Event Description
Why do small and medium states pursue multilateral agreements to regulate or ban weapons? This project develops a theory of why small and medium states pursue multilateral weapons governance and examines it through the cases of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Specifically, this study contends that small and medium states pursue such agreements to reduce their vulnerability and to exercise greater agency and influence in international politics. How they pursue multilateral agreements to govern weapons—including how they frame the issue, build support, and the institutional format they choose—reflect and advance these goals. The findings of this research indicate that a lack of leadership from the United States and other powerful states on weapons governance can be filled by states seeking to advance divergent goals that challenge the status quo.
Speaker Biography
Naomi Egel is a PhD candidate in Government at Cornell University, specializing in international relations. In 2022-2023 she will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Her dissertation examines the politics of multilateral weapons governance. More broadly, her research explores the politics of multilateral security issues. In this research, she analyzes how different actors shape and contest multilateral security negotiations, how they frame weapons in different ways, and how power is exercised and contested in such negotiations. Naomi is also a Hans J. Morgenthau (nonresident) fellow at the University of Notre Dame. In 2020-2021 she was the inaugural Janne Nolan nuclear security visiting fellow at the Truman Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a visiting fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland on a Fulbright fellowship. Before beginning her PhD, she was a research associate for International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her research and commentaries have been published in Research & Politics, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Nonproliferation Review, War on the Rocks, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and Just Security.
Event Information
Naomi will deliver her talk virtually via Zoom. A Zoom link will be sent out one hour before the event start time to all those that register.