My research focuses on the politics of multilateral cooperation, particularly in the governance of weapons. I am especially interested in how power is exercised and contested through international institutions, the implications of framing weapons in different ways, and the role of small states in world politics. 

In my book project, I examine why and how states pursue multilateral agreements to govern different weapons, and how their purpose in doing so affects the process and outcome of negotiations. I compare three case studies of multilateral weapons governance agreements: the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In doing so, I explore the differences between initiatives led by great powers and initiatives led by small states, and both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons governance agreements. I also assess patterns in the content of multilateral weapons governance agreements. This research draws on elite interviews conducted in Geneva, Switzerland, archival sources, and an original dataset of multilateral weapons governance agreements.

Publications:

• Egel, Naomi and Nina Obermeier. “A Friend Like Me: the Effects of Shared IO Membership.” OnlineFirst, Journal of Politics. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722348
• Egel, Naomi and Steven Ward. “Hierarchy, Revisionism, and Subordinate Actors: The TPNW and the Subversion of the Nuclear Order.” OnlineFirst, European Journal of International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221112611
• Egel, Naomi and R. Lincoln Hines. 2021. “Chinese Views on Nuclear Weapons.” Research & Politics 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680211032840 

My research has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the Swiss Confederation, the US Fulbright Student Program, the Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute at Cornell, the Judith Reppy Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, and the Cornell Institute for European Studies.