Talking Peace, Making Weapons

Robert L. Brown and Jeffrey M. Kaplow ()
Additional contact information
Robert L. Brown: Department of Political Science, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Jeffrey M. Kaplow: Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2014, vol. 58, issue 3, 402-428

Abstract: A growing literature suggests that nuclear assistance from other countries is an important determinant of whether states pursue nuclear weapons. Existing work does not consider, however, the most widely available source of assistance—the Technical Cooperation (TC) program administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). IAEA assistance is an important piece of the nonproliferation regime’s central bargain: member states enjoy nuclear assistance in exchange for agreeing not to seek nuclear weapons. Using a data set of TC projects since 1972, we examine whether international nuclear assistance is associated with the pursuit of nuclear weapons. We hypothesize that some TC assistance reduces the cost of pursuing nuclear weapons, making weapons programs more likely. We find that receiving TC related to the nuclear fuel cycle is a statistically and substantively significant factor in state decisions since 1972 to seek nuclear weapons, with important implications for existing theories of nuclear proliferation.

Keywords: nuclear proliferation; international organizations; IAEA; nuclear power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/58/3/402.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:58:y:2014:i:3:p:402-428

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().