Life after the Bomb: Nuclear Fear, Science, and Security Politics in Switzerland in the 1980s (mit Silvia Berger Ziauddin), in: Cold War History, Vol. 20, 2020, No. 1, pp. 95-113 (published online: 02 December 2018), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2018.1536121.

At the beginning of the 1980s, global aftermath studies prompted new perceptions of a nuclear war’s long-term effects on Planet Earth. Focusing on the Swiss ‘Weiterleben’ (‘to live on’) study, which translated these findings into a local context, the paper sheds light on the intertwined history of global politics, science, national security debates, and nuclear fear. It reveals important socio-political and epistemic shifts in the 1980s. Even in countries with comprehensive civil defence systems like Switzerland, the idea that a nuclear war was manageable came to an end; new forms of planning and types of scientific reasoning evolved that superseded ‘Cold War rationality’; and finally, emotions became a crucial political factor.