1. Epistemic frictions: radioactive fallout, health risk assessments, and the Eisenhower administration’s nuclear-test ban policy, 1954–1958
- Author:
- Toshihiro Higuchi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- The successful test of a US thermonuclear weapon in 1954 raised a compelling question as to the worldwide dispersion of radioactive fallout. This article reexamines the Eisenhower administration's test-ban policy in the context of global radioactive contamination. To explain the shifting public discourse of the global fallout hazards and its impact on the test-ban debate, the article focuses on epistemic frictions, seeking to demonstrate how a variety of expert bodies evaluated scientific uncertainty and moral ambiguity concerning the biological effects of fallout from different sets of concerns, and how the resulting incongruence both within and between the scientific advisory committees fueled the fallout controversy and affected the Eisenhower administration’s test-ban policy leading toward the test moratorium in 1958.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Nuclear Weapons, History, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- Japan, North America, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America