The thesis details the course of the civil defence debate in
Britain, assesses the value of civil defence against nuclear
attack and investigates other issues of concern to those involved
in the debate. The thesis is divided into three parts.
Part one deals with the course of the debate, the issues raised and the
methods used to propogate them. The role of activists, academics
and professionals is given particular emphasis. The period is
charaterised as seeing the decline of civil defence, in many
peoples' eyes, from a sine qua non of British defence to becoming
almost an irrelevance to nuclear war.
Part two, by means of the use of a reference scenario, looks in
detail at the organisation and effectiveness of British civil
defence against nuclear attack. It is concluded that civil defence
in the long term, is unlikely to make any significant difference
to the number of survivors of nuclear war. The developing knowledge
and debate about the Nuclear Winter is also discussed.
Part three deals with important issues in the debate which are
not directly related to the effectiveness of civil defence in
nuclear war. The issues, dealt with in turn, are: the current
and potential effect of civil defence on civil liberties; the
possible effect of civil defence on crisis stability in times
of acute international tensions and the possible effectiveness
of civil defence against non-nuclear attack.
The conclusion offers a number of explanations as to why, given
the apparent ineffectiveness of civil defence, successive governments
have continued to develop it. This question is also looked
at with reference to Kuhn's theory of scientific revolution
and suggests that the understanding of civil defence is at
present undergoing a paradigm shift. / Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19399 |
| Date | January 1985 |
| Creators | Crossley, George J. |
| Contributors | Dando, Malcolm R. |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Postgraduate School of Studies in Peace Studies |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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