This book inquires into the use of prediction at the intersection of politics and academia, and reflects upon the implications of future-oriented policy-making across different fields. The volume focuses on the key intricacies and fallacies of prevision in a time of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability. The first part of the book discusses different academic perspectives and contributions to future-oriented policy-making. The second part discusses the role of future knowledge in decision-making across different empirical issues such as climate, health, finance, bio- and nuclear weapons, civil war, and crime. It analyses how prediction is integrated into public policy and governance, and how in return governance structures influence the making of knowledge about the future. Contributors integrate two analytical dimensions in their chapters: the epistemology of prevision and the political and ethical implications of prevision. In this way, the volume contributes to a better understanding of the complex interaction and feedback loops between the processes of creating knowledge about the future and the application of this future knowledge in public policy and governance. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, political science, sociology, technology studies, and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-and-Science-of-Prevision-Governing-and-Probing/Wenger-Jasper-Cavelty/p/book/9780367900748, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book examines the puzzle of why some states acquire nuclear weapons, whereas others refrain from trying to do so - or even renounce them. Based on the predominant theoretical thinking in International Relations it is often assumed that nuclear proliferation is inevitable, given the anarchic nature of the international system. Proliferation is thus often explained by vague references to states' insecurity in an anarchic environment. Yet, elusive generalisations and grand, abstract theories inhibit a more profound and detailed knowledge of the very political processes that lead towards nuclearisation or its reversal. Drawing upon the philosophical and social-theoretical insights of American pragmatism, The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation provides a theoretically innovative and practically useful framework for the analysis of states' nuclear proliferation policies. Rather than reccounting a parsimonious, lean account of proliferation, the framework allows for the incorporation of multiple paradigms in order to depict the complex political contestation underlying states' proliferation decisions. This pragmatist framework of analysis offers ways of overcoming long-standing metatheoretical gridlocks in the IR discipline and encourages scholars to reorient their efforts towards imminent "real-world" challenges. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international security and IR theory.

This book examines the puzzle of why some states acquire nuclear weapons, whereas others refrain from trying to do so - or even renounce them. Based on the predominant theoretical thinking in International Relations it is often assumed that nuclear proliferation is inevitable, given the anarchic nature of the international system. Proliferation is thus often explained by vague references to states' insecurity in an anarchic environment. Yet, elusive generalisations and grand, abstract theories inhibit a more profound and detailed knowledge of the very political processes that lead towards nuclearisation or its reversal. Drawing upon the philosophical and social-theoretical insights of American pragmatism, The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation provides a theoretically innovative and practically useful framework for the analysis of states' nuclear proliferation policies. Rather than reccounting a parsimonious, lean account of proliferation, the framework allows for the incorporation of multiple paradigms in order to depict the complex political contestation underlying states' proliferation decisions. This pragmatist framework of analysis offers ways of overcoming long-standing metatheoretical gridlocks in the IR discipline and encourages scholars to reorient their efforts towards imminent "real-world" challenges. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international security and IR theory.