Reaching an agreement is one thing; making it stay in place is another. When it comes to compromise agreements, the latter is often at least as difficult to accomplish as the former. Making such an agreement is about making mutual promises. Making such an agreement last is about channelling almost inevitable contestation about whether the promises are kept or not into directions that do not undermine the compromise. Given the nature of compromise agreements, contestation is very much to be expected. After all, a compromise is unlike a consensus. A significant measure of controversy remains woven into it. The parties believe that it is not the best agreement possible. They have to make concessions, which can turn out to be more far-reaching and more painful than anticipated.

How these contestations play out is even more crucial in systems of governance than government. In government systems, say a traditional nation-state, there is a central authority that can come to the rescue of compromise agreements that are beleaguered by acrimonious contestation on their implementation. In governance systems, which abound in the international realm, it is a different matter. The distribution of authority across actors puts the onus on these multiple actors not to let the compromise agreement collapse in the face of contestation. To put this differently, it is up to the actors to channel the often-inevitable contestation over compliance with a compromise agreement in a fashion that does not damage this compromise beyond repair. Under what conditions they succeed and fail to accomplish this is the subject of this article.

My argument focuses on the rhetorical strategies that actors employ. I outline six offensive strategies (recourse, elaboration, entrapment, accusation, ostracism and abandonment) and six defensive ones (accommodation, placation, denial, deflection, inattentiveness and rejection), and I propose that the more exchanges of offensive and defensive strategies approximate recourse–accommodation interplays, the more they contribute to making a compromise persist.

I put this framework to the test by examining communicative exchanges on the grand compromise on which the nuclear non-proliferation governance system is based. In the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nuclear weapon states (NWS) promise to disarm and help non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) reap the benefits of the peaceful use of nuclear energy; in return NNWS promise not to arm themselves with nuclear weapons and subject themselves to detailed safeguard agreements. The case study finds strong evidence for the salience of rhetorical strategies. There is plenty of contestation. In this contestation, recourse–accommodation interplays are rare occasions. Heavy rhetorical weaponry such as ostracism, abandonment, inattentiveness, and rejection strategies are equally rare. Instead, less robust rhetorical strategies such as entrapment, accusation, denial and deflection, and especially elaboration–placation exchanges play an important role in making the grand compromise persist.

This argument seeks to make three sets of contributions: first, by systematically inquiring into what happens after a compromise has been agreed upon, it sheds new light on the stability of compromise agreements. In the normative literature on compromise, there is an important debate about how warranted compromises are in a political system. Some authors endorse compromise as a quintessential democratic type of agreement reached in a pluralistic society.Footnote ² Others caution that it is an inherently unstable kind of agreement due to the considerable measure of disagreement that remains woven into it.Footnote ³ To put the issue at stake more provocatively: do compromises compromise governance? Second, this article builds on but also moves beyond the existing literature on rhetorical strategies. It broadens our understanding of rhetorical strategies by examining the interplay of a range of offensive and defensive strategies instead of focusing on a single strategy such as entrapment.Footnote ⁴ At the same time, it adds nuance to the study of rhetorical strategies by zooming in on the link between these strategies and the reproduction of a particular type of agreement: that is, compromise instead of dealing with agreements more generally. Third, this article provides novel insights into the workings of nuclear non-proliferation. It is highly unlikely that the parties to the NPT will stop their mutual allegations of broken promises any time soon. In order to prevent the collapse of the foundational principles of this governance system, this contestation has to be channelled into directions that allow for the reproduction of the grand compromise. Rhetorical strategies tell us a lot about this reproduction.

I develop my argumentation in four steps: I begin with a conceptual discussion of rhetorical strategies; follow this up with identifying the grand compromise that constitutes the non-proliferation regime; and then investigate into how rhetorical strategies affect the grand compromise, and with it the stability of the non-proliferation regime. The conclusion summarizes my findings and discusses its implications.

RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND THE STABILITY OF COMPROMISES

This section defines rhetorical strategies, develops a typology of offensive and defensive strategies and charts a framework for how different interplays of rhetorical strategies affect the reproduction of compromise agreements.

For the purposes of this study, I define a rhetorical strategy as a broad set of communicative moves and counter-moves through which actors convey the extent of their identifications and disidentifications. Thus defined, rhetorical strategies have three key characteristics. First, they are broad sets of communicative moves and counter-moves. Rhetorical strategies are the ‘grand strategies’ of communication in a given issue area; they are painted in broad strokes. Note, for instance, that a rhetorical strategy is not the same as a bargaining strategy. While the latter are meticulous and highly specific calculations of how to act and react at a bargaining table,Footnote ⁵ the former merely circumscribe a general direction of communicative moves and counter-moves, no matter whether an actual bargaining situation evolves or not.

