ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter summarises the book's main findings and reflects on policy implications and lessons for policymakers. It argues that advocates of disarmament are most likely to find success if they focus their future efforts on broad normative entrepreneurship aimed at strengthening nuclear restraint and undercutting the prestige value of nuclear arms. The main empirical findings discussed are as follows. First, the expansion of the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework has occurred not through a gradual process but bursts of activity followed by periods of stasis. Second, the waves of institutional expansion described above may be understood as symptoms of recurring crises of legitimacy in the broader nuclear order. Third, processes of institutional delegitimisation have followed a pattern whereby censure is first directed towards non-compliant actors and then the regime complex itself. Fourth, the effectiveness of counter-resistance, that is, attempts by the nuclear powers at dissuading institutional contestation, depends on the timing of the counter-resistance efforts in the cycle of legitimacy. Fifth, the politics of recognition has played a crucial role in the nuclear regime complex’ evolution.
