Human Security Lab To Analyze Nuclear Divestment Strategies

Human Security Lab Director Charli Carpenter traveled to the Netherlands this past week to consult with NGO practitioners associated with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW) and PAX for Peace Netherlands, an NGO at the center of the nuclear disarmament movement’s nuclear divestment campaign. Known as “Don’t Bank on the Bomb,” this campaign seeks to influence banks and financial institutions to divest from the nuclear industry.

The consultations with NGO practitioners were meant to assist in developing a research design for a new project under Human Security Lab’s humanitarian disarmament research initiative, examining the effectiveness of divestment strategies in the nuclear space. Much of the academic literature on divestment has focused on the environmental issue area, but arguably this strategy is having an impact in nuclear advocacy as well. The new research will examine the different pathways by which divestment campaigns can have an impact, identifying best strategies for disarmament activists, and will also examine the interconnections between NGO, thinktank, university and industry elites to identify social leverage points in this wider network.

The project is a collaboration between Human Security Lab Director and Professor of Political Science Charli Carpenter and Associate Director and Professor of Economics Kevin Young. Both scholars have a research background in studying global networks: Young is a specialist in global financial networks, whose work has focused on networks and hierarchies among global elites. Carpenter’s work has focused on networks of global advocacy elites and how their interrelationships predetermine what sort of issues end up on global agendas. The two are now teaming up, with the assistance of research assistant Gregory Poelker-McGee, to study nuclear divestment strategies.

”This is an area where our skills overlap, and where there is an urgent need for research to support evidence-based advocacy strategies,” says Carpenter. The project also supports Human Security Lab’s mission to provide practitioner-relevant research insights and actionable recommendations to human security stakeholders.