Article ID: CBB939618691

The ways and means of ITER: Reciprocity and compromise in fusion science diplomacy (2021)

unapi

Åberg, Anna (Author)


History and Technology
Volume: 37
Issue: 1
Pages: 106-124


Publication Date: 2021
Edition Details: Special Issue: Nuclear Diplomacies
Language: English

ITER (short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and the Latin word for ‘the way’, as in ‘the way to new energy’), a controlled thermonuclear fusion experiment currently being built in Cadarache, France, is one of the world’s largest technoscientific collaborations. ITER’s complex organisation is rooted in decisions taken during the early negotiation phase in the 1990s. This article focuses on this initial period of the ITER negotiations, showing the importance of reciprocity and compromise in the organizational decisions of the project. These decisions were enacted by actors and organisations who strived to keep ITER together through continuous ‘backstage’ diplomacy work. This work included finding acceptable compromises for the involved Parties on both a diplomatic and scientific level. Looking closely at such work reveals the entangled character of science and diplomacy in large international technoscientific collaborations, as well as the need for compromise to make a project like ITER materialise.

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Associated with

Article Kenji Ito; Maria Rentetzi (2021) The co-production of nuclear science and diplomacy: Towards a transnational understanding of nuclear things. History and Technology (pp. 4-20). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB939618691/

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Authors & Contributors
Loeckx, Renilde
Pablo Kreimer
Hecker, Siegfried S.
Elisabeth Roehrlich
Katharina Christine Cramer
Mateos, Gisela
Concepts
International cooperation
Foreign relations; diplomacy
Science and politics
Cold War
Big science
Nuclear power; atomic energy
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century, early
Places
Europe
United States
France
Latin America
Japan
China
Institutions
League of Nations
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
United Nations
UNICEF
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
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