Crafting Effective Foreign Policy: Are Positive Inducements or Negative Coercion More Effective for

Crafting Effective Foreign Policy: Are Positive Inducements or Negative Coercion More Effective for Reversing Nuclear Proliferation?

Ariel F.W. Petrovics

University of California Davis

Abstract:

Foreign policy tools range from military force to security alliance, economic sanctions to preferential trade agreements, and everything in between. When faced with an international crisis or security issue, states must select from this suite of engagement tools, but which engagement tools are likely to be the most effective? Understanding the relative success of different foreign policy strategies is therefore critical to effective statescraft, but political science literature has largely examined specific tools in isolation rather than comparing multiple options at once. Optimal strategic selection is especially important when facing issues if international military escalation, and one of the most pressing modern examples of this is nuclear proliferation. I therefore ask: what foreign policy strategy will more effectively induce nuclear deproliferation, positive inducements or negative coercion? While existing counterproliferation literature has largely examined when and why states proliferate, I consider optimizing strategic responses for inducing nuclear rollback once proliferation has already begun. I suggest that positive inducements will be more effective than negative coercion, but that the magnitude of the target’s response will be mitigated by their relationship with the sender. I employ a mixed methods research design to test this theory, quantitatively analyzing three aspects of foreign policy effectiveness, and process tracing two recent cases of proliferating states.

Discussants:

William Spaniel (University of Pittsburgh)

T. Cliff Morgan (Rice University)

Julianne Phillips (University of Texas Austin)

OPSC Coordinator:

Emily Hencken Ritter (University of California Merced)

Graduate Assistant:

Peter D. Carey II (University of California Merced)