https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9911-3782
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ABSTRACT
Even if most European countries have not yet joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the treaty has been salient in a number of national settings. In the Netherlands, the TPNW enjoys broad societal appeal, and the Dutch parliament has, on a number of occasions, called on the government to explore options for joining the treaty. In this piece, we empirically study Dutch attitudes toward joining the TPNW. Our findings indicate that a majority of the Dutch would prefer to accede to the TPNW only if nuclear-weapon states or other NATO allies also joined, although unilateral accession received relatively strong support among the youngest respondents, women, and voters supporting the left-wing parties. The most popular option is to join the TPNW at the same time that the nuclear-weapon states do, which seems to be a rather distant prospect in the current international-security environment.
Notes
1 Motoko Mekata, “How Transnational Civil Society Realized the Ban Treaty: An Interview with Beatrice Fihn,” Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2018), pp. 79–92.
2 “P5 Joint Statement on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” October 24, 2018, <www.gov.uk/government/news/p5-joint-statement-on-the-treaty-on-the-non-proliferation-of-nuclear-weapons>. Because the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, they sometimes are known collectively as the “P5.”
3 For an analysis of the humanitarian push in favor of the TPNW, see Rebecca Davis Gibbons, “The Humanitarian Turn in Nuclear Disarmament and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 25, Nos. 1–2 (2018), pp. 11–36. For the reasoning of many countries opposed to joining the treaty precisely because joining would have practical or political consequences for them, see Michal Onderco and Andrea Farrés Jiménez, “A Comparison of National Reviews of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” EUNPDC Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Papers, No. 76, 2021, <https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/eunpdc_no_76.pdf>.
4 Kingdom of the Netherlands, “Explanation of Vote of the Netherlands on Text of Nuclear Ban Treaty,” July 7, 2017, <https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Netherlands-EoV-Nuclear-Ban-Treaty.pdf>. For a broader discussion of the Dutch position on the TPNW, see Ekaterina Shirobokova, “The Netherlands and the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 25, Nos. 1–2 (2018), pp. 37–49.
5 Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons, 2019,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 75, No. 5 (2019), pp. 252–61, <https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1654273>.
6 PAX No Nukes, “Verbied Kernwapens in Nederland. Voorstel Aan De Tweede Kamer. Burgerinitiatief Teken Tegen Kernwapens [Bijlage Bij Kamerstuk 34419 Nr 1]” [Ban nuclear weapons in the Netherlands. Proposal for the House of Representatives. Citizens’ initiative sign against nuclear weapons (attachment to the Chamber Record 34419 Nr 1)], February 24, 2016 , <https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-688950>. Citizens’ Initiatives in the Netherlands are bottom-up instruments that allow 40,000 or more Dutch voters to request a motion to be debated in the Dutch House of Representatives.
7 But see ICAN, “NATO Public Opinion on Nuclear Weapons,” January 2021, <https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ican/pages/234/attachments/original/1611134933/ICAN_YouGov_Poll_2020.pdf?1611134933>; Kjølv Egeland and Benoît Pelopidas, “European Nuclear Weapons? Zombie Debates and Nuclear Realities,” European Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2021), pp. 248–49.
8 Nick Ritchie and Alexander Kmentt, “Universalising the TPNW: Challenges and Opportunities,” Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2021), pp. 70–93.
9 NATO, “NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence Policy and Forces,” 2020, <https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50068.htm>.
10 Kristensen and Korda, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons, 2019.”
11 Government of the Netherlands, “Integrated International Security Strategy 2018–2022,” 2018, <www.government.nl/binaries/government/documents/reports/2018/05/14/integrated-international-security-strategy-2018-2022/NL_International_Integrated_Security_Strategy_2018_2022.pdf>.
12 Government of the Netherlands, “Integrated International Security Strategy.”
13 “Vertrouwen in De Toekomst. Regeerakkoord 2017–2021” [Trust in the future. Coalition Agreement 2017–2021], 2017, p. 47, <www.tweedekamer.nl/sites/default/files/atoms/files/regeerakkoord20172021.pdf >.
14 Sico van der Meer, “Nederlands kernwapenbeleid: Tussen ethiek en geopolitiek” [Dutch nuclear-weapon policy: between ethics and geopolitics], Clingendael Spectator, June 26, 2019, <https://spectator.clingendael.org/nl/publicatie/nederlands-kernwapenbeleid-tussen-ethiek-en-geopolitiek>.
15 Ben Knapen, Gera Arts, Yvonne Kleistra, Martijn Klem, and Marijke Rem, Attached to the World: On the Anchoring and Strategy of Dutch Foreign Policy (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011); Rudy B. Anderweg, Galen A. Irwin, and Tom Louwerse, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands, 5th ed. (London: Red Globe Press, 2020).
16 Remco van Diepen, Hollanditis: Nederland en het kernwapendebat 1977–1987 [Hollanditis: The Netherlands and the nuclear weapons debate, 1977–1987] (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2004).
17 David J. Norman, “Transnational Civil Society and Informal Public Spheres in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2018), pp. 486–510; Gibbons, “The Humanitarian Turn”; Tilman Ruff, “Negotiating the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the Role of ICAN,” Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2018), pp. 233–41.
18 ICAN, “One Year On: European Attitudes toward the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” 2018, <https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ican/pages/714/attachments/original/1575571450/YouGov_ICAN_EUNATOTPNW2018.pdf?1575571450>.
19 Stephen Herzog, Benoît Pelopidas, Jonathon Baron, and Fabrício Fialho, “Donald Trump Could Lose the Election by Authorizing a New Nuclear Weapons Test,” National Interest, June 23, 2020, <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/donald-trump-could-lose-election-authorizing-new-nuclear-weapons-test-163328>.
