When do the Dutch want to join the nuclear ban treaty? Findings of a public opinion survey in the Netherlands

Even if most European countries have not yet joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the treaty has been salient in a number of national settings. In the Netherlands, the TPNW enjoys broad societal appeal, and the Dutch parliament has, on a number of occasions, called on the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Nonproliferation review 2021-06, Vol.28 (1-3), p.149-163
Main Authors: Onderco, Michal, Smetana, Michal, van der Meer, Sico, Etienne, Tom W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accession
arms control
International security
Legislatures
NATO
nuclear disarmament
Nuclear weapons
Public opinion
Respondents
the Netherlands
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Unilateralism
Voters
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Even if most European countries have not yet joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the treaty has been salient in a number of national settings. In the Netherlands, the TPNW enjoys broad societal appeal, and the Dutch parliament has, on a number of occasions, called on the government to explore options for joining the treaty. In this piece, we empirically study Dutch attitudes toward joining the TPNW. Our findings indicate that a majority of the Dutch would prefer to accede to the TPNW only if nuclear-weapon states or other NATO allies also joined, although unilateral accession received relatively strong support among the youngest respondents, women, and voters supporting the left-wing parties. The most popular option is to join the TPNW at the same time that the nuclear-weapon states do, which seems to be a rather distant prospect in the current international-security environment.
ISSN:1073-6700
1746-1766
DOI:10.1080/10736700.2021.1978156