Engaging in and with complexity: local actors, Mayors for Peace and the global nuclear order

The global nuclear order is dominated by national security concerns, even if many other actors are affected. This article examines how local and subnational actors engage with the nuclear order and its complexity, particularly focusing on cities and the international city network ‘Mayors for Peace’. Based on norm research, the article first outlines the relationship between norms and global order and how actors contribute to and challenge order. In the second step, the article examines how cities are particularly affected by violence, warfare, and the nuclear order. Following that, the article shows how cities’ local activities, international representation and global networking aimed to change the nuclear order. As the article shows, the contestation of the existing nuclear order cannot be reduced to local resistance, but it is also linked to both high-level diplomacy and a global movement for peace and nuclear disarmament. All in all, the complexity of the nuclear order is reflected in the different ways local actors engage with it, but they also contribute to it.