Scoping Nuclear Weapons Choices in an Age of Existential Threats
14/06/2023
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is hosting a public lecture by Professor Benoît Pelopidas (Founding director of the Nuclear Knowledges program at Sciences Po) on 14th June at 5.30pm in the Runcie Room, Faculty of Divinity.
Professor Benoît Pelopidas is the founding director of the Nuclear Knowledges program (formerly chair of excellence in security studies) at Sciences Po (CERI). His program, “Nuclear Knowledges”, is the first independent scholarly research program on the nuclear phenomenon in France. He is also an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.
His research has received four international prizes and the most prestigious European grants based on scholarly assessment by peers, most notably an ERC Starting Grant. This interdisciplinary effort of independent scholarship has led to the following discoveries over the last five years: the lack of credibility and rationality of the French nuclear arsenal at least until 1974; the underestimation of the effects of French nuclear weapons tests in Polynesia; the role of luck in the past avoidance of unwanted nuclear explosions; the limits of popular support for nuclear weapons policy, the role of nostalgia and imagined futures in shaping nuclear weapons politics and the effects of funding carrying conflicts of interests on nuclear weapons policy analysis.
Spheres of (In)security: Global Nuclear Order between Past and Future Injustices
17/05/2023
The global nuclear order that comprises nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and disarmament is often viewed as discriminatory and increasingly castigated as unjust. Few states got to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in the name of their own security and that of their allies. Most are prohibited from doing so by the international nonproliferation regime. All stand to lose if a nuclear exchange takes place. Russia’s war against Ukraine underscored the inequities and injustices in the global nuclear order built on hierarchical spheres of (in)security. How to define injustice in nuclear affairs? How sustainable is an unjust global nuclear order? At what cost can it be maintained in its present form, and how can it be long tolerated by the future generations? The panel brings together scholars to critically reflect on past, ongoing, and future nuclear injustices – in the context of the war in Ukraine and beyond – to assess the main tensions and pave the way for a research agenda beyond the usual boundaries of the nuclear policy field and community.
Nuclear Knowledge Production: Authority, Truths, and Making Sense of the Bomb
27 janv. 2022
• Dr. Carol Cohn, Founding Director, Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights
• Dr. Benoît Pelopidas, Director, Nuclear Knowledges, Sciences Po
• Dr. Jayita Sarkar, Founding Director, Global Decolonization Initiative, Boston University
Moderator:
• Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
Quel rôle pour la fiction face aux catastrophes présentes et à venir ? from CERI SciencesPo CNRS on Vimeo.
Benoit Pelopidas on luck and vulnerability in nuclear security
Thomas fraise, “Jusqu’à quand l’État doit-il garder ses « secrets » ?”, The Conversation, June, 28, 2021.
Benoît Pelopidas and Alex Wellerstein, “The reason we haven’t had nuclear disasters is not careful planning, it’s luck”, The Washington Post, August, 10, 2020.
Benoît Pelopidas et Kjølv Egeland,“Les ombres d’Hiroshima et de Nagasaki en Europe”, La Croix, 11 août 2020
Benoît Pelopidas, “Prendre les vulnérabilités nucléaires au sérieux”, Libération, 6 août 2020
Benoît Pelopidas, “A-t-on trop vite oublié Hiroshima?”, Le magazine du weekend sur France Culture, par Julie Gacon, 9 août 2020
Benoît Pelopidas, “Tribune libre. La chaîne de transmission de l’ordre de frappe ne permet pas aux citoyens de s’y opposer. On ne peut pas choisir de ne pas être affecté par les politiques d’armement nucléaire”, L’Humanité, 6 août 2020
Benoît Pelopidas and M.V. Ramana, “Taking nuclear vulnerabilities seriously”, The Hindu, August 6, 2020
Benoît Pelopidas, « Nucléaire : la course aux armements a déjà commencé », L’Humanité, 6 août 2019 [entretien avec Pierre Barbancey]
Benoît Pelopidas, « Nucléaire, faut-il craindre un réarmement général », Du grain à moudre par Antoine Genton, France Culture, 1 August 2019 [avec François Heisbourg, Antoine Bondaz et Jean-Marie Collin]