BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:iCalendar-Ruby
BEGIN:VEVENT
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation/Talk
DESCRIPTION:About the event: Nuclear weapons have long been considered as o
 ne of international society’s most preeminent status symbols. That is\, nuc
 lear weapons have long been viewed as signaling a state’s military strength
 \, technological prowess\, and their association with the highest status ac
 tors in the world. This idea of “nuclear prestige” has shaped how academics
  and policymakers think about the causes of proliferation\, nonproliferatio
 n strategies\, and the utility of nuclear modernization. In this article\, 
 I argue that nuclear weapons have never been collectively recognized by the
  international community as a status symbol. Drawing on the sociology of fa
 shion\, I offer a theory of status symbol emergence and collapse. I demonst
 rate that nuclear weapons failed to emerge as a status symbol because of gl
 obal opposition and divided superpower messaging over the meaning of the bo
 mb. I test my argument with a case study of contestation over the meaning o
 f the bomb between 1945 and 1968 and pair it with a sentiment text analysis
  of how the international community has spoken about the bomb in United Nat
 ions General Debate speeches (1946 – 2020). This article has implications f
 or how we think about the effectiveness of the nonproliferation regime\, ra
 cialized dynamics in international politics\, and the nature of status symb
 ols.\n\nAbout the speaker: Kevin Bustamante is the Macarthur Hennessey Post
 doctoral Fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security 
 and Cooperation. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University 
 of Notre Dame where he earned his PhD in August 2024. His research agenda c
 enters around questions of international security and racism\, with a focus
  on nuclear politics. His work has been published in Security Studies and h
 is book project examines the transformation of dominant racial ideas over t
 he last two centuries.
DTEND:20260224T211500Z
DTSTAMP:20260307T125432Z
DTSTART:20260224T200000Z
GEO:37.427319;-122.164625
LOCATION:Encina Hall\, William J. Perry Conference Room
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:The Myth of Nuclear Prestige
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_51588941519198
URL:https://events.stanford.edu/event/the-myth-of-nuclear-prestige
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR