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ABSTRACT
This article argues that the nuclear nonproliferation norm (NNPN) is a social fact with a relatively independent life of its own and that it has a powerful impact on the behavior of both nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS). It challenges the application of critical constructivist research on norms to the NNPN and the idea that its legitimacy and structural power depend on contestation “all the way down.” State and non-state actors play an important role in explaining the dynamics of the NNPN, but agential constructivism runs the danger of “throwing the baby out with the bath water,” neglecting the structural impact of the NNPN on state behavior. The article examines the limitations of norm-contestation theory, arguing that some norms are more resistant to contestation than others. The NNPN is more difficult to contest than new norms (such as the Responsibility to Protect) because it is rooted in fifty years of nonproliferation nuclear diplomacy. The US-India nuclear deal is not a case of “norm change” but a violation of the NNPN. The “core” of the NNPN has not changed since the US-India nuclear deal. The conflict confronting NWS and NNWS is about the implementation of “type 2” norms (organizing principles) and “type 3” norms (standardized procedures), and not about the “hard core” of the NNPN.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Rhianna Tyson Kreger and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and helpful suggestions.
Notes
1 Maria Rost Rublee and Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Norms in Global Governance: A Progressive Research Agenda,” Contemporary Security Policy, No. 3 (2018), p. 10, <www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13523260.2018.1451428>.
2 Lewis A. Dunn, “The Strategic Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: An Alternative Global Agenda for Nuclear Disarmament,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 24, Nos. 5–6 (2017), p. 408.
3 Rublee and Cohen, “Nuclear Norms in Global Governance,” p. 3.
4 See Antje Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics: Contested Norms and International Encounters (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 42–43.
5 Ibid., p. 47.
6 See R.B. Cialdini and M.R. Trost, “Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity and Compliance,” in D.T. Gilbert and S. T. Fiske, eds., The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2, 4th edn. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1998), p. 153.
7 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (1998), p. 891. See also Peter Katzenstein, “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 5; Ronald Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security,” in Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, p. 54. Similar definitions of “norms” appear in Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 22; Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 40.
8 See Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, p. 40.
9 Jepperson et al., “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security,” p. 54.
10 Realist scholars argue that international institutions and norms “have minimal influence on state behavior.” See John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1994–95), p. 7.
11 Lawrence Scheinman, “Does the NPT Matter?” in Joseph F. Pilat and Robert E. Pendley, eds., Beyond 1995: The Future of the NPT Regime (New York: Plenum Press, 1990), p. 56.
12 See Tanya Ogilvie-White, “The Defiant States: North Korea and Iran,” in Tanya Ogilvie-White and David Santoro, eds., Slaying the Nuclear Dragon: Disarmament Dynamics in the Twenty-First Century (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), pp. 249–78.
13 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” pp. 895–905.
14 Ibid., p. 896, 897.
15 Ibid., p. 895.
16 Ibid., p. 902.
17 The Glenn Amendment, formerly known as Section 670 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, prohibits US foreign assistance to any NNWS that, inter alia, detonates a nuclear-explosive device. “Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,” US Public Law 87–195; Approved September 4, 1961, as amended through P.L. 115–254.
18 The five states recognized as NWS by the NPT are allowed to temporarily possess nuclear weapons, but they are expected “to pursue negotiations in good faith” to achieve nuclear disarmament. See Article VI of the NPT, reproduced in Joseph F. Pilat and Robert E. Pendley, eds., Beyond 1995: The Future of the NPT Regime (New York: Plenum Press, 1990), p. 180.
19 See Nina Tannenwald, “Justice and Fairness in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2013), p. 302.
20 Ibid., p. 314.
21 Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint, p. 39.
22 Scheinman, “Does the NPT Matter?” p. 56, emphasis added.
23 See Daniel H. Joiner, Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 2.
24 Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint, pp. 38–39.
25 See Antje Wiener, A Theory of Contestation (Heidelberg: Springer, 2014).
26 Ibid., p. 46.
27 Ibid., p. 20.
28 Carmen Wunderlich, “Theoretical Approaches in Norm Dynamics,” in Harald Müller and Carmen Wunderlich, eds., Norm Dynamics in Multilateral Arms Control: Interests, Conflicts and Justice (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2013), p. 26.
29 Matthew Hoffmann, “Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations,” in Robert Denemark and Renee Marlin-Bennett, eds., The International Studies Encyclopedia, Oxford Reference Online, 2017, p. 10, <www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191842665.001.0001/acref-978>.
