Abstract

In this article, Chernobyl is approached as a concept to convey the meaning and sense not so much of a geographical place and the fact of an accident of a particular nuclear power plant, but of a socio-political problem that resulted from the accident on the Chernobyl NPP. Despite the shutdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it still influences the social and political reality. Chernobyl appears in this article as a result of work of interpretation of the aftermaths of the Chernobyl disaster by different actors: state bodies, political parties, NGOs and scientific institutions. This article touches upon different discourses, story-lines through which the consequences of the accident on the Chernobyl plant are managed in Belarus from 1986 to 2008. Applying the methodology of the discourse-coalitions , a constructivist analysis of the Chernobyl politics is represented. The main idea of the article is to identify the discourse-coalitions within the Chernobyl policy, the actors and story-lines they utter. This article reveals the role of the discourse-coalitions within the nuclear policy in Belarus, challenged by the construction of a nuclear power plant