How Great Powers Resist Emerging Norms: The United States and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

According to theories of international order-making, the most powerful states seek to institute global norms that suit their interests. Less appreciated, however, is that powerful states have also sought to undermine certain norms to maintain particular types of order. With their outsized influence in the international system, how do great powers resist emerging norms? This article presents a case illustration of US strategies to resist the reemerging anti-nuclear weapon norm. This norm was institutionalized in July 2017 with the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Though US strategies did not stop the norm from codification within the TPNW, US actions seek to maintain this norm in a state of limbo, whereby the norm does not become fully entrenched within the international system.