The Egmont Institute is pleased to invite you to the 12th session of the Deterrence and Arms Control Conversations with Michal Onderco, Professor of International Relations at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and affiliate at Peace Research Center Prague.

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.

Professor Onderco’s research interests include international security, with focus on politics of nuclear weapons. He received his PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and held academic positions at EUI, Columbia University, Stanford, and Waseda.

Participants are encouraged to actively engage in the in-person conversation, which will take place under Chatham House Rule.

This is an in-person event.

(Photo credit: Canva teams)