When do the Dutch want to join the nuclear ban treaty? Findings of a public opinion survey in the Netherlands

• DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2021.1978156
• Publication Date: 2021-10-27T08:42:55Z
• Authors: Michal Onderco; Michal Smetana; Sico van der Meer; Tom W. Etienne
• Keywords: 05 social sciences; 16. Peace & justice; 0506 political science

Even if most European countries have not yet joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the treaty has been salient in a number of national settings. In the Netherlands, the TPNW enjoys broad societal appeal, and the Dutch parliament has, on a number of occasions, called on the government to explore options for joining the treaty. In this piece, we empirically study Dutch attitudes toward joining the TPNW. Our findings indicate that a majority of the Dutch would prefer to accede to the TPNW only if nuclear-weapon states or other NATO allies also joined, although unilateral accession received relatively strong support among the youngest respondents, women, and voters supporting the left-wing parties. The most popular option is to join the TPNW at the same time that the nuclear-weapon states do, which seems to be a rather distant prospect in the current international-security environment.