This special issue explores the power that images with a techno-scientific content can have in in... more This special issue explores the power that images with a techno-scientific content can have in international relations. As we introduce the articles in the collection, we highlight how the study of this influence extends current research in the separate (but increasingly interacting) domains of history of science and technology, and political science. We then show how images of different types (photographs, cartoons and plots) can inform inter-state transactions through their public appeal alongside the better-studied dialogic practices of the diplomatic arena. Finally, we offer an analysis of the interlacing of different diplomatic tracks based on words and images and conclude that, in contrast with words, images conflate agency and argument, therefore creating opportunities to inform transactions and negotiations which their designers may not have even intended.
The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that si... more The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that significantly affected the international relations in global patterns that are still relevant today. This article uses a multi-perspective approach to argue that the underlying condition for the globalization of science diplomacy was the increasing participation of recently independent countries in international technoscientific affairs, examining critical research areas, including space exploration, oceanography, nuclear technoscience, the environmental sciences, and health and population studies. Themes emerged at that time that continue to characterize what we term ‘Global Science Diplomacy’: multipolarity, resistance and agency, lack of global consensus, regional alliances and interests, and the centrality of the United Nations system to the conduct of transnational science. This survey is a first step in historical reflection on this phenomenon and shows that it was the emergence of t...
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began operations in 1958, one of its first rou... more When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began operations in 1958, one of its first routine tasks was to create and circulate a brief non-technical periodical. This article analyses the creation of the IAEA Bulletin and its circulation during its first years. It finds that diplomatic imperatives both in IAEA leadership circles and in the networks outside them shaped the form and appearance of the bulletin. In the hands of the IAEA's Division of Public Information, the bulletin became an instrument of science diplomacy, its imagery conveying the motivations for member states to strengthen ties with the IAEA, while simultaneously persuading them to accept the hierarchies and geopolitical logics implicit in those relations, as well as to endorse the central position of the IAEA as a clearing house and authority of globally circulating nuclear objects and information.
This essay examines the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) role in the entry of hydrol... more This essay examines the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) role in the entry of hydrological isotopic analysis techniques into the developing world. The notion of using radioisotopic tracers for hydrological study came from the initiative of individual scientists, many of whom were interested in measuring the uptake of hydrogen-bomb deposited tritium in the global environment. Their proposals to include isotope hydrology among the range of IAEA activities sparked debate in the IAEA Scientific Advisory Committee and Board of Governors. At stake was not merely the future support of the technique, but the diplomatic role of the IAEA as a provider of atomic energy to the developing world, the relationship of the IAEA to other international institutions, and the articulation of what ‘peaceful uses of atomic energy’ really meant. In the end, the IAEA opted to render conditional support for the landmark Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation and undertook sponsorship of exp...
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2015
This study explores the origins and consequences of a unique, secret, French–American collaborati... more This study explores the origins and consequences of a unique, secret, French–American collaboration to prospect for uranium in 1950s Morocco. This collaboration permitted mediation between the United States and France. The appearance of France in an American-supported project for raw nuclear materials signalled American willingness to accept a new nuclear global order in which the French assumed a new, higher position as regional nuclear ally as opposed to suspicious rival. This collaboration also permitted France and the United States to agree tacitly to the same geopolitical status for the French Moroccan Protectorate, a status under dispute both in Morocco and outside it. The secret scientific effort reassured the French that, whatever the Americans might say publicly, they stood behind the maintenance of French hegemony in the centuries-old kingdom. But Moroccan independence proved impossible to deny. With its foreseeable arrival, the collaboration went from seductive to dangero...
... JAMES H. CAPSHEW, MATTHEW H. ADAMSON, PATRICIA A. BUCHANAN, NARISARA MURRAY, AND NAOKO WAKE .... more ... JAMES H. CAPSHEW, MATTHEW H. ADAMSON, PATRICIA A. BUCHANAN, NARISARA MURRAY, AND NAOKO WAKE ... include "Father of the Revolution?" Economist, July 15, 1972: 51; Frank A. Beach, "Pioneer," Science 177 (1972): 416-18; Walter Clemons, "The Sex ...