Second, through rhetorical strategies, actors express the degree to which they identify and disidentify with other actors and ideas. As Kenneth Burke taught us, rhetoric is a vehicle for actors to put themselves in relation to whom and what makes up their environment.Footnote ⁶ This putting themselves in relation occurs on a spectrum from identification to disidentification (or division, as Burke tends to refer to it). Rhetorical strategies are anything but an exception in this regard. De Certeau puts this relational aspect very well: strategy ‘is an effort to delimit one's own place in a world bewitched by the invisible power of the Other’.Footnote ⁷ Rhetorical strategies thus understood are not necessarily attempts ‘to persuade other actors to act according to one's preferences’, as Schimmelfennig puts it in his seminal research on entrapment strategies.Footnote ⁸ On a more foundational level, rhetorical strategies delineate – at times even demarcate – Self vis-à-vis other actors and ideas. This may or may not be linked to attempts to persuade.

Third, rhetorical strategies are the procedural vehicles through which actors convey their identifications and disidentifications. This conveying makes a difference. As classical works on rhetoric remind us, speakers first generate their substantive orientations about an issue, for instance through the use of enthymeme, according to Aristotle. Then orators try to figure out how best to package their substantive orientations. In other words, they arrive at rhetorical strategies for how to send their messages to audiences. In the course of this packaging, the orator's substantive orientations remain at the core of the message, but certain aspects are added and underlined while others are omitted and downplayed.Footnote ⁹ This is of major relevance for rhetorical strategies. The extent to which actors positively or negatively identify with other actors and ideas does not come unfiltered. It is this filter that can make a major difference in communicative encounters.

What types of rhetorical strategies are there? Schimmelfennig's research on the strategy of entrapment (or shaming) sparked a research programme on this type of strategy.Footnote ¹⁰ A number of authors add more strategies.Footnote ¹¹ These are important steps towards a better understanding of the range of rhetorical strategies but there is need for further elaboration. There are two issues in particular. First, the existing literature tends to focus on more robust strategies. Schimmelfennig's entrapment is already rather robust and, say, Chowdhury and Krebs's important addition of a delegitimizing strategy (Self denies Other being a legitimate actor) helps us understand an even more robust strategy. But we also need a better grasp of less robust strategies. Second, the existing literature tends to focus on offensive strategies. It tells us something about how challengers direct their challenges at defenders; it does not tell us much about defensive strategies. Yet the latter are an important piece of the overall puzzle. Studying strategy – no matter whether rhetorical or other – requires studying the interplay of offensive and defensive strategies.Footnote ¹²

Table 1 lists six ideal-typical offensive strategies. They share in common that they approximate rhetorical strategies frequently used for contesting compliance records with compromise agreements, but they differ in the extent to which they position Self vis-à-vis the compromise and vis-à-vis Other as appropriate partner for the compromise. Being geared towards ironing out minor compliance problems, recourse is the softest offensive strategy. The interlocutor emphasizes that she fully embraces the compromise and considers Other the perfect partner for implementing the compromise. Elaboration and entrapment strategies, too, fully embrace the compromisebut differ in how they depict Other. Elaboration strategies no longer portray Other as perfect partner in compromise but call upon him to improve on his compliance record by elaborating on promises he made in the compromise. Entrapment strategies go a step further: portraying compliance with the compromise as part and parcel of Other's identity, actors using this offensive strategy attempt to shame defenders into compliance.Footnote ¹³ In accusation and ostracism strategies, the offensive party's priorities shift. While these strategies endorse the compromise, this endorsement is no longer put centre-stage. Instead, these strategies focus on the allegations of non-compliance levelled at Other. Accusation does this still in a somewhat more controlled fashion. It singles out others for breaking their promises and formulates clear demands for how defenders ought to change their compliance record. Ostracism, by contrast, is akin to what Chowdhury and Krebs label delegitimizing. This strategy pillories the non-complier as an actor with whom virtually any kind of cooperation – the implementation of the compromise included – is impossible. Abandonment is the sharpest offensive strategy. A principal endorsement of the compromise may still feature at the margins of this strategy, yet this strategy revolves around agitating against Other as well as the threat to withdraw from the compromise agreement altogether due to the poor compliance record of Other.

Table 1 Offensive Rhetorical Strategies

x stands for level of identification.

