The global nuclear order is more crowded and contested than ever, with new actors, rules, and arenas constantly emerging. Carmen Wunderlich and Martin Senn argue, however, that this is less chaos than a continuous process of ordering and disordering. They show how nuclear politics are made, unmade, and remade in everyday practice
The fear of nuclear catastrophe has never fully disappeared — but it has recently come roaring back. Earlier this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight. It was a vivid reminder of how close the world still stands to nuclear crisis — and the difficulty of controlling technologies that advance faster than our systems of governance.
For decades, governments have tried to manage these dangers through a global nuclear order. This order rests on a dense web of treaties, norms, technical standards, and institutions designed to ensure that nuclear technology is used safely, and not for war.
This web now stretches worldwide. Though states remain the main players, international organisations, informal networks, scientific bodies, and civil-society groups are also intrinsic to the network. All interact through overlapping rules and forums that cover deterrence, arms control, non-proliferation, disarmament, and nuclear security. These efforts operate at every level — from local and regional initiatives to global institutions.
Scholars have long recognised this growing complexity. Yet we still know little about how these many layers work together in practice. How do formal institutions interact with everyday routines, social norms, or local activism? And does this complexity make it easier — or harder — to build a stable and fair nuclear order?
We guest-edited a 2025 special issue of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, which explores this complexity. Instead of treating the nuclear order as something fixed, we view it as a continuous process of ordering and disordering. Nuclear order is not a stable state; it is something that political actors are constantly building, contesting, and reshaping.
This process is deeply political. Rules and institutions don’t just regulate behaviour; they decide who gets to act, who has a voice, and who holds power. By paying attention to these processes of ordering and disordering, we can better understand how hierarchies form, how they are maintained, and how power relations can be challenged.
Nuclear ordering is never complete. Political actors are continuously remaking nuclear governance through overlapping practices of cooperation and contestation
In public debate, 'the nuclear order' is often shorthand for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the broader network of agreements around it. This assumes a stable balance that lasts until a crisis disrupts it; we either live in order or in disorder.
But reality is far more complex. Order and disorder are not opposites; they are part of the same ongoing process. Political actors are continuously remaking nuclear governance through overlapping practices of cooperation and contestation, as different players struggle over how to understand and apply the rules.
Seen this way, nuclear ordering is never complete. It unfolds through constant change and negotiation, shaped by powerful and less powerful actors. It undergoes intertwined processes of ordering and disordering, continually being reshaped in a shifting political landscape that is layered, dynamic, and in constant flux.
We must think of nuclear politics not as a fixed system but as something constantly moving and changing. If we do, new questions emerge. Instead of treating the 'nuclear order' as a set of institutions frozen in place, we can look at how relationships between people, states, and organisations work — how they cooperate, compete, and adapt over time.
As more countries and institutions join the discussion, the web of global efforts to manage nuclear risks grows denser. This complexity changes how actors interact, who sets the tone, and whose voices are heard. Nuclear order is not just about rules on paper; it's about how those rules shape behaviour, and how behaviour reshapes the rules.
Nuclear order is not just about rules on paper; it's about how those rules shape behaviour, and how behaviour reshapes the rules
Power in this system is not one-sided. While big nuclear powers still dominate global nuclear politics, cities, regions, and smaller states shape the field in important ways. Networks such as Mayors for Peace, for example, campaign for abolition at the local level. Latin American and Caribbean countries have built regional nuclear-weapon-free zones that challenge old hierarchies. At the same time, however, when regional bodies like African nuclear agencies become more closely tied to global institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, they gain influence but risk losing political autonomy. In short, actors can reinforce and disrupt the existing order at the same time.
Finally, nuclear politics don't happen only around diplomatic tables. They unfold in everyday life — in the stories we tell, the films we watch, the research we fund, and the public debates that shape how people imagine nuclear danger and responsibility. The nuclear order is therefore not only negotiated by officials but also lived and interpreted by societies around the world.
There is no single or universal 'nuclear order'. What feels like stability for some may mean exclusion or insecurity for others. The same institutions and rules that uphold order can also create inequality or silence alternative voices.
There is no single or universal 'nuclear order'. What feels like stability for some may mean insecurity for others
Order is not always good, and disorder not always bad. The first can preserve unfair rules, the second can open space for change. Both are part of the same political struggle over who gets to shape the world’s nuclear future.
Our special issue examines the frictions, tensions, and power relations that make up this system. It reminds us that nuclear order is never permanent: it emerges, dissolves, and reappears through constant contestation — bringing hope alongside uncertainty. Treaties and institutions may weaken, but new ideas, movements, and forms of cooperation can always arise.
The real challenge is not to rebuild a perfect or 'lost' order. Rather, it is to understand and shape the political, institutional, and everyday processes through which nuclear order and disorder unfold — and to ask who gets to take part in shaping them.
