Faculty / Student Team Presents Research at UN Nuclear Review Conference

UMass Amherst political scientist Charli Carpenter and Reed College’s Alex Montgomery traveled to New York this week, accompanied by a group of former and current UMass students affiliated with Human Security Lab, to present research findings on the impact of the nuclear ban treaty on the strength of the nuclear taboo.

The research was presented at a side event at the UN conference organized by London-based thinktank Chatham House. “In a world marked by by escalating tensions and the rising prominence of nuclear threats, the preservation of the nuclear taboo takes on unparalleled significance,” Chatham House organizers said. Carpenter and Montgomery were among a few social scientists invited to meet during the conference with the TPNW’s Scientific Advisory Group.

The working paper on which the findings are based, co-authored with Human Security Lab co-founder Bernhard Leidner, “Bombs Away?” uses US public opinion data to document the impact of the nuclear treaty on attitudes toward the legality of nuclear use as well as preference for nuclear use.

The research was a collaboration not only with the faculty but with a team of eighteen graduate and undergraduate students who worked with the Lab over the past three years, funded in part through a grant by the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons Critical Research Scholars Network.

Successive waves of UMass students assisted in qualitative coding of over 2000 open-ended comments by US citizens about the ethics of nuclear use in their own words. Others assisted with intensive background research on public opinion and nuclear disarmament.

Carpenter was joined by two students from her current UREP group, Ryan Richards, a senior political science and legal studies major interested in disarmament law, and Lynette Lavigne, a senior political science major and US Army medic. They were joined by three UMass / Human Security Lab alums who formerly assisted on the project: Kristina Becvar, a data analytics MS graduate who previously served as HSL Project Manager and is now Executive Director of Bridge Alliance; Camryn Hughes, a former HSL Assistant Project Manager who now works in refugee and immigration law; and Astrid Paz, a former research assistant on the nuclear project now in the Master of Law and Diplomacy program at the Fletcher School of International Affairs.

Paz, an first-generation Honduran-American international security student, said “We learned in class how norms are created, it’s super interesting to see it first hand.” Lavigne, who will deploy with the US Army to Poland after graduation, said, “It’s so fascinating to hear engagement about the secrecy of nuclear tests in decolonized countries… this audience is so diverse.”

Students at the conference had opportunities to listen in on delegates’ formal remarks, interact with civil society campaigners and delegates at conference side events, and assist in fielding questions about the research they helped with. Carpenter said, “One of my favorite things about Human Security Lab is the ability to include students in faculty research and conversations about things that matter to those practitioners working to make the world a safer place.”

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was negotiated in 2017 and came into force in 2021. This week’s meeting is the 2nd Meeting of State Parties to the treaty, which comprehensively prohibits the acquisition, deployment, use, threat to use, transfer, production, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons. The conference includes numerous observer states and civil society organizations celebrating Nuclear Ban Week in Manhattan with many cultural events.