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Summer 1999 (Volume 53 Issue 3)
A normative element—a “nuclear taboo”—must be taken into account in explaining why the United States has not used nuclear weapons since 1945. Realists would deny that a taboo exists or that it can be identified separately from the behavioral pattern of non-use or the material interests of the actors and therefore has any independent analytical leverage. In contrast, I show that an explanation involving a normative element is a better explanation for nuclear non-use than a purely materialist one. I identify three effects of norms—regulative, constitutive, and permissive—and show in four cases how a taboo has played a role in constraining U.S. resort to nuclear weapons. This research challenges a narrow “deterrence” explanation of non-use and shows that norms constrain military capabilities and thus the practice of self-help in the international system.
International relations scholars are increasingly turning to the study of domestic politics to explain international behavior. In this article I argue that domestic institutions in democratic states greatly affect the propensity of a leader to use force when involved in an international dispute. Domestic institutions determine the rules of executive accountability as well as the degree to which an executive can control the conflict agenda vis-à-vis the legislature. I discuss how accountability and agenda control vary between parliamentary, presidential, and premier-presidential types of democracies. Using these variables, I generate a set of specific hypotheses regarding democratic conflict behavior. I test my hypotheses against alternative explanations for democratic behavior in two cases: The Suez Canal crisis in 1956 and the Bosnia conflict in 1995.
The theoretical debate on the role of norms in international relations has focused almost exclusively on norms as interests and whether they cause behavior that would otherwise not occur. The choice by states to reshape the normative framework of international relations in Europe as a central ordering strategy after the Cold War demonstrates that norms are also a means of agency. In response to the emergence of intrastate conflict as the dominant source of instability, the participating states of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) modified norms to permit “constructive intervention” to strengthen weak states without undermining sovereignty. This modification was made possible by their earlier commitment to anchor security in democratic structures, demonstrating how norms enable as well as constrain state behavior. European interstate action since the Cold War represents precisely the kind of unit construction through social interaction foreseen by constructivism.
I study the dynamics of a race to develop a new weapon as a function of a nation’s absolute and relative technological position as well as of the characteristics of the weapon. A technological breakthrough by one of the rivaling nations stimulates higher spending, especially by those that are lagging behind. A nation losing its technological lead intensifies its development efforts, whereas a nation enjoying a lead shows signs of relative complacency. A weapons race that is “tied” is more intense in later stages of the development process than in earlier stages.
My theory predicts that military development programs in the United States will accelerate as a result of U.S. perceptions of either falling behind or losing its technological lead and decelerate as a result of surging ahead of the Soviet Union. This prediction is consistent with the dynamics of the actual U.S.-Soviet missile race. The theory can also explain the recent nuclear tests by India in the context of the China-India competition and predicts that weapons development by India and Pakistan will intensify if China tries to close its technological gap with the United States.
Deductively consistent, rationalist explanations for war generally imply that the onset of war is unpredictable and that theories of war are indeterminate. James Fearon shows that a rationalist explanation for war most often suggests that states resort to force because of factors that cannot be observed by the states involved. For states, it follows, war must appear as a random event. By implication, factors that cannot be observed by states typically cannot be observed by analysts. If analysts can distinguish states that are willing and able to fight from those that are not, even ex post, then states will be able to distinguish among such states as well, ex post, and will internalize this information in their decisions. To observers, then, the causes of war must always be in the “error term.” I discuss the argument, its relationship to the literature, and implications for applied and theoretical research.
The rapid growth of economic regionalism has stimulated a large and influential body of research. Many existing studies, however, place little emphasis on the political conditions that shape regionalism. Lately, the drawbacks of such an approach have drawn heightened attention, contributing to a burgeoning literature that sheds new light on how political factors guide both the formation and economic effects of regional institutions. We argue that these analyses provide key insights into the political underpinnings of regionalism. They also indicate that studies neglecting political conditions risk arriving at misleading conclusions about regionalism’s causes and consequences. At the same time, however, recent research leaves various key theoretical and empirical issues unresolved, including which political factors bear most heavily on regionalism and the nature of their effects.