Nuclear cooperation with non-NPT member states? An elite-driven model of norm contestation

Abstract

ABSTRACTSupporters of the nuclear nonproliferation regime argue that international agreements, power politics, and emerging standards of legitimacy have generated a robust nuclear nonproliferation norm. This optimism is mirrored in early social constructivist international relations theory, which emphasizes the constitutive and regulatory power of international norms. Conversely, this article explores how recent developments in global politics and international relations theory may show how vested players can change normative architectures. This project develops a model of elite entrepreneurship in norm change that includes stages of redefinition and substitution through contestation. It conducts a plausibility probe of the model in the development of the 2008 U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, a case of U.S.-driven norm change. The article concludes that this alternative agency-based model lends insights on what may be a continuous, and consequential, evolution of the nuclear nonproliferation norm.