Perspectives of Arms Control

This dissertation explores why and under what condition a nuclear power in an extended deterrence relationship initiates strategic nuclear arms control negotiations, using the United States as the central case study. While existing scholarship largely concentrates on the conditions for successful treaty outcomes, this study focuses on the often-overlooked question of why negotiations begin in the first place – particularly when a nuclear power seeks to maintain credibility of its extended deterrence commitment within an alliance structure.

Drawing on a neoclassical realist theoretical framework that combines international system and domestic politics approaches, this project hypothesizes that an extended deterrence guarantor is likely to pursue nuclear arms control when it perceives vulnerability to its homeland that cannot be mitigated through a buildup of military capabilities, due to constraints imposed by domestic politics. Using process-tracing and drawing on declassified archival materials and elite interviews, the study seeks to identify the interplay between international strategic pressures and domestic political factors as central to understanding strategic nuclear arms control initiation.

By examining the United States – the only nuclear power with a sustained history of nuclear arms control conducted within an extended deterrence framework – this research contributes to a broader theory of nuclear arms control initiation relevant to contemporary nuclear policy debates.

This paper-based dissertation investigates how gendered power logics shape and are shaped by global cybersecurity dynamics. Situated at the intersection of feminist security studies, critical cybersecurity studies, and feminist approaches to cybersecurity, it examines how cybersecurity threats and solutions are discursively constructed, how security practices are enacted, and how cybersecurity knowledge is produced in order to understand how these processes reflect, reproduce, or challenge gendered hierarchies and assumptions.

Methodologically, the project is grounded in interpretative and feminist research principles and employs a qualitative research design. It draws on a combination of methods, including discourse analysis and semi structured interviews, to analyse both dominant and less visible discourses, practices, and forms of knowledge production in global cybersecurity.

By centering feminist and marginalized perspectives, the project critically interrogates dominant, often gender-blind narratives and practices in the field of cybersecurity. Across three papers, the dissertation aims to contribute both theoretically to feminist and critical cybersecurity studies and empirically to a deeper understanding of how power, gender, and cybersecurity intersect across different spaces and actors.

The global nuclear order and its core element, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), are in a state of crisis. The 2017 negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in particular has severely shaken the established nuclear order. The new treaty has shed light on the rifts within the international nuclear architecture, notably the growing division between nuclear ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-Nots’. Thus, it comes by no surprise that sentiment towards the treaty is divided: while supporters perceive it as an exceptional innovation that advances disarmament, opponents see it as a threat to the existing nuclear order. Both sides, however, converge in their diagnosis regarding the origins of the nuclear order’s rifts that were revealed by the TPNW: they are mostly construed as direct result of insufficient disarmament steps, as natural consequence of the hierarchical structure of the NPT, or as purposeful and targeted acts of norm-entrepreneurship. That said, many approaches overlook the multiplicity and interplay of influencing factors that are constitutive for the contestation of and resistance to the NPT.

This dissertation project takes a closer look at the contestation and resistance processes that triggered and nurtured the emergence of the TPNW and have accompanied developments within and around the NPT ever since. For this purpose, the dissertation draws on research on norm contestation, resistance and radicalization to better understand the actual processes of contestation that led to the TPNW. By (process) tracing how states' positionings on the TPNW have evolved, the dissertation aims to illustrate how contestation and resistance within the NPT served as a source and amplifier of radicalization processes especially reflected in the polarization of the nuclear order as we are currently witnessing. For underlying the disputes around the NPT and TPNW are not only procedural or technical issues, e.g. how to pursue nuclear disarmament. Rather, the negotiation of the TPNW also concerned the interpretation of the fundamental norms that undergird the normative nuclear order and the power relations that are reproduced and legitimized by the NPT. Through this perspective, the dissertation illuminates the complex nature of contestation and resistance within the NPT, which is not limited to either proponents or opponents of the nuclear ban.

