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| == '''[[The Social Capital Foundation]]''' ==
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| ''by [[User:Koen Demol|Koen Demol]]
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| | ==Footnotes== |
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| '''The Social Capital Foundation''' (TSCF) is a non-profit, [[non-governmental organization]] (NGO) that pursues the promotion of [[social capital]] and [[social cohesion]]. Created in late 2002 by Dr [[Patrick Hunout]], it is based in [[Brussels]]. TSCF is international and focuses particularly on the current developments in the industrial countries. The profiles of its members are extremely diverse. Funded with membership, conference and expertise fees, it is an independent [[operating foundation]]. It is a not a [[grant-making foundation]].
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| Social capital is a key concept in [[political science]], [[sociology]], [[social psychology]], [[economics]], and organizational behavior. It has been theorized about by a long list of scholars, from Emile Durkheim to Ferdinand Tönnies, Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Putnam, Robert Bellah, Francis Fukuyama, Patrick Hunout and others. (See the entry on [[social capital]] for more detailed discussion).
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| == The Foundation's approach to social capital == | |
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| TSCF's approach to "social capital" is distinct from other, more socio-economic approaches in which the term "capital" approaches some of its conventional economic meanings. TSCF promotes social capital defined as a set of mental dispositions and attitudes favoring cooperative behaviors within society.
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| The first assumption on which this definition is based is that social capital must not be mixed up with its manifestations.
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| Thus, social capital does not consist primarily in the possession of social networks, but in a disposition to generate, maintain and develop congenial relationships. It is not good neighborhood, but the openness to pacific coexistence and reciprocity based on a concept of belonging. It does not consist in running negotiations, but in the shared compromise-readiness and sense of the common good that make them succeed. It is not solely observable trust, but the predictability and the good faith necessary to produce it. It is not reductible to factual civic engagement, but resides in the sense of community that gives you lust to get involved in public life. All these downstream manifestations cannot be fully and consistently explained without reference to the upstream mental patterns that make them possible, or not.
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| The second assumption is that this disposition is collectivistic. It is not my individual capacity to build networks that is the most important for creating social capital but a collective, shared and reciprocal disposition to welcome, create and maintain social connections - without which my individual efforts to create such connections may well remain vain.
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| In that sense, The Social Capital Foundation's definition of social capital can be regarded as a semantic equivalent to the spirit of community. TSCF's approach is close to the one developed by [[Amitai Etzioni]] and the [[Communitarian Network]], although the concerns raised by the erosion of the community trace back to diverse figures in early modern sociology such as [[Ferdinand Tönnies]], [[Georg Simmel]], [[Emile Durkheim]] or the [[Chicago School of Sociology]], while [[European ethnology]], [[culturalism]] and [[jungism]] also insisted on the existence of a common soul.
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| TSCF promotes social capital through socio-economic research, publications, and events. The Foundation sets up international conferences on a regular basis. While research and knowledge add verified facts to the debate, social interaction contributes to further dissemination and awareness around the Foundation's approach.
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| == Hunout and the tripartite model of societal change ==
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| [[Patrick Hunout]], a Franco-Belgian researcher and policymaker, created in 1999 The International Scope Review and in 2002 The Social Capital Foundation. His theoretical filiation is both in the sociology of [[Emile Durkheim]] and [[Ferdinand Tönnies]] and in the more recent contribution of [[social psychology]] and [[cognitive psychology]] research. A former stage of his work had shown that judicial decisionmaking is only possible to the extent where judges use, beyond the formal legal provisions, impersonal and universal values as decision principles -to name these, he coined the term of "global axiological space" (1985, 1990).
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| ''[[The Social Capital Foundation|.... (read more)]]''
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| ! style="text-align: center;" | [[The Social Capital Foundation#Bibliography|notes]]
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| {{reflist|2}} | | {{reflist|2}} |
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Nuclear weapons proliferation is one of the four big issues that have held back worldwide deployment of peaceful nuclear power. This article will address the proliferation questions raised in Nuclear power reconsidered.
As of 2022, countries with nuclear weapons have followed one or both of two paths in producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons: enrichment of uranium to very high fractions of U-235, or extraction of fissile plutonium (Pu-239) from irradiated uranium nuclear reactor fuel. The US forged the way on both paths during its World War II Manhattan Project. The fundamental aspects of both paths are well understood, but both are technically challenging. Even relatively poor countries can be successful if they have sufficient motivation, financial investment, and, in some cases, direct or illicit assistance from more technologically advanced countries.
The International Non-proliferation Regime
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a vigorous program to prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the cornerstone arrangement under which strategic rivals can trust, by independent international verification, that their rivals are not developing a nuclear weapons threat. The large expense of weapons programs makes it very unlikely that a country would start its own nuclear weapons program, if it knows that its rivals are not so engaged. With some notable and worrying exceptions, this program has been largely successful.
Paths to the Bomb
It is frequently claimed that building a civil nuclear power program adds to the weapons proliferation risk. There is an overlap in the two distinct technologies, after all. To build a bomb, one needs Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) or weapons-grade plutonium (Pu-239).
Existing reactors running on Low Enriched Uranium (LEU, under 5% U-235) or advanced reactors running on High Assay LEU (HALEU,up to 20% U-235) use the same technology that can enrich uranium to very high levels, but configured differently. Enrichment levels and centrifuge configurations can be monitored using remote cameras, on-site inspections, and installed instrumentation -- hence the value of international inspections by the IAEA. Using commercial power reactors as a weapons plutonium source is an extremely ineffective, slow, expensive, and easily detectable way to produce Pu. Besides the nuclear physics issues, refueling pressurized water reactors is both time-consuming and obvious to outside observers. That is why the US and other countries developed specialized Pu production reactors and/or uranium enrichment to produce fissile cores for nuclear weapons.
Future Threats and Barriers
Minimizing the risk of future proliferation in states that want to buy nuclear reactors or fuel might require one or more barriers:
1) Insisting on full transparency for all nuclear activities in buyer states, including monitoring and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
2) Limiting fuel processing to just a few supplier states that already have weapons or are approved by the IAEA.
3) Ensuring that fuel at any stage after initial fabrication has an isotopic composition unsuitable for weapons. "Spiking" the initial fuel with non-fissile isotopes, if necessary.
4) Limiting the types of reactors deployed to buyer states. In general, breeders are less secure than burners. Sealed reactor modules are more secure than reactors with on-site fuel processing.
5) Providing incentives and assurances for buyer states to go along with all of the above.
6) Application of diplomatic pressure, sanctions, and other economic measures to non-compliant states.
7) Agreement that any reactor declared rogue by the IAEA will be "fair game" for any state feeling threatened.