Symbols of mass destruction: the bomb is what States make of It

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Noda, Orion Siufi
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Armas nucleares; Identidade; Identity; Nuclear policy; Nuclear security; Nuclear weapons; Política nuclear; Segurança nuclear; Simbolismo; Symbolism
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-05072023-154927/

Nuclear politics and weapons often draw security and military ideas to mind. Nevertheless, there is still an entire shadowed area of study within the realm of nuclear politics and weapons due to its unorthodox nature: nuclear symbolism. Current scholarship fails to acknowledge the importance of nuclear symbolism for the field of International Security and, more broadly, International Relations. This research aims to shed light on the non-orthodox facet of nuclear politics and weapons, linking the concept of nuclear symbolism to that of nuclear identity and State behaviour, through a case study of the United States since the end of the Second World War. To this end, the puzzle concerning this research refers to what is the role of nuclear symbolism in the construction of US nuclear identity, particularly within the scope of US nuclear behaviour in terms of proliferation and disarmament; to tackle this issue, discourse and documental analysis will be employed in order to assess the nuances of the symbolic facets of the possession of nuclear weapons within US nuclear strategy.