30 See Alan Bloomfield, “Resisting the Responsibility to Protect,” in Alan Bloomfield and Shirley V. Scott, eds., Norm Antipreneurs and the Politics of Resistance to Global Normative Change (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 20–38.
31 See Shirley V. Scott and Lucia Meilin Oriana, “Resisting Japan’s Promotion of a Norm of Sustainable Whaling,” in Bloomfield and Scott, Norm Antipreneurs and the Politics of Resistance to Global Normative Change, pp. 108–24.
32 Hoffmann, “Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations,” p. 4.
33 Vaughn P. Shannon, “Norms Are What States Make of Them: The Political Psychology of Norm Violation,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44 (2000), p. 294.
34 Ibid., p. 305.
35 Wiener, A Theory of Contestation, pp. 35–39.
36 See Andrew Grotto, “Why Do States that Oppose Nuclear Proliferation Resist New Nonproliferation Obligations? Three Logics of Nonproliferation Decision-Making,” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2010), pp. 14–15.
37 “State parties are prohibited to use, threaten to use, develop, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess, stockpile, transfer, station, or install nuclear weapons or assist with any prohibited activities.” “The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Article 1, Arms Control Today, September 2017, p. 20. On the distinction between the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness, see James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders,” International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (1998), pp. 949–54.
38 See United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, “Final Documents of the 2000 NPT Review Conference,” <www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt2000>.
39 See Jeffrey Lantis, “Redefining the Nonproliferation Norm? Australian Uranium, the NPT, and the Global Nuclear Revival,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 57, No. 4 (2011), pp. 543–61.
40 For example, uranium exports that could be diverted from civilian to military uses. Lantis uses the term “sensitive nuclear assistance” to describe Australian government policies on nuclear energy and exports of nuclear materials, including uranium, to countries that refuse full-scope IAEA safeguards. See Lantis, “Redefining the Nonproliferation Norm?” p. 543.
41 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” p. 896.
42 Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics, p. 43.
43 Harald Müller and Carmen Wunderlich, “Not lost in contestation: How norm entrepreneurs frame norm development in the nuclear nonproliferation regime,” Contemporary Security Policy, January 11, 2018, p. 2, <www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13523260.2017.1394032>.
44 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 36.
45 Antje Wiener, “Contested Compliance: Interventions on the Normative Structure of World Politics,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2004), p. 190, emphasis added.
46 Jeffrey S. Lantis, “Nuclear Technology and Norm Stewardship: US Nonproliferation Policies Revisited,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2015), p. 441.
47 Wiener, “Contested Compliance,” p. 191.
48 Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics, p. 50.
49 Wiener, “Contested Compliance,” p. 191.
50 Ibid., emphasis added.
51 Holger Niemann and Henrik Schillinger, “Contestation All the Way Down? The Grammar of Contestation in Norm Research,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2017), p. 30.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Wiener, “Contested Compliance,” p. 191.
56 Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics, pp. 42–43.
57 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” p. 891. See also Peter Katzenstein’s definition: “Collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors with a given identity.” Katzenstein, “Introduction,” p. 5.
58 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” p. 895, emphasis added.
59 See Bloomfield, “Resisting the Responsibility to Protect.”
60 See Jeffrey Lantis, “Irrational Exuberance? The 2010 NPT Review Conference, Nuclear Assistance, and Norm Change,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2011), pp. 389–410; Lantis, “Nuclear cooperation with non-NPT member states? An elite-driven model of norm contestation,” Contemporary Security Policy, January 30, 2018, p. 6, 15. <www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13523260.2017.1398367>; Lantis, “Redefining the Nonproliferation Norm?” p. 560.
61 See Lantis, “Irrational Exuberance?,” p. 399.
62 Lantis, “Nuclear Cooperation with Non-NPT Member States?,” p. 15.
63 Lantis, “Irrational Exuberance?,” p. 403.
64 Ibid., p. 397.
65 Lantis, “Nuclear Cooperation with Non-NPT Member States?,” p. 15.
66 Ibid., p. 6.
67 William C. Potter, “India and the New Look of US Nonproliferation Policy,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2005), p. 344.
68 Ibid., p. 343.
69 See Jeffrey Knopf, “After diffusion: Challenges to enforcing nonproliferation and disarmament norms,” Contemporary Security Policy, February 9, 2018, pp. 16-18 <www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13523260.2018.1431446?journalCode=fcsp20>.
