Not lost in contestation: How norm entrepreneurs frame norm development in the nuclear nonproliferation regime

ABSTRACT

With near universal membership, the nuclear nonproliferation regime can be considered a success of global nuclear governance. While it has proven robust since the Nonproliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970, the regime has faced continuous contestation, precisely because it is a delicate compromise between the nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states. In this article, we analyze the patterns of contestation within the regime as well as the actors driving these contestation processes. Our purpose is to assess how contestation has affected the development of nuclear norms. We show that contestation can lead to normative progress, result in blockage, or even lead to decay. We argue that the outcome depends on three factors: commitment by the powerful parties to appreciate the positions of the non-nuclear weapon states, the engagement of bridge-builders to shape compromises, and the construction of reciprocal gains for and compliance by all parties.

KEYWORDS:

• Arms control
• contestation
• norm entrepreneurs
• nonproliferation regime
• nuclear weapons
• weapons of mass destruction

Acknowledgements

We draw on the results of three multiyear projects (German Research Foundation, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt, and Swedish Radiation Safety Authority) and part of the findings of the projects have been published in Müller and Wunderlich (2013) and Müller et al. (2014). The article builds on the aforementioned publications by zooming in on the actors driving processes of contestation within the nuclear nonproliferation regime. We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, and Hylke Dijkstra for their comments on earlier versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Harald Müller served as a member of the German Delegation at NPT Review Conferences from 1995 to 2015, as a member of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters of the UN Secretary General from 1999 to 2005, as a member of the Co-Chair of the Working Group on Peace and Conflict in the German Foreign Ministry, and as Vice-President of the EU Consortium for Non-proliferation and Disarmament of the European Union. While these auxiliary positions have provided him with unique empirical insights, the views presented in this article neither represent Germany, the UN, or the EU nor have they been influenced by these actors.

Notes on contributors

Harald Müller was the Executive Director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (ret.) and is Prof. emeritus for International Relations and Peace Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. He has published widely on international relations theory, nonproliferation, and arms control. His most recent publication “Out of the box: nuclear disarmament and cultural change” appeared in Stable Nuclear Zero: The Vision and its Implication for Disarmament, edited by Sverre Lodgaard (London: Routledge, pp. 55–72).

Carmen Wunderlich is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). She studied Political Science, Philosophy, and German Language and Literature Studies and received her PhD from Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research focuses on global norm dynamics, the concept of norm entrepreneurship, and norms pertaining to the control of weapons of mass destruction. She has published in The Nonproliferation Review and International Politics, among others. Together with Harald Müller, she is editor of Norm Dynamics in Multilateral Arms Control published with University of Georgia Press.

ORCID

Carmen Wunderlich http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7584-1408

Notes

1. This follows the enumeration in the Final Document. The number underrates the degree of specification, as some “actions” contain several sub-actions. See Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2010).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation [project number: 5401263] and by the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University. This article has also benefited from funding from the U.S. Institute of Peace Annual Grant, Nuclear Norms in Global Governance, 160-12F. We acknowledge funding by University Research Centers (UNCE) – Peace Research Center Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.