This special issue explores the power that images with a techno-scientific content can have in in... more This special issue explores the power that images with a techno-scientific content can have in international relations. As we introduce the articles in the collection, we highlight how the study of this influence extends current research in the separate (but increasingly interacting) domains of history of science and technology, and political science. We then show how images of different types (photographs, cartoons and plots) can inform inter-state transactions through their public appeal alongside the better-studied dialogic practices of the diplomatic arena. Finally, we offer an analysis of the interlacing of different diplomatic tracks based on words and images and conclude that, in contrast with words, images conflate agency and argument, therefore creating opportunities to inform transactions and negotiations which their designers may not have even intended.
The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that si... more The early 1970s brought fundamental transitions in international scientific collaboration that significantly affected the international relations in global patterns that are still relevant today. This article uses a multi-perspective approach to argue that the underlying condition for the globalization of science diplomacy was the increasing participation of recently independent countries in international technoscientific affairs, examining critical research areas, including space exploration, oceanography, nuclear technoscience, the environmental sciences, and health and population studies. Themes emerged at that time that continue to characterize what we term ‘Global Science Diplomacy’: multipolarity, resistance and agency, lack of global consensus, regional alliances and interests, and the centrality of the United Nations system to the conduct of transnational science. This survey is a first step in historical reflection on this phenomenon and shows that it was the emergence of t...
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began operations in 1958, one of its first rou... more When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began operations in 1958, one of its first routine tasks was to create and circulate a brief non-technical periodical. This article analyses the creation of the IAEA Bulletin and its circulation during its first years. It finds that diplomatic imperatives both in IAEA leadership circles and in the networks outside them shaped the form and appearance of the bulletin. In the hands of the IAEA's Division of Public Information, the bulletin became an instrument of science diplomacy, its imagery conveying the motivations for member states to strengthen ties with the IAEA, while simultaneously persuading them to accept the hierarchies and geopolitical logics implicit in those relations, as well as to endorse the central position of the IAEA as a clearing house and authority of globally circulating nuclear objects and information.
This essay examines the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) role in the entry of hydrol... more This essay examines the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) role in the entry of hydrological isotopic analysis techniques into the developing world. The notion of using radioisotopic tracers for hydrological study came from the initiative of individual scientists, many of whom were interested in measuring the uptake of hydrogen-bomb deposited tritium in the global environment. Their proposals to include isotope hydrology among the range of IAEA activities sparked debate in the IAEA Scientific Advisory Committee and Board of Governors. At stake was not merely the future support of the technique, but the diplomatic role of the IAEA as a provider of atomic energy to the developing world, the relationship of the IAEA to other international institutions, and the articulation of what ‘peaceful uses of atomic energy’ really meant. In the end, the IAEA opted to render conditional support for the landmark Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation and undertook sponsorship of exp...
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2015
This study explores the origins and consequences of a unique, secret, French–American collaborati... more This study explores the origins and consequences of a unique, secret, French–American collaboration to prospect for uranium in 1950s Morocco. This collaboration permitted mediation between the United States and France. The appearance of France in an American-supported project for raw nuclear materials signalled American willingness to accept a new nuclear global order in which the French assumed a new, higher position as regional nuclear ally as opposed to suspicious rival. This collaboration also permitted France and the United States to agree tacitly to the same geopolitical status for the French Moroccan Protectorate, a status under dispute both in Morocco and outside it. The secret scientific effort reassured the French that, whatever the Americans might say publicly, they stood behind the maintenance of French hegemony in the centuries-old kingdom. But Moroccan independence proved impossible to deny. With its foreseeable arrival, the collaboration went from seductive to dangero...
... JAMES H. CAPSHEW, MATTHEW H. ADAMSON, PATRICIA A. BUCHANAN, NARISARA MURRAY, AND NAOKO WAKE .... more ... JAMES H. CAPSHEW, MATTHEW H. ADAMSON, PATRICIA A. BUCHANAN, NARISARA MURRAY, AND NAOKO WAKE ... include "Father of the Revolution?" Economist, July 15, 1972: 51; Frank A. Beach, "Pioneer," Science 177 (1972): 416-18; Walter Clemons, "The Sex ...
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