A contestation of nuclear ontologies: resisting nuclearism and reimagining the politics of nuclear disarmament
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221122959 |
| Author | Nick Ritchie |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221122959
International Relations
2024, Vol. 38(4) 492 –515
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221122959
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A contestation of nuclear
ontologies: resisting
nuclearism and reimagining
the politics of nuclear
disarmament
Nick Ritchie
University of York
Abstract
The global politics of nuclear disarmament has become deeply contested over the past decade,
particularly around the negotiation of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
(TPNW). Different explanations are offered, but these tend to centre on the geopolitics of the
‘security environment’ conceived in realist terms. This article makes sense of the TPNW and the
global politics of nuclear disarmament by examining its underlying discourse and contestation
within a wider framework of nuclear hegemony and resistances to it, drawing on Robert Cox’s
theory of hegemony. It argues that the politics of nuclear disarmament has hardened into a
contestation between two broadly incommensurable nuclear worldviews, or nuclear ontologies:
hegemonic nuclearism and subaltern anti-nuclearism. These are not just different perspectives,
but fundamentally different ways of understanding global nuclear politics that have important
implications for the nuclear disarmament movement. Three conclusions emerge from this: that
intersectionality is vital to understanding subaltern anti-nuclearism within wider processes of
resistance in global politics; that contestation between hegemonic nuclearism and subaltern anti-
nuclearism is agonistic; and that ‘bridge building’ approaches to find a middle ground generally
deny this agonism and thereby close down debate, and that this explains why they often fail to
gain traction. The article builds on the critical scholarship on nuclear hegemony, discourse and
resistance and develops an original framework of hegemonic and subaltern nuclearism and anti-
nuclearism.
Keywords
discourse, hegemony, nuclear disarmament, nuclearism, resistance, TPNW
Corresponding author:
Nick Ritchie, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK.
Email: nick.ritchie@york.ac.uk
1122959IRE0010.1177/00471178221122959International RelationsRitchie
research-article2022
Article
Ritchie 493
Introduction
In 2017 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was negotiated to
formally and unconditionally prohibit nuclear weapons. It was the culmination of a
process that began in the late 2000s to reframe nuclear disarmament diplomacy around
the ‘humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons’. These ideas were captured in the 2010
NPT Review Conference, whose final document acknowledged that ‘any use’ of nuclear
weapons would have ‘catastrophic humanitarian consequences’.1 This generated a
‘humanitarian initiative’ led by states such as Austria, Mexico, Norway, South Africa and
Switzerland. The initiative gathered momentum and by 2012 the idea of a nuclear weap-
ons prohibition treaty began to take root. After a series of inter-governmental confer-
ences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in 2013 and 2014 and two UN
Open-Ended Working Groups (OEWG) on next steps in multilateral nuclear disarma-
ment in 2013 and 2016, the UN General Assembly voted in October 2016 to commence
negotiations on the TPNW the following year.2
The treaty was endorsed by 122 non-nuclear armed states across the global South and
a handful of states in Europe, but rejected by the nuclear-armed states and their allies. It
has been described as both a symptom and a cause of a deepening divide in the global
politics of nuclear disarmament, as a form of resistance to the nuclear status quo, as
empty ‘virtue signalling’, as undermining progress on disarmament, and as a practical
step towards that goal. Out of this contestation has come a plethora of initiatives from
states and think-tanks to bridge differences, find common ground and transcend this divi-
sion, but with little to show so far.
This article seeks to ‘make sense’ of the TPNW and the changes it has wrought in
the global politics of nuclear disarmament by examining its underlying discourse and
contestation within a wider framework of nuclear hegemony in global politics.3 It
contributes to the growing scholarship on the TPNW and the resurgence of critical
nuclear studies.4 It shows how the politics of nuclear disarmament has hardened into
an agonistic relationship between two broadly incommensurable nuclear worldviews,
or nuclear ontologies, that has important implications for the nuclear disarmament
movement and the type of reconciliation sought by bridge-builders. In doing so, the
article makes three original contributions: first, it applies Robert Cox’s theory of
hegemony and resistance to the politics of nuclear disarmament by developing the
discursive component of Cox’s ‘ordering ideas’ that are central to his theory. This
builds on critical scholarship on discourse and nuclear weapons.5 Second, it develops
the concept of nuclearism through an original framework of hegemonic and subaltern
nuclearism and anti-nuclearism. A key purpose of the article is to identify and unpack
the discourse of subaltern anti-nuclearism by examining the humanitarian initiative
and the TPNW. Third, the article argues that three conclusions emerge from this: that
intersectionality is a key concept for understanding subaltern anti-nuclearism as a
diverse and fluid discourse located within wider processes of resistance in global
politics; that contestation between the discourses of hegemonic nuclearism and sub-
altern anti-nuclearism is agonistic, drawing on the work of Chantal Mouffe; and that
mainstream approaches to ‘bridge building’ that deny this agonism risk depoliticising
and closing down debate.
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