"The Courtroom of World Opinion": Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises
Dans le cadre du séminaire de Nuclear Knowledges - Chaire d’excellence en études de sécurité.
"The Courtroom of World Opinion": Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises
Speaker:
Debak Das, PhD candidate, Cornell University
Abstract:
What role does the international audience play in moderating nuclear crises? Scholars of nuclear crises and deterrence have treated nuclear crises as dyadic interactions between two sides. However, states do not only interact with each other during a nuclear crisis. They also signal to a third actor – the international audience. Two related reasons explain this. First, states care about their international reputation and want to be perceived as a ‘good community member’. Second, there are material benefits to states maintaining a good reputation with the international audience, which possesses the leverage to condemn and sanction. States thus attempt to leverage this power of the international audience to apply diplomatic pressure on their adversary during nuclear crises. They also engage in costly signaling and strategic restraint to ensure that the international audience considers its actions legitimate during the crisis. Empirical evidence from the Kargil war (the only instance of a war fought between two nuclear states), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the 1969 Ussuri Crisis between the Soviet Union and China support this conclusion. Incorporating the international audience as a critical third actor during nuclear crises has important academic and policy implications for the study of nuclear crises and their management.
Discussants:
Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI, Nuclear Knowledges
Thomas Lindemann, Université de Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines et Ecole Polytechnique
Les présentations seront données en anglais, cependant les questions en français seront également les bienvenues.
Responsable scientifique : Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI.
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