The Politics of Protest [week 3]
Campaigns Against Nuclear Arms,
1951 – 1965
Studying the campaign against
nuclear arms
• Global protest movement
• British identity
• Extra-parliamentary activity
• Left-wing politics
• Coalition of support
• 1950s youth movement
The limited anti-nuclear movement
prior to the mid-1950s
• Support for nuclear proliferation
• Identifying the enemy (Touraine)
• ‘Peace’ and the stigma of communism
• The immediate post-war period
The Turning Point, 1954 – 56
•Key events
• Changing attitudes
• Nuclear testing
The Growth of the Movement,
1957 – 65
• Where was the Labour Party?
• The impact of British CND
• Impact throughout Europe
Reasons for anti-nuclear protest
in Britain
• Large coalition of participants (Parkin)
• A wider social agenda/movement
• Loss of Britain’s world power status
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Response of the state
• British youth in the 1950s (Diski)
Conclusions
• Mass mobilisation
• Direct action
• Growth of civil disobedience