Current develop­ments in the field of artificial intelligence, automation and autonomy are playing an increasingly important role, especially in the civilian but also in the military sector. The former sees innovations in auto­nomous driving or facial recognition in smartphones, while the latter expe­riences the diffusion of technology from the civilian sector to military appli­cations. One of the more prominent develop­ments is currently taking place in the area of lethal auto­nomous weapons systems. Interestingly, these weapons systems are already engaged with in arms control forums on the inter­national agenda despite the fact that fully autonomous weapons have yet to be fielded. This is in contrast to many weapons techno­logies that are not subject to any regulation or arms control processes. Never­theless, attempts at regulating autonomous weapons systems are stagnating while the established demand of NGOs, namely a ban treaty, remains a distant dream.

This dissertation project looks into the question of how knowledge about techno­logical develop­ments is generated in the first place, and what role this knowledge and expertise plays in arms control processes concerning autonomous weapon systems. The project begins with the essential conside­ration of how arms control processes actually work internally. On the one hand, arms control is no longer directed by states alone; experts, NGOs and civil society actors, the private sector, and many other stake­holders assert influence on these processes. On the other hand, knowledge generation concerning technologies—specifically the potential effects and possibilities of regulation—is no longer explicitly reserved for a group of experts. Many attributions of meaning, inter­pretations and states of knowledge are in competition with each other. These are found in socio-technical imaginaries. In this context, it is important to determine how the practices of knowledge production and autho­rization work, and how they 'make' or shape arms control. This dissertation will analyse these processes in the context of the debate on auto­nomous weapon systems in order to advance the under­standing of arms control itself.

This research project examines the inter­twining of nuclear and geo­politics and identifies structures of rule in the nuclear order as well as resistance to it. The Nuclear Non-Prolife­ration Treaty (NPT) is considered as the central inter­national legal frame­work for these structures of rule. The discussion of resistance focuses on the Treaty on the Prohi­bition of Nuclear Weapons (TPN). Since states from the global South in particular supported the TPN, there is a focus on possible anti-colonial motivations. Also, the clear hierarchy of the nuclear order suggests an analysis of rule from a critical, post­colonial perspective and an emphasis on the view of actors of resis­tance.

For this thesis, the emer­gence of a hierarchy of quali­tatively different spheres of action and influence in a given social context is charac­teristic for rule. This under­standing lends itself to application in an inter­national context and accom­modates the research interest in resistance.

Critical and post­colonial analytical tools are used to discuss the nature of the structures of rule in the nuclear order. On this basis, six components of colonial character will be explored. In addition to the two treaties, their norm structure and norm genesis, quali­tative inter­views serve as the data basis. In parti­cular, the perception and eva­luation of the actors of the resis­tance will be key through­out the analysis.

The book “Rule & Resis­tance in the Nuclear Order” based on Sascha Hach's dissertation has been pub­lished by trans­cript-Verlag and is available open access thanks to support from the PRIF Publi­cation Fund and the Leibniz Asso­ciation. 

Debates on conventional arms control in Africa often focus on the illegal proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW). This is also reflected in development projects of international donors. In this context, obstacles to the imple­mentation of arms control regimes are primarily understood as capacity problems.

In his dissertation project Matthias Schwarz goes beyond the focus on capacity by examining the politico-economic reasons that avert compliance in conventional arms control. The focus on capacity is extended by studying the influence of national political structures on compliance. Thus, compliance and imple­mentation are primarily viewed as a political and sociological negotiation process of security politics. Against the background of the Arms Trade Treaty, the UN Programme of Action on SALW and regional arms control agreements, the analysis is opened to the entire range of conventional weapons with a particular focus on procurement transparency.

The research recognises governments not as passive executors but as active shapers of arms control. Hence, international norms are adjusted in national contexts for practical political purposes. The study analyses the respective underlying causes and effects with a focus on informal negotiation processes between governments and their security institutions. The comparison of three African states will provide the empirical basis.