Rupal Mehta - Windows of Opportunity: Leadership Change and Nuclear Reversal
What are the conditions under which states are willing to reverse their nuclear weapons programs? The scholarship to date has often isolated domestic and international explanations. Yet, like many other aspects of foreign policy, changes in nuclear decision-making are likely the result of both domestic political and international factors. To explore these dynamics, I employ an “opportunity and willingness” framework that examines the role that new leaders and external inducements can play in counterproliferation decisions. Nuclear reversal is more likely when new leaders are in power both because of a) willingness: leaders vary in their belief systems so new leaders coming to power can bring evolving beliefs; b) opportunity at the domestic and the international level. Using data on all nuclear weapons activity from 1945-2007, this article tests these hypotheses on leader change and inducements extended by the United States. The analysis reveals that upon the introduction of new leaders, inducements have a positive and statistically significant effect on the likelihood that a proliferator will reverse its program. The article concludes with a closer examination of policy levers that the international community can use to alter proliferation behavior.
Dr. Rupal N. Mehta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Previously, she was Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow in the Belfer Center's International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University. Her research interests lie in international security and conflict, with a specialization in nuclear security and foreign policy. Dr. Mehta's book, Delaying Doomsday: The Politics of Nuclear Reversal, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, explores the conditions under which states that have started nuclear weapons programs stop their pursuit. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly and her commentary has been published in the Washington Post, War on the Rocks, International Studies Quarterly, and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage. She received a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego, and B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.