The virtual seminar will be held from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (E.T.)
In February 2020, French president Emmanuel Macron proposed that France’s nuclear arsenal could serve as the basis for a European collective nuclear force. The case for a European nuclear force goes back half a century and continues to reappear at irregular intervals, like a zombie that can never be finally put to rest. In this talk, we lay out the evolution, flaws, and persistence of the case for European nuclear weapons, and surveys of European public opinion on this issue, to show how the case for European nuclear force is flawed with respect to security, strategic autonomy, and democratic governance. The talk is based on the article published in 2020 in European Security - European nuclear weapons? Zombie debates and nuclear realities.
About the speakers: Kjølv Egeland is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in International Security at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, affiliated to the Nuclear Knowledges program. He also is a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Academy of International Law. His work centers on strategic narratives and nuclear weapons politics.
Benoît Pelopidas is the founding director of the Nuclear Knowledges program at the Center for International Studies, Sciences Po, Paris and has been a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. His work focuses on the institutional, conceptual, imaginal and memorial processes that make possible the construction of knowledge about nuclear weapons.