Carmen Wunderlich is a senior researcher at the Institute for Development and Peace at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She is also a Principal Investigator in the research consortium “VeSPoTec – Nuclear Verification in a Complex and Unpredictable World: Social, Political, and Technical Processes”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, and an affiliate researcher at the Peace Research Center Prague. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Frankfurt. Her research focuses on global norm dynamics and practices of contestation with a specific focus on issues related to the control of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear disarmament. Her work has been published in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Contemporary Security Policy, Dædalus, International Studies Review, Review of International Studies, and other journals. She is the author of Rogue States as Norm Entrepreneurs: Black Sheep or Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing? (2020) and co-editor, with Harald Müller, of Norm Dynamics in Multilateral Arms Control: Interests, Conflicts, and Justice (2013), and, with Flavia Lucenti, Cecilia Ducci, and Jeffrey S. Lantis, of Contestation in Prism: The Evolution of International Norms and Norm Clusters in Contemporary Global Politics (2025).
Carmen Wunderlich
Senior Researcher, Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg-Essen
Content by Carmen Wunderlich
When the cornerstone cracks: the NPT and the future of the global nuclear order
After 16 years without a consensus final document, write Carmen Wunderlich and Leonardo Bandarra, the challenge facing the NPT is less about disagreement on specific issues than about growing doubts over the role and value of the review process within an increasingly complex nuclear order, and amid geopolitical shifts and the renewed prominence of nuclear deterrence in global security policy.
Protecting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in turbulent times: European and P5 perspectives on the 2026 NPT Review Conference
This commentary collection compiles 10 articles by ELN network members and external collaborators as part of the ELN’s Protecting the Non-Proliferation Treaty project. The collection was originally published for the 2026 NPT RevCon.
European perspectives on the Non-Proliferation Treaty: Germany
Continuing our commentary series exploring different European perspectives ahead of the 2026 NPT Review Conference, Carmen Wunderlich writes that Germany’s current policy towards the NPT reflects not only a change in tone but also a gradual shift in priorities towards pragmatic measures such as risk reduction and confidence-building, while multilateral disarmament seems to have lost political salience.