2025/01/01 by Doan Linh Anh · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Nuclear Issues and Defense
paper · doi:10.1093/ia/iiae276
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract In this article I examine why Vietnam, a state possessing neither nuclear weapons nor nuclear power plants, adopted nuclear security purely as a preventive measure against nuclear terrorism. Although nuclear security emerged as a norm specifically related to countering nuclear terrorism following 9/11, it has received diverse responses from states. Nuclear weapon states, and states that possess nuclear materials (encompassing the United States, Japan and Canada) have actively advanced nuclear security as they face the threat of nuclear terrorism. In contrast, states without nuclear power plants have been unwilling to do so as they do not identify nuclear terrorism as a national threat. However, among these states, Vietnam began to adhere to the norm in 2012, and by 2014 was even recognized as one of the most progressive states in the nuclear security field. Drawing on Vietnamese regulations, elite statements and interviews conducted with Vietnamese officials, I endeavour to show that Vietnam actively changed its stance after nuclear security began to be diffused as an independent norm, in isolation from the other nuclear norms it had previously been grafted onto. Further, I discuss the merits of these strategies as barriers and facilitators for norm adoption in the case of Vietnam.