From Accountants to Detectives
How Nuclear Safeguards Inspectors Make Knowledge at the International Atomic Energy Agency
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7959802 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anna Weichselbraun (0000-0002-3705-9968, University of Vienna, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 120-135 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | PoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1081-6976 • E-ISSN: 1555-2934 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/plar.12346 |
| OpenAlex | W3040533071 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 33 |
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies state compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty through nuclear safeguards. The agency's legitimacy derives from the convincing display of technical authority. The politics of nuclear things, however, constantly threaten to undermine this authority. Nuclear safeguards are made legibly authoritative and credibly technical through bureaucratic objectivity. This epistemic logic and practice is widely shared by projects of technocratic governance in the liberal international order. After the discovery of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program, the IAEA transformed its accounting‐based knowledge practices. However, these transformations into more detective‐like ways of knowing call into question the presumed technical purity of safeguards reports. This article unearths the historical origins of safeguards as bureaucratically objective knowledge and demonstrates its enduring legacy at the IAEA, as its bureaucrats and diplomats attempt to manage the tension between effectiveness and credibility
Atomic energy · Bureaucracy · Business · Corporate governance · Credibility · Enforcement · Epistemology · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Nuclear weapon · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Technocracy · Treaty · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Public Administration · Risk Perception and Management
Contested Facts
Verification as socio-epistemic challenge
Nuclear safeguards during crises
Nuclear Onco-Politics
Drum breach
Gathering around a satellite image
Governing With Technical Precision
Deniability in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime
Law, politics, and efficacy at the European Court of Human Rights
The Seductions of Quantification
The Guardians
From Max Weber
Rules for the World
Anti-Politics Machine
Little Tools of Knowledge
Digital Weberianism
Trust in Numbers
The Cold War, the developing world, and the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1953–1957
The Soviet Union and the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency
The Quest for Security
Far-Fetched Facts
A Documentary Regime of Verification
Governing the World
Pandora's hope
Documents
On Semiotic Ideology
Negotiating Global Nuclearities
The social life of cultural value
Government of Paper
A History of the Modern Fact
Voice, Footing, Enregisterment
Evaluation regimes and the qualia of quality
Enactments of Expertise
Bureaucratizing Sensitivity
Assembling Partial Perspectives
The ethics of a formula
Semiotics and the social analysis of material things
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |