The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation
Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy

This book analyzes the psychological factors that push state leaders to go, or not to go, nuclear.

Jacques E. C. Hymans (Author)

9780521850766, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 February 2006

286 pages, 18 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.55 kg

'… The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation makes an important contribution to the literature on security studies and FPA. The study … is the right book at the right time.' International Studies Review

Dozens of states have long been capable of acquiring nuclear weapons, yet only a few have actually done so. Jacques E. C. Hymans finds that the key to this surprising historical pattern lies not in externally imposed constraints, but rather in state leaders' conceptions of the national identity. Synthesizing a wide range of scholarship from the humanities and social sciences to experimental psychology and neuroscience, Hymans builds a rigorous model of decisionmaking that links identity to emotions and ultimately to nuclear policy choices. Exhaustively researched case studies of France, India, Argentina, and Australia - two that got the bomb and two that abstained - demonstrate the value of this model while debunking common myths. This book will be invaluable to policymakers and concerned citizens who are frustrated with the frequent misjudgments of states' nuclear ambitions, and to scholars who seek a better understanding of how leaders make big foreign policy decisions.

1. Introduction: life in a nuclear-capable crowd
2. Leaders' national identity conceptions and nuclear choices
3. Measuring leaders' national identity conceptions
4. The struggle over the bomb in the French Fourth Republic
5. Australia's search for security: nuclear armament, umbrella, or abolition?
6. Argentina's nuclear ambition … and restraint
7. 'We have a big bomb now': India's nuclear U-turn
8. Conclusion: lessons for policy.

Subject Areas: Nuclear weapons [JWMN], Theory of warfare & military science [JWA], International relations [JPS], Political science & theory [JPA], Psychology [JM]