Description
Within NATO countries, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has provoked scholarly and political reactions from considering it a fundamental attack on NATO’s extended nuclear deterrence to the best hope for genuine progress on nuclear disarmament. Predominantly normatively driven, the scholarly debate was divided along the theoretical fault line around two incompatible concepts: realists preferred deterrence and its materialist notion, critical scholars disarmament and through discursive elements.
The fourth wave of deterrence research, following on a constructivist understanding through which discourse shapes deterrence, could help to advance the debate theoretically and empirically. In a single-case study focused on Germany, this paper makes use of qualitative discourse analysis, primarily focussing on discourses in the domestic political arena. The evidence suggests that through the TPNW, particularly domestic audiences are increasingly debating about deterrence and disarmament, which might be part of a (re-)politicisation and de-strategisation of deterrence. NATO’s extended deterrent is thus already be impacted by the new treaty, but the political discourse could help to advance disarmament.
