ABSTRACT
Anti-nuclear movements became prominent features of advanced industrial societies in the 1970s as the use of nuclear power for electricity generation expanded. Anti-nuclear activity coincided with the consolidation of environmental social movement organisations, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace and the wider growth in environmentalism. They are widely regarded as one of the most prominent ‘anti-movements’ within social movement studies (see ‘anti-movement’) and the impact of their campaigns on the policy process is the subject of an extensive literature (Flam 1994; Rudig 1990). The potential for ‘dual use’ of a nuclear fuel cycle to produce weapons-grade materials led to significant tensions between anti-nuclear movements and anti-nuclear weapons movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
