Publication

The article investigates the politics of knowledge production behind the remaining influence of Cold War thinking on nuclear policy. It argues that if politicians want to put an end to 'Cold War' thinking, it is not enough to ask for innovation at the level of policy. There must also be an active investment in overturning entrenched interests among intellectual elites in maintaining existing paradigms. There is a politics of knowledge production that is relevant to the process of legitimating any large-scale policy transformation. There was an opening for changing entrenched ways of thinking and doing research in the 1990’s. This opening has however been replaced by a resurgence of interest in nuclear deterrence theory.