20 PAX No Nukes, “Ban Nuclear Weapons in the Netherlands,” p. 4. See also Selma Van Oostwaard, “Dutch Parliament Will Discuss a Nuclear Weapons Ban,” 2016, <https://nonukes.nl/dutch-parliament-will-discuss-national-ban-nuclear-weapons/>.
21 On the grassroots pressure in the Netherlands, see Peter Buijs, “The Influence of NVMP’s Medical-Humanitarian Arguments on Dutch Nuclear Weapons Politics: The Netherlands Can Make a Difference in Reaching a Nuclear Weapons-Free World,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2018), pp. 313–23.
22 Van der Meer, “Dutch Nuclear-Weapon Policy.”
23 Kingdom of the Netherlands, “Explanation of Vote.”
24 Kingdom of the Netherlands.
25 For more information on the composition of the sample, see Appendix 1. While the weighting procedure has its limits with respect to the sample’s representativeness of the general population, it is a useful method for correcting sociodemographic biases and providing fairly reliable results in survey research. For example, our original sample was originally biased toward men, older respondents, and respondents with higher levels of education. A study by the Pew Research Center has shown that the inclusion of political benchmarks in weighting procedures results in bias reduction of nearly 50 percent when analyzing political opinions. See Andrew Mercer, Arnold Lau, and Courtney Kennedy, “For Weighting Online Opt-in Samples, What Matters Most?” Pew Research Center, January 26, 2018, <https://pewrsr.ch/3heqknn>.
26 The weighting procedure and resulting margins of error at the 95 percent confidence level took into account the complex sample in accordance with the guidance of the American Association for Public Opinion Research on reporting precision for nonprobability samples by including the design effect as an inflation factor. The weights have been trimmed at the 99.5th percentile so as to reduce the impact of the highest-weight outliers.
27 See Appendix 2 for the original Dutch wording of individual items in our survey.
28 See, for example, ICAN, “One Year On.”
29 Rem Korteweg, Christopher Houtkamp, and Monika Sie Dhian Ho, “Dutch Views on Transatlantic Ties and European Security Cooperation in Times of Geopolitical Rivalry,” Clingendael Institute, September 2020, <www.clingendael.org/publication/dutch-views-transatlantic-ties-and-european-security-cooperation>.
30 Herzog et al., “Donald Trump Could Lose the Election.”
31 Michal Smetana, Marek Vranka, and Ondrej Rosendorf, “Disarming Arguments: How to Get the Public to Support Nuclear Abolition,” Survival, Vol. 63, No. 6 (forthcoming).
32 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers of this paper for valuable comments and suggestions regarding the interpretation of these findings.
33 Government of the Netherlands, “Integrated International Security Strategy.”
34 The detailed results of our survey broken down by age, gender, educational attainment, and party supported are available in Appendix 3.
35 For the composition of the Dutch House of Representatives, see <www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerleden_en_commissies/fracties>.
36 In its recent report, the Dutch government’s Advisory Council for International Affairs also discussed the Dutch nuclear task in this framework. See Advisory Council on International Affairs, “Nuclear Weapons in a New Geopolitical Reality: An Urgent Need for New Arms Control Initiatives,” January 2019, <www.advisorycouncilinternationalaffairs.nl/documents/publications/2019/01/29/nuclear-weapons-in-a-new-geopolitical-reality>.
37 Full results for all answer options can be found in Appendix 3.
38 This dilemma is sometimes captured by the metaphor of “preacher vs. merchant.” For the paradigmatic statement, see Joris Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles: A Study in Dutch Foreign Policy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979).
39 Matthew A. Baum and Tim Groeling, “Shot by the Messenger: Partisan Cues and Public Opinion Regarding National Security and War,” Political Behavior, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2009), pp. 157–86; Katerina Linos, “Diffusion through Democracy,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 3 (2011), pp. 678–95; Christopher Gelpi, “Performing on Cue? The Formation of Public Opinion toward War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2010), pp. 88–116; Matt Guardino and Danny Hayes, “Foreign Voices, Party Cues, and US Public Opinion about Military Action,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018), pp. 504–16; Danny Hayes and Matt Guardino, “Whose Views Made the News? Media Coverage and the March to War in Iraq,” Political Communication, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2010), pp. 59–87; Shoon Murray, “Broadening the Debate about War: The Inclusion of Foreign Critics in Media Coverage and Its Potential Impact on US Public Opinion,” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2014), pp. 329–50.
40 Rafael Loss, “Germany, the Tornado, and the Future of NATO,” European Council on Foreign Relations, 2020, <www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_germany_the_tornado_and_the_future_of_nato>; Oliver Meier, “German Politicians Renew Nuclear Basing Debate,” Arms Control Today, June 2020, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-06/news/german-politicians-renew-nuclear-basing-debate>; Michal Onderco and Michal Smetana, “German Views on US Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Public and Elite Perspectives,” European Security, <www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2021.1941896>. For a comparison of German and Dutch views on the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons, see Michal Smetana, Michal Onderco, and Tom Etienne, “Do Germany and the Netherlands Want to Say Goodbye to US Nuclear Weapons?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.. 77, No. 4 (2021), pp. 215–21, <www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2021.1941603>.
41 Jonathon Baron, Rebecca Davis Gibbons, and Stephen Herzog, “Japanese Public Opinion, Political Persuasion, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2020), pp. 299–309.
42 Stephen Herzog, Jonathon Baron, and Rebecca Davis Gibbons, “Anti-normative Messaging, Group Cues, and the Nuclear Ban Treaty,” Journal of Politics (forthcoming), https://doi.org/10.1086/714924.