Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Countries in the Global South which have no nuclear arsenals usually seek favorable voting and veto rules in negotiations. They can enhance their influence in negotiations occurring within formal multilateral organizations where each state has one vote and decisions are made either with majority-based rules or unanimously. These countries can also increase their influence by chairing debates. Serving as chairs of meetings helps Global South NNWS set the agenda, organize the meetings, and spearhead and distribute position papers if they can avoid a perception of bias toward their own preferences. These states can also take advantage of outside options. The existence of credible alternative forums where these topics can be debated can increase the influence of Global South NNWS. If thwarted, these countries can threaten to take a debate to more favorable venues.
Non-nuclear weapon states in the Global South positions can benefit when they can set the agenda of lawmaking negotiations. Less powerful actors such as the NNWS tend to use the definition of the issues, priorities, and order at the bargaining table to identify shared positions with high mutual gains and promote balanced agendas. These countries are also more influential if they build coalitions with each other. Global South NNWS increase their capacity to influence debates when they bargain collectively and with shared understanding of problems. This is especially the case when majority-based or unanimity decision-making rules apply. Another useful tactic that has benefited these countries is leveraging their networks. Less powerful actors can leverage their connections in different networks to increase their influence in negotiations. Such networks include diplomatic, commercial, and military networks. Their capacity to leverage their networks’ networks may be limited when compared to great powers, but it could assist them as a complement to their coalition-building efforts. In the past, these countries have been more successful when they link issues together during debates. Global South NNWS can support their interests by incorporating enough issues in the negotiations that could help them gain concessions from more powerful states. This strategy can help less powerful countries provide incentives for NWS to cooperate on issues that they might otherwise have little interest in.
Issue-linkage sometimes diminish the abilities of weaker actors to influence nuclear lawmaking negotiations. To compensate for this, less powerful actors can engage in issue-bracketing, postponing a discussion to a different negotiation, or deliberately putting a controversial topic aside for consideration in a separate venue. This tactic helps to strengthen coalitions by discouraging actors invested in a particular issue from bringing it back into the negotiation. Issue bracketing convinces actors that their preferences will eventually be addressed. This reduces the burdens of conceding an issue in the current discussions.
Some Global South NNWS who are disappointed with the rate of disarmament by NWS have engaged in subversive revisionism. They have created alternative projects to question the global nuclear order and the hierarchy embedded in it. These countries are resisting asymmetries in the global nuclear order. However, they are also actively undermining the discursive foundations of the hierarchies it institutionalizes.
Conventional accounts of the origins and development of the global nuclear order have two lacunae when it comes to the Global South NNWS. These interpretations usually focus on the preferences and actions of the U.S. as the dominant global power and tend to overlook how the U.S. and other actors order global nuclear politics. Mainstream studies that explore the nuclear actions of Global South NNWS focus on why these countries adhere, comply, or challenge the global nuclear order, and downplay or ignore their ordering actions, nuclear governance initiatives, and negotiating strategies. This post presents an overview of the strategies that Global South NNWS that support nonproliferation have used during the negotiation of nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament treaties.