German views on US nuclear weapons in Europe: Public and elite perspectives

Michal Onderco*, Michal Smetana

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Stationing of US nuclear weapons in Europe is a pillar of NATO deterrence. Despite their growing contestation, scholarly research on contemporary attitudes of both voters and political elites to the continued stationing of these weapons on their soil is lacking. We conducted original surveys of 2020 Germans and of 101 Bundestag members. Our results show scepticism about the military utility of US nuclear weapons in Germany, and aversion towards their use. At the same time, the results show a sizable support among both politicians and citizens for their removal from German territory as part of new nuclear arms control initiatives.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)630-648
Number of pages19
JournalEuropean Security
Volume30
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thankfully acknowledge support from the Charles University Research Centre programs UNCE/ HUM/028 (Peace Research Center Prague/Faculty of Social Sciences) and PROGRES Q18. We thank the European Security editor and two excellent reviewers, as well as Harald M?ller, Matthew Kroenig, Morgan L. Kaplan, Oliver Meier, Falk Ostermann, Liviu Horovitz, Mauro Gilli, Monika Sus, Richard Maher, Marek Vranka, Ondrej Rosendorf, Michal Parizek, Kamil Klosek, Jakub Tesar, Jan Ludvik, Irena Kalhousova, Vojtech Bahensky, Tomas Weiss, Jakub Zahora, Tomas Bruner and Krystof Kucmas for valuable comments, ideas and recommendations. Hannah van den Brink helped us with research assistance. All errors remain our own.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'German views on US nuclear weapons in Europe: Public and elite perspectives'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this