Author's Response: Of Theory, Method, and Policy Guideposts

[ 139 ] book review roundtable • nuclear logics & the long shadow Author’s Response: Of Theory, Method, and Policy Guideposts Etel Solingen I would like to thank all contributors for their insightful comments and am appreciative of the opportunity to clarify some points. To begin with, a restatement of the core argument of Nuclear Logics is in order. There are systematic differences in nuclear behavior between states whose leaders or ruling coalitions advocate integration in the global economy and those who reject it. The former seek to gain and maintain power through economic growth via engagement with the global economy; hence, they have incentives to avoid economic, political, reputational, and opportunity costs of acquiring nuclear weapons because such costs impair a domestic agenda favoring internationalization. By contrast, inward-looking leaders incur fewer of those costsbecausetheyrelyonself-sufficiency,stateandmilitaryentrepreneurship, and nationalism; they thus reject internationalization and have greater incentives to exploit nuclear weapons as tools in nationalist platforms of political competition. This insight, focusing on competing domestic models of political survival, may be applied to explain the differences between nuclear aspirants in East Asia and the Middle East over the past nearly four decades. East Asian leaders pivoted their domestic political control on economic performance via global integration, whereas leaders in the Middle East relied on inward-looking self-sufficiency, internal markets, and nationalist values. Their respective models created different incentives and constraints, which in turn influenced their preferences for or against nuclear weapons. I am delighted that none of the reviews in this roundtable seem to dispute the very essence of these claims. Deepti Choubey’s clear grasp of the core logic and subsidiary arguments is particularly reassuring. Christopher Ford’s praise for the work’s intellectual integrity, honesty, and modesty in not claiming a unified field theory of proliferation, given “staggeringly complex issues of causality in a complicated world,” is especially generous. I welcome some of the qualifications raised by the reviews as they provide an opportunity to elucidate ancillary arguments developed in the book. I first etel solingen is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Her book Nuclear Logics has been awarded the 2008 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs, granted by the American Political Science Association, and was co-recipient of the 2008 Robert L. Jervis and Paul W. Schroeder Best Book Award for the best book published on international history and politics, conferred by the International History and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. She can be reached at . [ 140 ] asia policy address theoretical and methodological considerations and end with matters of prediction and policy. Theory and Method First, it is important to establish the book’s precise claim regarding structural neorealist theory and balance of power as a determinant of nuclear choices. There are repeated references throughout the book to this theory’s “valuable insights” (p. 27), “natural prima facie appeal,” and ability to “explain some cases reasonably well” (p. 26, emphasis added); there are even references to balance of power as “more relevant than [domestic] political survival in some cases” (p. 18; see also pp. 53, 285). Indeed, to preempt facile readings, the importance of balance of power considerations is emphasized at the very outset (p. 6). At the same time, one of the book’s leitmotifs is a warning against overestimation of some theories and underestimation of others. Nuclear outcomes are not the sole perfunctory reflection of international structure or balance of power (see, for example, p. 250); their commonly unquestioned acceptance as the driving force of all nuclear decisions is thus misguided (p. 27). This is particularly so in light of structural neorealism’s non-trivial shortcomings: too many anomalies of insecure states forgoing nuclear weapons; an overwhelming majority of states renouncing nuclear weapons despite a world of presumed uncertainty, anarchy, and self-help; elastic and subjective definitions of self-help, vulnerability, and power itself; related concerns with neorealism’s falsifiability; and the fact that nuclear umbrellas, though important in some cases, have been neither necessary nor sufficient for nuclear abstention worldwide. To reiterate, this point concerns the imperative to avoid structural determinism. A better understanding of nuclear behavior and outcomes requires...