70 See Mark Hibbs, “Eyes on the prize: India’s pursuit of membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 24, Nos. 3-4 (2017), pp. 275–96.
71 Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September 1998, both countries expressed their willingness to adhere to the CTBT. See Pakistan Permanent Mission to the United Nations, “Address by H.E. Mr. Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the 53rd Session of the UN General Assembly, September 23, 1998, <www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/sharifun.htm>. Indian Prime Minister’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s speech at the same session is available at www.indianembassy.org/new/pmspeech(U.N.).htm.
72 Lantis, “Nuclear Cooperation with Non-NPT Member States?,” p. 6.
73 Wiener, A Theory of Contestation, pp. 66–68.
74 Bloomfield and Scott define “norm antipreneurs” as the actors who resist an emerging or existing norm. See Bloomfield, “Resisting the Responsibility to Protect,” in Bloomfield and Scott, eds., Norm Antipreneurs and the Politics of Resistance to Global Normative Change, p. 20. See also Bloomfield and Scott, “Norm Antipreneurs in World Politics,” in ibid, p. 1.
75 See Müller and Wunderlich, “Not Lost in Contestation,” p. 6.
76 See Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics, p. 62.
77 See Dunn, “The strategic elimination of nuclear weapons.”
78 Hibbs, “Eyes on the Prize,” p. 294.
79 Orli Zahava, “Resistance to the Emergent Norm to Advance Progress towards the Complete Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” in Bloomfield and Scott, eds., Norm Antipreneurs and the Politics of Resistance to Global Normative Change, p. 68.
80 Müller and Wunderlich,”Not lost in contestation,” p. 19.
81 See Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979).
82 See Alexander Wendt, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization, Vol. 41, No. 3 (1987), pp. 335–70.
83 Rublee and Cohen, “Nuclear norms in global governance,” p. 14.
84 Anna Holzscheiter, “Between Communicative Interaction and Structures of Signification: Discourse Theory and Analysis in International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2014), p. 145.
85 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, p. 75.
86 William Walker, A Perpetual Menace: Nuclear Weapons and International Order (New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 171.
87 Wendt, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” p. 339.
88 Marianne Hanson, “Normalizing zero nuclear weapons: The humanitarian road to the Prohibition Treaty,” Contemporary Security Policy, February 1, 2018, p. 2, <www.tandfonline.com.loi/fcsp20>.
89 Ibid.
90 Nick Ritchie, “The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Delegitimizing Unacceptable Weapons,” in Shatabhisha Shetty and Denitsa Raynova, eds., Breakthrough or Breakpoint? Global Perspectives on the Nuclear Ban Treaty (European Leadership Network, 2017), <www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ELN-Global-Perspectives-on-the-Nuclear-Ban-Treaty-December-2017.pdf>.
91 Hanson, “Normalizing zero nuclear weapons,” p. 2.
92 A good summary of the debate between supporters and critics of the TPNW appears in Heather Williams, “A nuclear babel: narratives around the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 25, Nos. 1–2 (2018), pp. 51–63.
93 Sharon Squassoni, “A controversial ban and the long game to delegitimize nuclear weapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 10, 2017, <https://thebulletin.org/2017/07/a-controversial-ban-and-the-long-game-to-delegitimize-nuclear-weapons/>.
94 Nick Ritchie, “The Real “Problem” with a Ban Treaty? It Challenges the Status Quo,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 3, 2017, <http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/04/03/real-problem-with-ban-treaty-it-challenges-status-quo-pub68510>.
95 Ritchie, “The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 50.
96 Quoted in Walker, A Perpetual Menace: Nuclear Weapons and International Order, p. 171.
97 See e.g., Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares, “Parsing Objections to the Ban Treaty: A Legal Viewpoint,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 25, Nos. 1–2 (2018), pp. 65–68.
98 TPNW, July 7, 2017, Preamble, <http://undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8>.
99 See Alicia Sanders-Zakre, “Reporting on the 2018 NPT PrepCom: NPT PrepCom Wraps Up with Chair Summary Discussion,” Arms Control Association, May 7, 2018, <www.armscontrol.org>.
100 William C. Potter, “The Unfulfilled Promise of the 2015 NPT Review Conference,” Survival, Vol. 58, No. 1 (2016), p. 152.
101 See Dunn, “The strategic elimination of nuclear weapons,” p. 429.