Michelle Bentley has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. The title of the project is “A New Theory of Biological Warfare: Taboo as Policy”.
Dr Michelle Bentley
Michelle Bentley has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. The title of the project is “A New Theory of Biological Warfare: Taboo as Policy”.
Abstract: Biowarfare is dangerously misunderstood by global elites, academics, and the public – increasing the chances it will happen. Covid-19 exemplifies the horrific consequences of what this would mean, in terms of mass death and overwhelming disruption. Challenging the realist ideas of deterrence and an erroneous focus on chemical weapons that currently drive policy and analysis, this study will construct a more effective means of understanding/managing the threat based on a new and highly innovative conceptualisation of taboo. Where taboos are drastically under-analysed within IR, the proposed study provides an original policymaking model via the first-ever full analysis of the bioweapons taboo.
