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Article ID: CBB000670747

The Politics of Noncooperation: The Boycott of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (2006)

Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 21
Pages: 86--109
Publication date: 2006
Language: English

Publication Date: 2006
Edition Details: Volume title: Global Power Knowledge: Science and Technology in International Affairs

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In 1974, the General Conference of UNESCO approved three resolutions condemning Israel. In retaliation, a group of physicists promoted a boycott of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), an institute created to foster collaboration in theoretical physics between industrialized and third world countries and partly supported by UNESCO. This political action against the "politicization" of UNESCO was led by American and Israeli scientists. I show that the position toward the boycott was very different among European scientists. I shall argue that the boycott of the ICTP was motivated as much by the formal connection between UNESCO and ICTP as by the identification of the ICTP with the third world, which was blamed for the "exclusion" of Israel from UNESCO. The episode reflects the contradictions and workings of scientific noncooperation. It also reveals the limits of scientific internationalism in the second half of the twentieth century. In this context, I investigate the meaning ascribed by the actors to the term the "politicization of science."

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Article Krige, John; Barth, Kai-Henrik (2006) Introduction: Science, Technology, and International Affairs. Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (p. 1). unapi

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