Prof William Walker

Emeritus Professor

Researcher profile

Email

wbw@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

The international politics and regulation of weapons of mass destruction, with emphasis on nuclear weapons and fissile materials; and problems in technological decision-making. 

Initially trained as an electrical engineer, William Walker has been involved in the study of technological innovation, energy policy, military industries and especially international nuclear relations during his academic career. He has been particularly noted for his work on the history and conceptualisation of the international rule-based nuclear order that took shape during the Cold War and flourished in the immediate post-Cold War period, regrettably followed by its descent into today’s disorder; on the political and institutional processes by which complex technological decisions and paths become entrenched; and on national inventories, production processes and international regulation (or its absence) of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the fissile materials used in nuclear weapons.

Selected publications

• Nuclear Power Struggles: Industrial Competition and Proliferation Control

  Walker, W. & Lönnroth, M., 3 Mar 2025, 1st Ed. ed. London: Taylor and Francis. 204 p.

  Research output: Book/Report › Book

• Open access

  Reflections on complexity, nuclear ordering and disordering over time

  Walker, W. B., 2025, In: Cambridge Review of International Affairs. 38, 3, p. 280-301 22 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Open access

  The history of nuclear power's imagined future: plutonium's journey from asset to waste

  Walker, W., 7 Sept 2021, In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 77, 5, p. 259-264 6 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Open access

  On Nuclear Embeddedness and (Ir)reversibility

  Walker, W., Feb 2020, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University.

  Research output: Working paper

• Trident’s replacement and the survival of the United Kingdom

  Walker, W. B., 3 Sept 2015, In: Survival. 57, 5, p. 7-28 22 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• The Problem of Weak Nuclear States

  Walker, W. B. & Wheeler, N. J., Dec 2013, In: The Nonproliferation Review. 20, 3, p. 411-431 21 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• A Perpetual Menace: Nuclear Weapons and International Order

  Walker, W. B., 2012, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. 254 p. (Routledge Global Security Studies ; no. 28)

  Research output: Book/Report › Book

• The absence of a taboo on the possession of nuclear weapons

  Walker, W. B., 2010, In: Review of International Studies. 36, 4, p. 865-876 12 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• The UK, threshold status and responsible nuclear sovereignty

  Walker, W. B., 2010, In: International Affairs. 86, 2, p. 447-464 18 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• The Quest for International Nuclear Order

  Walker, W. B., 2008, In: Die Friedens-Warte. 83, 2-3, p. 35-55

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

 

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