Nuclear war and the city: perspectives on municipal interventions in defence (Great Britain, New Zealand, West Germany, USA, 1980–1985)

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Focusing on the example of municipal interventions in defence, this article proposes to evaluate the role of cities and towns in Cold War policies. It discusses how, in the early 1980s, residents in Great Britain, New Zealand, West Germany and the USA claimed responsibility for defence and (dis)armament policies in the name of their respective city or home town. To justify this claim, protagonists not only portrayed urban settlements as probable targets of nuclear war. They also highlighted cities and towns as concrete places and drew attention to locality as a scale that might bear specific potentials for participation and empowerment. Yet a closer analysis of such initiatives in the four countries reveals that municipal activities for peace and disarmament developed in far more complex spatial relations than references to the ‘local’ as a scale of involvement might imply.