| Summary/Abstract |
Why do nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZs)—areas which prohibit nuclear weapons—emerge in some contexts, and not others? Focusing on the African case, this article introduces the concept of ‘obedient rebellion’ to explain the African NWFZ's early conception. ‘Obedient rebellion’ is an attitude of ambivalence toward global nuclear order. To newly-decolonizing African states, the African NWFZ symbolized both postcolonial anti-nuclear solidarity and nuclear responsibility; it represented both ‘obedience’ to—and ‘rebellion’ against—global nuclear order. This ambivalence, between ‘obedience’ and ‘rebellion’, paradoxically accommodated multiple conflicting audiences simultaneously, thereby stabilising the zone. The African NWFZ's ambiguous meanings made it viable, even though those meanings conflicted. The zone's early conception offers insight into the complex, contending forces that continue to bind the world's NWFZs—and indeed nuclear order itself—to the present. NWFZs epitomize the tensions which stabilize nuclear order: between sovereign equality and nuclear inequality; between local solidarities and global loyalties; and between contestation and compromise. At first, these tensions seem to imperil NWFZs; in fact, these tensions stabilize NWFZs. The African zone also poses challenges to the African blind spot that continues to exist in International Relations theory.
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