This chapter situates the book in a broader literature on the social construction of nuclear technology. Existing examinations of technical contexts such as missile accuracy or nuclear war risk assessment reveal that sociopolitical meaning-making processes shape technical decision-making. The dual-use nature of nuclear technology requires even actors with technical authority, like the International Atomic Energy Agency, to delve into the realm of the political. This chapter also applies the broader international relations literature on status and recognition to nuclear politics. Nuclear status is an inherently technopolitical concept because it implicates not simply a material achievement but the social recognition of that achievement in a particular kind of discursive frame. This chapter also develops a theory of nuclear status focused around three drivers of status-seeking: legality, instrumentality, and identity. I argue that states contest their nuclear status when they are contesting the terms of the NPT, when they are attempting to accrue material or geopolitical benefits, and when there are underlying tensions between Self- and Other- understandings.