There are six ideal-typical defensive strategies to counter these offensive strategies, as shown in Table 2. They differ in the extent to which they position Self vis-à-vis the compromise and vis-à-vis Other's offensive strategy. Accommodation is the least resolute strategy of defence. Self strongly endorses the compromise, fully acknowledges the shortcomings of compliance mentioned in Other's offensive strategies and announces that they will fix them. Placation means to return a soft answer: Self fully endorses the compromise and, for the sake of the compromise, moves towards Other's demands. But there is no full identification with the latter; there is a notable measure of distancing from them. Defenders using a strategy of denial also fully endorse the compromise but deny that Other has much of a point in criticizing them. A strategy of deflection responds to blame with blame. The focus of the counter-strategy is on rebuking Other's offensive strategy by blaming Other; the compromise itself remains endorsed but it is no longer a key part of the message. Inattentiveness ignores the accusations levelled against the defender. In contrast to other strategies, inattentiveness is a strategy that is not verbalized, but the ignoring conveys an important message about the distancing of Self from the compromise itself as well as Other's strategy to forge compliance. Finally, a strategy of rejection discards Other's criticism by rejecting much (or even all) of the compromise.

Table 2 Defensive Rhetorical Strategies

x stands for level of identification.

What do rhetorical strategies do? The interplay of such strategies cuts deeper than is often assumed. Compromise agreements – as any kind of agreement – are never carved in stone. It can never be assumed that they persist. Whether they do or not has much to do with interplays of rhetorical strategies over time. Chowdhury and Krebs have it exactly right. Rhetorical strategies bestow legitimacy or undermine legitimacy. It is through the interplay of these strategies that the formula ‘I agree to do a if you do b’ comes to be seen as appropriate – even the only imaginable – agreement or that it comes to be understood as inappropriate – even foolhardy – agreement. Figure 1 outlines what interplays of offensive and defensive strategies do to existing compromises. To put it simply: the more the iterated exchange of strategies approximates a recourse–accommodation interplay, the more it entrenches a compromise. These strategies share in common that they put a strong emphasis on fully identifying Self with the compromise as well as the cooperative relationship with Other. Reiterating these emphases again and again makes the compromise sink into the taken-for-granted social background.

Figure 1 Interplays of Rhetorical Strategies and the Persistence of Compromise

Conversely, the closer the iterated exchange of strategies comes to an abandonment–rejection interplay, the weaker the compromise becomes. Such an interplay contributes to the collapse of a compromise because it undermines the legitimacy of a compromise. Self demarcates itself from the compromise and the partner in compromise.

STUDYING NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION AND THE GRAND COMPROMISE

This section identifies the grand compromise that constitutes the nuclear non-proliferation regime, discusses the concessions made by the parties and outlines some basic methodological choices of my research.

The NPT is based on a grand compromise. The parties agreed to a rather complex compromise. NWS promise to disarm, and, in return, NNWS promise not to arm themselves with nuclear weapons. With disarmament being expected to take some time, NWS promise NNWS security assurances (i.e. not to threaten or use nuclear weapons against them) until it is completed. They also promise to work towards abolishing nuclear weapons by not proliferating them. Mutual promises to disarm and not to arm are linked to another pair of promises. NWS promise NNWS to help them reap the benefits of the peaceful use of nuclear energy and, in return, NNWS agree to sign safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify that they do not use nuclear expertise for developing nuclear weapons. Figure 2 summarizes the grand compromise.

Figure 2 The Grand Compromise

There are two very good reasons for studying this case. First, the grand compromise is not just any compromise. It is no exaggeration to say that a tight control over nuclear weapons is a matter of life and death for humankind. Improving our grasp of how this grand compromise becomes reproduced, therefore, is a highly important issue. Second, the grand compromise makes for a demanding plausibility probe for the theoretical framework developed above. Ever since the parties agreed on it in 1970, issues of compliance have given rise to contestation, diplomatic skirmishes and angry shouting matches. Nevertheless, the grand compromise has remained in place. What explains this persistence amid all this contestation?

For established approaches in International Relations, this question is a puzzle that is not easily solved. The two prevailing logics of action – consequences and appropriatenessFootnote ¹⁴ – have no straightforward answer for this question. The persistence of the grand compromise over the longue durée may point towards the logic of appropriateness. After all, this logic fully acknowledges that shared norms and principles may be rather sticky; yet it is not an obvious candidate for answering the research puzzle. Actors are assumed to comply not because of the configuration of pay-offs but due to the constellation of identity-constituting norms. They comply with these norms because non-compliance would violate their very own identity.Footnote ¹⁵ Thus, compliance with identity-constituting norms should happen without too much contestation. Following norms, with these norms being internalized, happens without much reflection. It comes natural to actors. There is, however, a lot of contestation when it comes to the grand compromise.

