European Nuclear Disarmament: a study of transnational social movement strategy

This thesis is a study of an attempt to help create a transnational movement against the nuclear arms race and the Cold War in the 1980s. The attempt began with the drafting and launch of the Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament in early 1980. The thesis describes and analyses the work of the British group, European Nuclear Disarmament, or END, which was founded in order to further the aims outlined in the Appeal. The thesis examines END's work in three, overlapping, geographical areas: Britain, where END acted mainly as a pressure group on and/or ginger group within CND in an attempt to internationalize - END-ize - its work; in Western Europe (including Britain), where END (with other Western peace groups) was trying to create and sustain enduring ties amongst Western peace groups; and across the East-West divide, where END was one of a number of groups that engaged in dialogue with independent forces in the Soviet bloc - while maintaining relations with the regimes - with the aim of creating some kind of pan-European alliance that would bring together above all these forces and Western peace groups. The study is conducted in terms of an explanatory framework that emphasizes the pre-existing networks out of which END emerged; the distinctive END worldview or 'frame' and the ways in which END supporters campaigned in its terms, tried to persuade others to adopt it, and/or adapted it - above all in dialogue with independent groups in the Soviet bloc; the resources and structure that helped determine the work END activists could do; the way in which this campaigning was shaped by END's relationship with other peace groups, in Britain above all CND; and the political opportunities and constraints that END activists faced. To date there has been no full-length study of END nor one that analyses the various dimensions of its campaign and how they shaped each other. This thesis thus aims to be a contribution to our knowledge of the West European peace movements of the 1980s; it also hopes to add to our understanding of transnational social-movement campaigning