race has transformed from a necessity to keep bipolar world order to its place to more complex security issues. This transition may open the discussion more to the humanitarian impacts of nuclear war and thus change the discourse from power to everyday security.
However, this change requires an increase in the interest of states to the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear detonation, which might be laborious as states claim that the deterrence is the only reason why nuclear weapons exist.
In the UK, nuclear power is also heavily criticised by CND, as it is intertwined with the production of nuclear weapons. Nuclear power plants often enrich uranium or plutonium, and as this is a military procedure, it is usually kept in secrecy from public. (CND 2018.) However, nuclear power shows climate discourse in the UK. According to CDA done by Julie Doyle (2011), the governmental discourse sees nuclear power as an essential method to mitigate climate change and produce “affordable and safe” energy to all households.
Some organisations prove these claims untrue, such as Friends of the Earth UK. Nuclear power has a favourable reputation, as its discourse often presents it as a secure supply.
This assumption is enforced with a xenophobic discourse, which ensures that nuclear energy will not be dependent on other states, unlike other forms of energy production.
wanted to have geographical diversity to grasp the local level issues on the civil defence in the UK, which succeeded rather well. However, I did not find representatives from Northern Ireland or Wales. However, the local issues were apparent in the interviews, particularly in Scotland, as the current Trident system is based mainly in there (Scottish CND 2013). Also, Bob Overy is a former emergency planner of the city of Leeds, which provided an interesting viewpoint from the expert level of preparedness and emergency planning.
I constructed the base of the interview on the semi-structural form and asked questions in chronological order. I selected the semi-structured interview as my data collection method as it allows my interviewees to share their expertise on the topic that they possess a tremendous amount of knowledge. Moreover, the method enables flexibility while covering the topics presented in the research question (Galletta 2013, 1–2). Also, there are some narrative elements in the interview questions, as I encouraged my informants to reflect their background on the topic as well. The interviews focused intensively on their personal experiences, memories and the activities they attended, or they still attend currently. Their personal opinions on civil defence were strongly present and attached to their experiences on the movement.
I focused on collecting their personal stories and opinions on the nuclear disarmament and civil defence and wanted to focus on the developments that happened in different decades along the waves of the movement and development of nuclear weapon systems. My informants have joined the movement in various reasons and times, which allows me to contemplate their motivations to activism. Despite these differences, the movement base seems to be relatively homogenous when it comes to ethnicity, socioeconomic class, age, and education. Most of my informants were retired; all of them had an academic background.
This lack of diversity has previously been noted severally (Carter 1992), and even some of the informants commented it.
To design the structure of the interview, I used mostly Anne Galetta’s book “Semi-Structured Interview and Beyond” (2012), which offers step-by-step guidance of presenting the different phases of the research process. The book helped me to craft the questions to the interview and spot the most important issues in analysing phase. When structuring the questions, I selected to leave my theoretical framework without explicit mention as I did not want to present my questions in a too prescriptive manner and give space for their interpretations
based on their experiences. I crafted my questions to the thematical order reflecting relations of the peace movement and those who were responsible for civil defence. I also added the element that would measure the international aspect of humanitarian law and protection with question number 5.
The thematical questions that created a structure for my interview were the following:
Q1: How did you get involved in the nuclear disarmament movement?
Q2: From the late 70s to early 80s, the nuclear disarmament movement was taking actions for Home Office’s civil defence plans. How did you feel on the government’s policies at that time?
Q3: Do you feel that the nuclear disarmament movement affected the government’s nuclear policies or culture (films, books, music, etc.) at that time?
Q4: How do you perceive the current situation on nuclear weapons both internationally and locally?
Q5: Do you think that nuclear disarmament has common grounds with humanitarianism?
Moreover, I had some more specific questions for Bob Overy, as he has expertise as an emergency planner of the city of Leeds. The interviews were relatively informal and mainly followed the pattern described in the questions. Mostly my interviewees talked very openly and versatilely on the topic without the need for intervening. The discussions were recorded by Joonas Lintunen, who was participating in the interviews and sometimes stated specifying questions if needed. I briefed him to my research topic and research questions in a way that enabled him to be an active participant in the discussions. I used Descript application to transcribe the interviews, which ensures good data protection qualities. I also utilised Grammarly application to language check.
In addition to the interviews, I use supporting primary data in my analysis. For instance, each of my informants mentioned Peter Watkins’s film “The War Game” from 1966, which was actively used by CND in movie screenings, as the BBC banned its presentation in television.
Moreover, I involve the multiple representations Protect and Survive in the British media from the 80s to support the interviews. Furthermore, I will use some pamphlets produced both the peace movement and the Home Office. However, my access to these sources is limited. To restrain my material fitting in the scope of the research, and I focus mainly on the
interviews and findings that they prevail. I had a chance to get a glimpse of LSE collections on CND, but due to time restrictions, I was not able to conduct extensive archival work.