the Cold War, being deeply politicized and subject to bias and self-censorship.

Policymakers and scholars have in recent years paid increasing attention to the climate–security nexus. However, discussions have been overwhelmingly focused on the security implications of climate change, neglecting the question of the climate implications of alternative approaches to security. On closer inspection, security policies can impact global warming in at least four ways. First, security apparatuses produce direct greenhouse gas emissions.

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.

Comment les citoyens peuvent-ils se figurer la possibilité de la guerre nucléaire pour y faire face politiquement ? Pour répondre à cette nouvelle question, cette intervention s’inscrit dans la lignée des travaux sur la culture populaire visuelle et avance trois arguments.

Looming decisions on arms control and strategic weapon procurements in a range of nuclear-armed states are set to shape the international security environment for decades to come. In this context, it is crucial to understand the concepts, theories, and debates that condition nuclear policymaking.

Research on public opinion and international security has extensively examined attitudes toward nuclear weapons, but the difusion of basic knowledge about nuclear weapons among the everyday citizens has nevertheless been mostly missed. This study proposes a working defnition and advances a measurement model of knowledge on nuclear weapons in the general public.