The Perils of Predicting Proliferation

Alexander H. Montgomery and Scott D. Sagan
Additional contact information
Alexander H. Montgomery: Department of Political Science Reed College, Portland
Scott D. Sagan: Department of Political Science Stanford University, Stanford

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2009, vol. 53, issue 2, 302-328

Abstract: Studies of nuclear proliferation share five serious problems. First, nuclear programs' initiation and completion dates are ambiguous and difficult to code, but findings are rarely subjected to sufficient robustness tests using alternative codings. Second, independent variables overlook important factors such as prestige and bureaucratic power and often use poor proxies for concepts such as the nonproliferation regime. Third, methodologies and data sets should be tightly coupled to empirical questions but are instead often chosen for convenience. Fourth, some findings provide insights already known or believed to be true. Fifth, findings can ignore or gloss over data crucial for policy making and wider debates. This article reviews new quantitative research on nuclear proliferation, noting improved analysis and lingering problems. It highlights the 1999 Kargil war to explore dangers of relying on stock data sets and the need for research on statistical outliers. It concludes with a future research agenda aimed at correcting problems and a cautionary note regarding hasty application of quantitative results to policy making.

Keywords: nuclear weapons proliferation; nonproliferation treaty; robustness; Kargil; policy relevance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002708330581 (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:53:y:2009:i:2:p:302-328

DOI: 10.1177/0022002708330581

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 ().