Europe's Nuclear Umbrella - Contesting Nuclear Sharing Since 2010

Since the mid-2010s, the collapse of key arms control treaties between great powers has unravelled the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe, heightening nuclear risks to Europe. At the same time, a fresh movement emerged, calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, due to their catastrophic humanitarian consequences. European policy-makers found themselves between a rock and a hard place - between the global strategic conundrum calling for growing attention to nuclear deterrence, and domestic audiences demanding just the opposite. Europe's Nuclear Umbrella is about how they navigated this balance. Building on combined insights from public administration, comparative politics, foreign policy analysis, and international relations, Michal Onderco offers a novel theory which reflects the complexity of democratic foreign policy-making in the twenty-first century.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. A (very) brief history of nuclear sharing; 2. Technocratic responsiveness and nuclear sharing; 3. Public opinion; 4. Political parties; 5. Civil society; 6. Allies; 7. Elites; 8. Conclusion.

About the author

Michal Onderco is Professor of International Relations at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and an affiliate at Charles University, Prague. His research focuses on domestic roots of foreign policy, and politics of nuclear weapons in Europe and globally. He is the author of Networked Nonproliferation (2021) and Iran's Nuclear Programme and Global South (2015).

Product details

• Authors: Onderco Michal
• Publisher: Cambridge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 28.02.2026
• EAN: 9781009698689
• ISBN: 978-1-009-69868-9
• Weight: 250 g
• Illustrations: Worked examples or Exercises
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Europe, POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General, International Relations, Arms negotiation & control, Arms negotiation and control, International institutions / intergovernmental organizations