Negotiating the Evolving Global Nuclear Order

This book offers a comparative analysis of how China, India, and Pakistan—as rising regional nuclear weapon powers—shape and contest the evolving global nuclear order. As shifts in power, greater access to nuclear technology, and growing multipolarity destabilise established norms, the book traces the period from 1950 to the late1990s to investigate how these states formulated, articulated, and negotiated their demands in key nuclear institutions. The volume advances three central arguments. First, it introduces the concept of ‘accommodation demands’ to explain the diverse and evolving expectations these states pose, demonstrating that their security and normative interests drive patterns of both cooperation and resistance within nuclear institutions. Second, it contends that regional security dynamics in the South Asian Regional Complex fundamentally condition the nature and intensity of these demands, directly influencing global nuclear stability. Third, the book makes an original case for integrating region-level analysis into global nuclear governance, emphasising that southern Asian actors are redefining disarmament and non-proliferation norms through their unique regional imperatives. Moving beyond conventional paradigms that label rising nuclear powers as revisionist or status-quo, the book systematically unpacks these states’ ongoing engagement and agency within nuclear institutions—beyond their desire for the bomb —thus providing fresh theoretical and policy insights for a more adaptive and inclusive global nuclear orderThis book will be of interest to students of nuclear proliferation, South Asian politics, security studies and International Relations.