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Matthew Bolton

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Year of Publication: 2019

Bolton, Matthew, The nuclear taboo and the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, Revista de Direito Brasileira (Brazilian Journal of Law), Vol. 22, no. 9, 2019, pp. 318-325

This article explores the development of the ‘nuclear taboo’ and ICAN’s creative manipulation of discourses of nuclear pollution. ICAN placed people who had long been marginalized by nuclear diplomacy – Atomic Bomb survivors, women, indigenous people, civilians, representatives of small states – at the centre of the debate about conversation about nuclear weapons. In doing so, ICAN deconstructed discourses legitimating nuclear weapons, revealing the ambivalence and fear underneath diplomatic euphemism. ICAN also turned the stigma associated with nuclear weapons onto those who defended them.

Year of Publication: 2018

Bolton, Matthew, The Nuclear Taboo and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, E-International Relations, 2018

Analysis of how ICAN, by choosing a precise discursive strategy to establish a categorical prohibition, helped to build the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, placing nuclear weapons in the same legal category as other pariah weapons. The article uses Mary Douglas’ landmark theorization of ‘purity’ and ‘danger’ to explore the development of the ‘nuclear taboo’ and ICAN’s creative manipulation of discourses of nuclear pollution.

Year of Publication: 2017

Bolton, Matthew, How to Resist: Turn Protest to Power, Verso, Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 178

Bolton, focuses on his experience with the Living Wage campaign in the UK since 2001 and how the campaign has through varied tactics significantly increased the wages of over 150,000 cleaners and other low paid workers.