The logic of consequences also experiences difficulties in explaining this puzzle. In contrast to the logic of appropriateness, consequentialism allows – under certain circumstances it even expects – some contestation about compliance. Too much contestation, however, especially if related to the pillars of a cooperative effort, is expected seriously to undermine this effort. Martin summarizes these expectations very well. She writes that ‘any agreements must be self-enforcing’, and she elaborates that this means, inter alia, mechanisms to ‘avoid temptations to cheat’, ‘high-quality information about the actions…of other states, and about the likely consequences of cheating on agreements’.Footnote ¹⁶ Yet parties inside and outside the nuclear non-proliferation regime have been branded as cheaters, for example the United States and India due to their nuclear deal in 2005 (charge of proliferation) and, even more so, Iraq, North Korea and Iran for their ambiguous policies (charge of nuclear armament). High-quality information is notoriously difficult to come by because several parties (such as Iraq in the past and Iran at present) as well as former parties (especially North Korea) have anything but an impeccable record of allowing inspectors to complete their inherently difficult task of verifying the thin line separating civilian and military usages of nuclear technology. When it comes to the consequences of cheating, the North Korean case – the state is, in all likelihood, now a nuclear state and could opt to leave the regime altogether – does not set an all-too-firm precedent.Footnote ¹⁷ Despite all of these serious cooperation problems and despite rational choice's dire predictions about their disruptive consequences, the non-proliferation regime is still very much with us.

This is not to say that these logics do not provide important insights into the non-proliferation regime.Footnote ¹⁸ Yet our explanations are in need of refinement in order to account for the puzzle. Rhetorical strategies cannot be easily pigeon-holed into either one of these logics. Do they help resolve the puzzle? My empirical analysis focuses on the two key issues about how to fix the implementation record over the last four decades: disarmament and technological transfers for peaceful use.Footnote ¹⁹ I use the parties' statements immediately before, during and immediately after the quinquennial NPT Review Conferences in order to identify the types of rhetorical strategies they privilege.Footnote ²⁰ The following synopsis of my findings focuses on the key protagonists of the contestation.

COMPROMISE-REPRODUCING INTERPLAYS I: DISARMAMENT (AND SECURITY ASSURANCES)

As soon as the ink had dried on the NPT, many NNWS – especially the Non-Aligned Movement, but others as well – alleged that NWS were breaking the most central of their promises (Art. 6, NPT), that is, to disarm.Footnote ²¹ This issue has drawn criticism at every review conference. During the Cold War, the principal protagonists of this contestation were the United States and the Soviet Union on the one hand and the Non-Aligned Movement on the other.

For the most part, the latter relied heavily on elaboration and entrapment strategies. Elaboration strategies slightly differed among Non-Aligned members but they concurred on the necessity of specifying the disarmament steps to be pursued by the NWS. This included the demand for a concrete timeline of disarmament steps, culminating with the abolition of nuclear weapons.Footnote ²² Widely employed elaboration strategies also concurred in their demands to stop all kinds of nuclear tests as well as the production of weapons-grade fissionable materials.Footnote ²³ The postulates of this three-fold elaboration – timetable for disarmament, comprehensive test ban and fissile material cut-off – have crucially shaped every review conference.

Entrapment strategies also abounded. A particularly noteworthy one occurred during the Cold War when the Non-Aligned Movement tried to use the NWS's commitment to non-proliferation as a rhetorical weapon to shame them into disarming. The Movement redefined proliferation. Non-aligned states conceded that the NPT's record is acceptable with regard to preventing horizontal proliferation, that is, the proliferation of nuclear states, but they complained that it is dismal as far as putting an end to vertical proliferation is concerned, that is, the further development of nuclear weapons technology by NWS.Footnote ²⁴ NWS, thus, were portrayed as violating exactly those aspects of the NPT that they themselves had emphasized heavily.

Throughout the Cold War, NWS – and here especially the United States and the Soviet Union – privileged the counter-strategies of denial and deflection in order to respond to elaboration and entrapment. Washington's and Moscow's usual denial strategy simply amounted to stating that the superpowers actually were to disarm. Arms control agreements such as SALT II were heralded as great successes of disarmament.Footnote ²⁵ Deflection strategies pointed the finger back to NNWS. For a while, Washington propagated an interpretation of the disarmament obligation in the NPT as general disarmament and not nuclear disarmament.Footnote ²⁶ Thus, NNWS were blamed for not disarming themselves. NWS also directed blame towards one another: before 1985, the parties either side of the Iron Curtain frequently accused the other of being guilty of shortcomings in implementing disarmament.Footnote ²⁷

