Abstract
Anti-nuclear Activism and Developmental States
This paper investigates the relationship between global anti-nuclear activism and developmental states characterized by significant state intervention. It focuses on how local dynamics and institutions influenced the legitimacy of adopting the US global nuclear strategy, Atoms for Peace, and examines how the nature of nuclear technology intersected with societal dynamics of anti-nuclear activism. The study analyzes the nuclear security arrangements of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, commonly classified as East Asian developmental states. By employing comparative institutional perspectives, it explores the evolution of the political discourse on nuclear technology, emphasizing national interests, and highlights how strong state intervention has diminished transnational and ecological claims of anti-nuclear activism.
The argument posits that Atoms for Peace granted client states’ governments the authority to separate nuclear material usage based on intended objectives—military or civilian use—and legitimized their management of nuclear weapons and energy. In doing so, I aim to explore how a state-centric nuclear strategy, which inherently poses a threat to territorial integrity, came to dominate the current nuclear discourse and diminish the landscape of anti-nuclear activism.
About the Speaker
Minah Kang is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Political Science Department at Johns Hopkins University. Her research is centered on the vulnerabilities inherent in state ownership of nuclear weapons and energy. Minah critically analyzes the limitations of conventional frameworks that predominantly interpret nuclear threats within a state-centric security paradigm, highlighting the cross-border nature of nuclear weapons and incidents’ destructiveness. Her focus is on deconstructing the postwar U.S. hegemony’s influence on the global nuclear order, with special attention to East Asia. This includes a comprehensive examination of the region’s imperial history, analyzing the divergent dynamics of North Korea’s nuclear threat and the prominent nuclear power status of Japan and South Korea.