A hegemonic nuclear order: Understanding the Ban Treaty and the power politics of nuclear weapons

ABSTRACT

The notion of a “global nuclear order” has entered the lexicon of nuclear politics. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has prompted further questions about how we understand it. Yet missing from analysis of nuclear order and the “Ban Treaty” is a critical analysis of the power relations that constitute that order. This article develops a critical account of global nuclear order by applying Robert Cox's concept of hegemony and power to the global politics of nuclear weapons, drawing on the politics of the Ban Treaty. It theorizes a “nuclear control order” as a hegemonic structure of power, one that has been made much more explicit through the negotiation of the Ban Treaty. This fills a void by taking hegemony and power seriously in theorizing nuclear order, as well as explaining both the meaning of the Ban Treaty and its limits.

KEYWORDS:

• Nuclear weapons
• Ban Treaty
• nuclear order
• hegemony
• power
• humanitarian initiative

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Benoit Pelopidas, Kjolv Egeland, Anne Harrington, and David Mutimer for comments on a previous draft presented at the European Initiative for Security Studies conference in Paris in January 2017 and for those from the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nick Ritchie is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics, University of York, UK. Prior to that he was a Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford. His publications include, with K. Egeland, “The Diplomacy of Resistance: Power, Hegemony and Nuclear Disarmament” (Global Change, Peace and Security, 30, 2, 2018); “Nuclear Identities and Scottish Independence” (The Non-Proliferation Review, 23, 5-6, 2016); “Waiting for Kant: Devaluing and Delegitimising Nuclear Weapons” (International Affairs, 90, 3, 2014); “Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons” (Contemporary Security Policy 34, 1, 2013); “Rethinking Security: A Critical Analysis of the Strategic Defence and Security Review” (International Affairs, 87, 2, 2011); A Nuclear Weapons-Free World? Britain, Trident, and the Challenges Ahead (2013) and US Nuclear Weapons Policy Since the End of the Cold War: Russians, “Rogues” and Domestic Division (2008).

ORCID

Nick Ritchie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6397-7498

Notes

1 Ambassador Steffan Kongstad was Director General at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and instrumental in the success of both the CCM and the HINW as well as the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997. On the CCM, see (Borrie, 2009).

2 The materiality of nuclear order encompasses bombs, warheads, missiles, submarines, aircraft, command and control infrastructures, laboratories, factories, universities, think-tanks, reactors, fissile materials, mines, etc. I exceptionalize nuclear weapons as the material manifestation of global nuclear politics in the context of power, hegemony and nuclear order whilst acknowledging that what counts as “nuclear” is a political move (Hecht, 2012).