Due to the persisting problems with disarmament, NNWS heavily relied on an elaboration strategy to push another issue forward on the agenda: security assurances. With NWS not relinquishing nuclear weapons, many NNWS demanded to be at least reasonably safe from them. They called upon NWS to provide them with negative assurances – that they would not to be threatened or attacked by them. These assurances should be unambiguous, multilateral and legally binding. NWS responded with a mix of denial and placation. Initially, they pointed to Security Council Resolution 255 (1968), arguing that this resolution provides sufficient assurances.Footnote ²⁸ Somewhat later, they moved from denial towards placation. They provided a few more details on Resolution 255, as, for example, the United States did at the General Assembly in 1978. Many NNWS, however, remained far from convinced that these assurances provided ‘adequate security’, as Washington claimed they would.Footnote ²⁹ NNWS replied with continued attempts for elaboration. Ireland criticized existing guarantees for being full of ‘ambiguities and contradictions’ and suggested more specific stipulations.Footnote ³⁰ Other representatives of NNWS moved further from elaboration to entrapment strategies. Iran, for instance, cautioned that it was the responsibility of the NWS to distance themselves from discriminatory practices of the non-proliferation regime and to make the regime – very much in the spirit of the NPT –‘more equitable’; more meaningful security guarantees would be vital for this.Footnote ³¹

During the Cold War, there was only one notable exception to the dominant interplay of elaboration and entrapment strategies on the one hand, and denial and deflection on the other. In 1980, the issues to be discussed became even more controversial: the Non-Aligned Movement realized that its expectations in Article 6 of the NPT – and with it much of the NPT – would not be met in the foreseeable future. The NPT had not contributed to nuclear disarmament. Instead, the arms race between the superpowers had gained further momentum. This had repercussions for the selection of rhetorical strategies. The Non-Aligned Movement put together a working paper containing some basic elements for a final document. The dominant strategy discernible in these basic elements is accusation, but there are tendencies to move towards ostracism as well. There is the accusation that, due to the refusal of NWS to disarm, Article 6 has ‘remained dead letter’. There is also the crossing over from accusation to ostracism when these elements single out the United States and the Soviet Union for their inaction, listing increasing arms expenditures and the acquisition of new nuclear warheads in great detail.Footnote ³² The superpowers, on their part, responded partly with the usual mix of denial and deflection, but they also employed inattentiveness. In his Message to the Review Conference, US President Jimmy Carter did not mention the word ‘disarmament’ at all.Footnote ³³ This usage of more robust strategies contributed to the failure to agree on a final document. It is important, though, to keep this usage in perspective; considering the highly controversial issues on the table, it still amounted to ‘soft’ talk. The strategies filtered the potentially explosive controversies, for the most part allowing only criticism and counter-criticism to pass that did not question the grand compromise or the other side in principal terms. In this way, even the more robust strategies contributed to re-producing the grand compromise.

The post-Cold War pattern of strategic exchanges exhibited somewhat more variation but, all in all, the heavy reliance on compromise-reproducing strategies remained in place. With the end of the Cold War, NNWS, and especially the Non-Aligned Movement, had again high expectations for disarmament. After all, the superpower competition had finally come to an end. But Washington and Moscow were, at least in the eyes of the Movement, slow to implement tangible steps towards nuclear disarmament. Thus, in 1990, 1995 and 2005, states temporarily resorted again to the use of more robust strategies.Footnote ³⁴ The 1990 Review Conference was already troubled, with Washington, for example, pursuing an inattentiveness strategy about issues surrounding a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).Footnote ³⁵ But 2005 marked the low point. At the 2000 Review Conference, Washington had pursued a strategy of placation and agreed to the so-called Thirteen Steps towards disarmament in the final document. Only five years later, the George W. Bush administration, sceptical of relying too much on multilateral efforts, resorted back to a denial strategy. The United States argued that it was in compliance with Article 6 and belittled the legal status of the Thirteen Steps. As Thomas Rademaker put it shortly before the 2005 Review Conference: ‘None of the other countries at the upcoming review conference, if asked what they have done under Article VI…will be able to point to a record anywhere near as compelling as the United States can point to.’ He continued, ‘the 13 steps do not encapsulate the obligations of Article VI in the NPT. The obligations of Article VI are encapsulated in Article VI.’Footnote ³⁶ At the Review Conference, Iran delivered its most acerbic criticism of the United States yet, which culminated in branding Washington ‘extremist’.Footnote ³⁷ The use of such ostracizing strategies remained the exception but accusation strategies proliferated. Egypt heralded the Thirteen Steps as a ‘substantial milestone’ and in unequivocal language demanded compliance with them.Footnote ³⁸ Even NWS, and especially China, levelled accusations against Washington, urging the United States to keep its promises. Against the backdrop of Washington's move to discard the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and its reluctance fully to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and an FMCT, China made this criticism against the United States very explicit.Footnote ³⁹ Russian statements addressed the United States more indirectly, pursing an entrapment strategy.Footnote ⁴⁰ The 2005 Review Conference may very well have been the most controversial of them all, but, again, the dominant rhetorical strategies filtered much of the prevailing disappointment and anger out of the diplomatic talk, and channelled it into a mode that did not deliver a fatal blow against the grand compromise, and, with it, the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

