Neo-realist, institutionalist or liberal modes of thought cannot by themselves fully or even sufficiently address concrete questions regarding the legitimacy and legality of certain types of weapons or the implementation and interpretation of existing commitments; nor, for that matter, more general questions concerning the distribution of power in the international system and development and cooperation across the north-south divide. Rather, we assume that in all of these areas, ideas of appropriateness, rightness, and justice play an important role that has been neglected in the theory and practice of arms control so far.
To fill this gap, our project will scrutinise the significance of such ideas for a functioning normative order to control nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. In two sub-projects, we will analyse
A) how the normative positions of selected actors converge or diverge within the three regimes and how exogenous events impact on these actors’ policies; which discourses of justice and collisions of norms exist within the three regimes, and to what extent ethical concerns represent constitutive elements of these regimes;
B) how the normative patterns of international arms control regime evolve through the activities of „norm entrepreneurs“, through normative conflicts, through the interface between norms and technological change and through the impact of external events.
We expect that the results produced in these sub-projects will shed light on the role that ideas of justice play for the construction and design of multilateral security institutions. On this basis, we will also develop praxeological concepts for maintaining the regimes and for strengthening them sustainably. Finally, using the results of the sub-projects, we will address the broader research question, namely how and under which conditions a normative order to control nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the 21st century becomes possible.
This research project is part of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, located at the University of Frankfurt, as well as PRIF’s new research programme, “Just Peace Governance”.
