New Forum, New Framing: Shifting Approaches to Deterrence and Disarmament

• In Event: Nuclear Diplomacy

Abstract

While some believe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), is a hopelessly naïve disarmament effort, making states’ and INGOs investment of time and effort in the Treaty puzzling, others argue that the TPNW is an attempt at norm entrepreneurship by INGOs, seeking to alter norms that treat nuclear deterrence as legitimate. To what extent have states have begun to adopt these new frameworks for discussing deterrence and disarmament, and which states have been most susceptible to these shifts? This characterizes evolving understandings of nuclear deterrence and disarmament through analysis of a corpus of statements made by government representatives at Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons (HINW) conferences, Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conferences, and UN General Assembly debates on the TPNW. First, I use word embeddings to capture shifts in how specific terms related to deterrence have been used over time and across disarmament fora. Second, I test for evidence of preference convergence between states and disarmament INGOs by applying a text scaling algorithm to place states along an underlying ideological dimension ranging from “status-quo” to “transformative” approaches to disarmament. These positions are meaningfully distinct from those in more traditional disarmament fora, and preference convergence with INGOs over time is predictive of future signature and ratification of the TPNW. Surprisingly, states that we might expect to be more susceptible to persuasion by NGO activists—democracies and those in stable geopolitical neighborhoods—are actually more likely to move away from INGO positions over time.

Author

• Miriam Barnum, Purdue University