German public opinion on nuclear weapons:Before and after the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

German public opinion has been historically opposed to nuclear weapons-both to their use and to their stationing on German territory. In almost every survey in the last 20 years, Germans have been opposed to stationing nuclear weapons on their territory, expressed desire to have them withdrawn, and opposed their hypothetical use. The contribution of this chapter is two-fold. First, it maps the main patterns of public opinion between 2000 and 2023, providing empirical evidence of the unpopularity of nuclear weapons among the German public prior to February 2022, which was to some degree overturned after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Second, it provides an innovative theoretical argument to explain the democratic legitimacy of the continuation of the current nuclear deterrence posture in which nuclear sharing on German territory is a key element, despite the opposition by the general public. This theoretical argument builds on scholarship tackling the dilemma between responsiveness and responsibility, and addresses the fundamental tensions inherent to technocratic policy-making in democratic countries.</p

Slovakia: Slovakia in Trump’s world

When considering how the Slovak government might respond to Donald Trump's electionto the U.S. Presidency, it's crucial to understand Slovakia's current foreign policy trajec-tory. Under Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has returned for a fourth term, Slovakiamade a notable shift. While in the past Fico had made critical remarks about the UnitedStates domestically, he maintained a pro-Western stance internationally, such as by ap-pointing solidly pro-Western men (yes, they were all men) to key positions. However, in2024, Fico appears to have adopted a more Orbán-like approach, and appointed loyalistswith pro-Moscow leanings to leadership roles. This context matters. Fico’s governmentmight not share the same concerns which the Slovak officials and experts would harbour.The reaction of the Slovak government would therefore be an inevitable mix of responsesfrom the political leadership and bureaucratic elites in the public service. Nonetheless, it ispossible to speculate on the government's main considerations. [...

Public opinion on nuclear weapons:is there a gender gap?

The aim of this paper was to investigate whether and to what extent a gender gap exists in attitudestowards nuclear weapons. Based on the review of existing literature and public opinion polls, there isevidence that the views of men and women on nuclear weapons are not uniform. However, it was notpossible to find a clear pattern among the various countries included, making it difficult to generalizethe findings.<br/

Regional socialization and disarmament preferences:Explaining state positions on the nuclear ban treaty

We bring nuance to the understanding of cleavages among states over the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We measure the positions of the participants to the 2022 and 2023 TPNW Meetings of State Parties, employing text-as-data approaches. Our results show that the participants can be placed along a single axis, roughly associated with whether they view nuclear disarmament in an “old” way as primarily a security problem or in a “new” way as a humanitarian and emancipatory issue. We find that membership in a nuclear weapon-free zone—particularly in Latin America and Africa—has a statistically significant effect on state positions. We therefore debunk the idea that parties to the nuclear ban treaty are a coherent single block. Our article provides a new, quantitative way of measuring the positions of states vis-à-vis the TPNW and contributes to the emerging scholarship on the treaty

Has Covid-19 turned the Dutch into critics of globalisation?

The travel restrictions implemented across the world to tackle Covid-19 have led some observers to ask whether the era of globalisation might be coming to an end. Michal Onderco and Wolfgang Wagner present evidence from a new survey of the views of Dutch citizens on Covid-19 and globalisation. They find that while many citizens believe globalisation has gone too far, there remains strong demand for effective international governance

States, firms, and security:How private actors implement sanctions, lessons learned from the Netherlands

While the current practice of the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the United States leans towards imposing only targeted sanctions in most of the cases, private actors often complain about inability to process financial transactions, ship goods, or deliver services in countries where sanctions targets are located. The impact of sanctions often ends up being widespread and indiscriminate because sanctions are implemented by for-profit actors. This article investigates how for-profit actors relate to the imposition of sanctions, how they reflect them in their decisions, and how they interact with the public authorities. The findings of our research show that for-profit actors, with the possible exception of the largest multinationals, do not engage with public authorities before the imposition of sanctions. The behaviour of for-profit actors in the implementation phase is in line with the assumption of firms and business as profit-maximisers. Weighting th

Treaty legalization, security interests, and ratification of multilateral disarmament treaties

Multilateral treaties are essential for the effectiveness of global disarmament efforts. Ratification delays have deep repercussions on international cooperation for disarmament. Yet what determines their duration? In this paper, we offer the first comprehensive study of multilateral disarmament treaty ratification, covering the period between 1976 and 2020. We test the effects of treaty legalization and a country's security situation on the ratification duration. States are slower to join treaties with a high degree of obligation, but faster to join treaties with high degrees of precision and delegation. Engagement in inter-state rivalries slows down ratification. In contrast, we find only statistically weak evidence that alliance embeddedness accelerates it.</p

Ideology and the Red Button:How Ideology Shapes Nuclear Weapons’ Use Preferences in Europe

Does partisan ideology influence whether Europeans are willing to use nuclear weapons, and if so, how? The US nuclear weapons stationed in Europe have been at the core of European security since the Cold War, but we have still yet to learn what would make Europeans be willing to support their use. In this paper, we present the results of a survey, in which we asked citizens in Germany and the Netherlands about their views on the use of the US nuclear weapons stationed on their territory in four distinct scenarios. Our results indicate that voters of right-wing parties are more likely to approve of the use of nuclear weapons in both countries. There are, however, important differences between the two countries in terms of the degree to which the participants oppose the use of nuclear weapons. These results have implications for NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture.</p

Sponsorship behaviour of the BRICS in the United Nations General Assembly

The formation of informal groupings of states is a manifestation of the global shift in economic power. One such a grouping is the BRICS, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which stands out for its importance due to its economic weight, its coverage across continents and the numerous internal differences. The BRICS have collectively flexed their muscle and expressed their intentions to extend their cooperation at the United Nations (UN). Proposals in the United Nations General Assembly (UN GA) take the form of resolutions, which can be written and co-written by the UN member states. This so-called sponsoring of resolutions is a way to push agenda items forward. Using a large-N network analysis, we examine the patterns of co-sponsorship of the BRICS of resolutions adopted in the UN GA plenary sessions. We find that the BRICS cooperate on fields such as economic issues, however, they do not form a coherent bloc when it comes to resolution sponsorship. These results raise the question in what way the BRICS actually cooperate at the UN level

Variation in Delegation Size in Multilateral Diplomacy

Why do some countries send big delegations to multilateral negotiations, whereas others send very small ones? This article looks at both the causes of variation in state delegations to multilateral conferences but also at the consequences of such variation at both micro- and macrolevel. It tests the arguments derived from liberal theory of international regimes, using the case of the NPT Review Process. The results suggest that economic and security interests drive states’ participation in the multilateral settings; normative concerns about global public goods matter less. The article also argues that while countries which are more abundantly present in the negotiations do not tend to get more from international organisations; countries which have been less present during the negotiations tended to be more interested in alternative forum shopping in the form of ‘nuclear ban treaty’ negotiations