In 2000 and 2010, the parties exchanged more conciliatory rhetorical strategies.Footnote ⁴¹ With Russia having moved towards placation from 1990 onwards,Footnote ⁴² the United States moved in the same direction under President Clinton. In principle, Washington endorsed the CTBT and an FMCT and also more tangible steps towards disarmament, however it continued to argue against a set timetable for disarmament.Footnote ⁴³ In other words, it clearly was a placation rather than an accommodation strategy that the Clinton administration employed. The Obama administration in the United States picked up this thread after the George W. Bush interlude. Just before the 2010 Review Conference, Obama delivered his Prague speech, reaffirming the grand compromise in general and committing the United States to more disarmament in particular. Washington joined the other permanent members of the Security Council in issuing a joint statement – unprecedented for Review Conferences – and assured NNWS that they would take ‘steps towards irreversible and transparent disarmament, including provisions for verification’, the ratification of the CTBT and the conclusion of an FMCT. Egypt, pursuing a determined elaboration strategy on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, kept on pushing for a timeframe for disarmament. It proposed a disarmament process structured into three phases; the last phase should end by 2025. It reaffirmed three principles of disarmament: transparency, verifiability and irreversibility. Finally, it again put a strong emphasis on the need for better security assurances.Footnote ⁴⁴ These soft rhetorical strategies did not resolve the disarmament issues at stake; importantly, there still is no timetable for disarmament. But they did play their role in reproducing and strengthening the grand compromise, and with it the nuclear non-proliferation regime. As the Australian foreign minister put it, ‘In stark contrast to the failed 2005 Conference, the 2010 Conference unanimously adopted a comprehensive and forward-looking final document which is a strong global commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation regime.’Footnote ⁴⁵

COMPROMISE-REPRODUCING INTERPLAYS II: PEACEFUL USE AND SAFEGUARDS

The peaceful use of the provision of safeguards by the grand compromise has also been subject to major contestation ever since the compromise had been agreed on. Yet, once again, the diplomatic language used for the contestation hardly got out of hand. The interplay of rhetorical strategies helped to reproduce the compromise.

The elaboration strategy soon surfaced as one of the NNWS's key attempts to make NWS transfer technology. At the first Review Conference, Iran set the tone for what was to come in every subsequent review conference, when it urged that action must be taken to ensure that the developing countries enjoyed the benefits of nuclear technology. In order to accomplish this primary objective of the NPT, Tehran called for two sets of measures: unilateral and multilateral technological transfers. Among NPT members, those with access to nuclear technology should help those without to reap the benefits of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Furthermore, the NPT regime should thicken its institutional apparatus in order to promote technological transfers. Iran even called for the creation of a new international organization entrusted with this task.Footnote ⁴⁶ The idea of a fuel bank soon became part of this package of demands for strengthening multilateral institutions.Footnote ⁴⁷ Entrapment strategies were used frequently as well.

Sharper strategies were also repeatedly used. This had much to do with the cases of Israel and South Africa, who succeeded in acquiring nuclear capabilities for military use; there were many allegations that they accomplished this with help from the West. The Non-Aligned Movement and other outspoken NPT members responded with a mixture of entrapment and accusation. For them, a double violation of the NPT had occurred: not only did states with nuclear capabilities transfer technology to non-NPT members instead of fulfilling their legal obligations to transfer technology to NPT members, but they even transferred technology ready for military use. Ireland, defining itself as honest broker in the nuclear non-proliferation regime, pursued an entrapment strategy. Reminding nuclear suppliers of their duties, the Irish delegation complained that the ‘tendency of suppliers to apply a double standard compromised the purposes of the Treaty itself’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Iranian diplomats were more direct on this issue: they accused, at times in rather sharp language, the West of breaching the NPT.Footnote ⁴⁹

