Power to the have-nots? The NPT and the limits of a treaty hijacked by a “power-over” model

ABSTRACT The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), its evolution over the past five decades, and the dissatisfaction of the non-nuclear states within it, can be analyzed by focusing on different understandings of power. Within the various concepts of power are claims which distinguish between what is known broadly as “power-over” and a more subtle form of influence, “power-to.” This article explores the history of the NPT, showing how the nuclear weapon states have shaped and limited this institution by practices which fall within the relational emphasis of “power-over.” Recently, however, non-nuclear states have adopted a “power-to” approach. Frustrated by their inability to bring about substantive change within the limits of the NPT, these states have realized and applied their agency and collective “power-to” in order to create an alternative approach to the problem of nuclear weapons in the context of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).