Kraft A (2024)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2024
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Edited Volumes: The Palgrave Handbook of Non-State Actors in East-West Relations
City/Town: Cham
Pages Range: 593-613
ISBN: 978-3-031-40545-7
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-40546-4_48
Arising from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of July 1955, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Pugwash) sought to bring together elite scientists from East and West to work across ideological divides to end the nuclear arms race. Arguing the special capacity of natural scientists to suspend national allegiances, leveraging the internationalist tradition of science, powered by ideas about scientists' social responsibility, and brandishing technoscientific expertise relevant to the disarmament conversation, Pugwash constituted a new form of activism by scientists. In 1995, the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions toward nuclear disarmament. As a strategy for realizing its founding aims, Pugwash scientists developed a novel form of informal "backchannel" diplomacy. This chapter shows how, via its Conferences and through its "targeted" backchannel contributions to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, its efforts to foster German-German dialogue, and to forge peace in Vietnam, Pugwash did much to establish the principle that natural scientists could serve on the international stage within the diplomatic realm. The argument is made that Pugwash and its scientists played a part in pioneering Track II diplomacy. In so doing, Pugwash broke new ground as a non-state actor and in challenging conventions about who could act in this realm and what counted as diplomacy. A second argument proposes that the Pugwash narrative of informal modes of working belied a deeply hierarchical internal structure. Power was concentrated in a small leadership committee that exercised close control over the international organization, including its role in diplomacy. But all was not plain sailing for Pugwash. This chapter shows how the Berlin and Vietnam crises posed serious challenges to the organization and exposed the limits to which it could, or was willing to, act. Not least, these flashpoints between the superpowers exposed the East-West faultline simmering uneasily beneath Pugwash's outward performative emphasis on Cold War collegiality and cooperation. Pugwash never could escape the divides it sought to transcend.
APA:
Kraft, A. (2024). Pugwash in the 1960s cold war: Challenges and limits of operating in the diplomatic realm. In Péter Marton, Gry Thomasen, Csaba Békés, András Rácz (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Non-State Actors in East-West Relations. (pp. 593-613). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
MLA:
Kraft, Alison. "Pugwash in the 1960s cold war: Challenges and limits of operating in the diplomatic realm." The Palgrave Handbook of Non-State Actors in East-West Relations. Ed. Péter Marton, Gry Thomasen, Csaba Békés, András Rácz, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. 593-613.
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