For a long time, NWS reacted with a mixture of denial and deflection strategies. Denial featured prominently. They routinely stated that they transferred technology to NPT members in need, and that the allegation that they violated the NPT was simply false.Footnote ⁵⁰ Deflection was frequently used as well. Initially, NWS called for more research on peaceful nuclear explosions,Footnote ⁵¹ but this line of argument stopped when it became clear that it was impossible to draw an unambiguous line between peaceful explosions and military detonations.Footnote ⁵² Another attempt of deflection consisted of attempts to forge a new ranking of NPT objectives. The advocated re-ranking put the promises of NNWS – especially safeguards – clearly ahead of other objectives. Peaceful use was found towards the bottom of the list.Footnote ⁵³

This interplay of softer strategies came under pressure in 1980 when it became clear to the nuclear have-nots of the Non-Aligned Movement how irreconcilable their position was with what the superpowers and nuclear suppliers defended. Whereas the former postulated multilateral checks on the transfer of nuclear technology within the framework of the NPT, the latter defended their restrictive practices. The disappointment and anger within the Non-Aligned Movement led to the selection of harder rhetorical strategies. The working paper containing formulations for a final document, already mentioned above, accuses nuclear suppliers of breaking the NPT by their ‘additional unilateral measures’, which amount to an ‘unacceptable practice’.Footnote ⁵⁴ Nuclear suppliers, on their part, reacted with the familiar denial and deflection strategies. Brezhnev's Message to the Review Conference, for example, stated that the Soviet Union, fully in line with the NPT, embraced the principle of technological transfers for peaceful use but saw no contradiction between this principle and bilateral checks against the diversion of such technology for military use.Footnote ⁵⁵ This change in interplay is again reminiscent of what happened with the disarmament issue. Even when the solution of issues appeared most unattainable to the parties, the rhetorical strategies selected by them filtered much of the explosiveness of this situation out of communicative encounters. Thus, the interplay of strategies did not escalate to an extent where it could come to do away with the foundation of what was being debated – the grand compromise.

For NWS, it was not enough to employ defensive strategies only. After all, they were determined to strengthen safeguards. Thus, they joined the contestation with an offensive strategy of elaboration on their part. The demand for more and more comprehensive safeguards was there from the start,Footnote ⁵⁶ and it became more and more urgent over time, especially after the discovery of a secret nuclear programme in Iraq in the aftermath of the First Gulf War.Footnote ⁵⁷ This call for elaboration was a difficult one to make because safeguards have always been closely linked to peaceful use. If a country concludes and abides by safeguards, it is amenable to technological transfers helping it to benefit from peaceful use.Footnote ⁵⁸ NNWS exploited this linkage and deflected these calls for elaboration. They did so by asking two different kinds of hard questions: Why keep promises (safeguards) if the other side breaks them (peaceful use)?Footnote ⁵⁹ Why are safeguards not universal, applying to NWS and non-NPT states alike?Footnote ⁶⁰

Little rapprochement happened between the parties in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. On the contrary, debates on peaceful use, similar to those on disarmament, became more acrimonious in 1990 and 1995, and reached their low point in 2005. Partly responding to North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT, George W. Bush pursued a mix of accusation and elaboration strategies. His determination to shut down a ‘ “loophole” in the NPT, namely that a state can pursue ENR capacity ostensibly for peaceful purposes while cynically planning all along to use that capacity to manufacture material for nuclear weapons’,Footnote ⁶¹ implies accusations against a number of NPT parties with an ambivalent record in this regard, such as Iran. His proposals for urging ‘new barriers…for preventing the acquisition of WMD!’ amounted to an elaboration strategy. These new proposals included measures within the NPT, such as making safeguard agreements and additional protocols the gold standard of verification as well as those outside of the NPT, be they unilateral or multilateral (for example through the Nuclear Suppliers Group and G8). Taken together with Bush's downplaying of the principle of peaceful use, this alerted many NNWS. More moderate responses, revolving around entrapment and accusation, still dominated.Footnote ⁶² Iran pursued an ostracism strategy, alleging that the United States had not ‘the slightest regard for the concerns of the rest of the international community’.Footnote ⁶³ Such sharp words were the exception rather than the rule; despite the highly contentious issues discussed, the discussion itself tended to steer away from the compromise-undermining end of the spectrum of rhetorical strategies.

In 2000 and 2010, Washington – and also other nuclear suppliers – responded to the persisting elaboration, entrapment and accusation strategies of the Non-Aligned Movement to strengthen peaceful use with a placation strategy.Footnote ⁶⁴ The Joint Statement of the P5Footnote ⁶⁵ is telling in this regard. The following passages read almost as a statement of the Non-Aligned Movement, with the crucial exception of one word. The P5 affirm the ‘inalienable right of all States Party to the NPT reflected in Article IV [peaceful use]’. They also recognize that peaceful use is tied in with achieving ‘the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development’. They even ‘underline the particular importance of international co-operation’ for accomplishing technological transfers for peaceful use. But they also qualify – and this shows clearly that it is a placatory and not an accommodation strategy – that bilateral checks are necessary, too. It is this one word that makes quite a difference.

The results of these interplays of rhetorical strategies resemble what has happened to the disarmament provisions of the grand compromise. There has been no movement on the fundamentally contentious issues. Contestation waxed and waned, often dependent on world political constellations, for example, the Washington-led intervention against Saddam Hussein, as well as depending on the leaders of the nations at the time. President Obama, for instance, certainly made a difference. What has been constant, despite the ups and downs of contestation, is the dominance of rhetorical strategies that tend to reproduce rather than undermine the grand compromise. The grand compromise, in other words, has given rise to major contestation, but the way the contestation is carried out contributes to the persistence of the grand compromise.

CONCLUSION

The central core of the argument in this article is that it is very normal that actors quarrel about the implementation of a compromise agreement. But it matters how they quarrel. Some exchanges of rhetorical strategies are more conducive to the reproduction of compromises than others. My analysis of the reproduction of the grand compromise of the NPT regime provides empirical evidence for these conceptual claims. As far as offensive strategies are concerned, the parties tended to stay away from the least robust (recourse) and the most robust (abandonment) strategies. Other robust strategies such as ostracism, although occasionally used, were far from dominant. Likewise, the parties usually stayed away from the least robust (accommodation) and most robust (inattentiveness and rejection) defensive strategies. Instead, elaboration and entrapment, and occasionally also accusation, were frequently used offensive strategies, while placation, denial and sometimes also deflection were often-employed defensive strategies. Interplays of elaboration and placation strategies were of crucial importance, strengthening the compromise again after it had been under pressure, for instance in 2000 and 2010.

My findings have at least three important implications. First, compromises, in principle, are warranted types of agreements.Footnote ⁶⁶ Not only are they frequently the only kind of agreement possible among parties and adequately reflect the plurality inherent in virtually any kind of governance system, but they can also make for rather stable kinds of agreements. Whether such stability ensues or not is critically dependent on the talk that the parties employ to debate the implementation record of compromises. There is language that reproduces compromises even amid major contestation. But there is also language that undermines compromises.Footnote ⁶⁷

Second, research into rhetorical strategies tells us something important about how language reproduces or undermines compromises. Rhetorical strategies are not just empty talk; neither are they not just cheap talk.Footnote ⁶⁸ Placation, for example, is first and foremost taking the wind out of a challenger's sails. For scholars assuming that only tangible bargaining outcomes matter, this may very well appear insufficient. Yet this study's findings caution against such a narrow view of communication. Placation contributes to bestowing legitimacy on the agreement whose compliance is in question by confirming that the agreement is the right kind of agreement. Needless to say, the opposite holds as well: rough talk contributes to undermining the legitimacy of an agreement. Staying with non-proliferation issues, consider how the United States and North Korea, delegitimizing each other as cooperation partners through ostracizing, abandonment and rejection strategies, came to undo the Agreed Framework that had been heralded as a landmark document in 1994.

Third, we should not be too complacent about the direction in which the nuclear non-proliferation regime is headed. All in all, the past record has been fairly solid. Despite their long-time irreconcilable positions, the parties have reproduced the grand compromise by filtering much of their anger and frustrations out of the diplomatic language in which they have communicated with one another. There is, however, no guarantee that this pattern will continue; if anything, the trend is less promising. The enthusiasm about the 2010 Review Conference in diplomatic, journalist and academic circles notwithstanding, rhetorical exchanges have escalated more frequently in the post-Cold War era than before. At the same time, review conferences since 1989 have failed more frequently in generating final documents (1990, 1995, 2005) than before (1980). In other words, there may be a very good – and rather non-academic – reason for taking the salience of rhetorical strategies seriously.

This article may appear to some as a study on second-best options. When it comes to agreements, I did not look at consensus but compromise. When it comes to the reproduction of compromises, I did not inquire into how deliberating actors let the ‘better argument’Footnote ⁶⁹ come to the fore but into how they employ rhetorical strategies to stand their ground in communicative encounters. These seemingly second-best options are anything but far-fetched. Given the plurality of modern governance systems, compromises are a very frequently occurring kind of agreement, and the exchange of rhetorical strategies an equally common mode of contesting the implementation records of such compromise agreements. It is these rhetorical strategies – more precisely, the interplay of offensive and defensive strategies – that channel the contestation into directions that are conducive or non-conducive to the reproduction of compromises. In other words, how actors say something really makes a difference.