Leaders and laggards: When and why do countries sign the NPT

NOTE DE RECHERCHE WORKING PAPER 16 CHRISTOPHER WAY KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Globalization and the National Security State GROUPE D’ÉTUDE R E S E A R C H ET DE RECHERCHE GROUP SUR LA SÉCURITÉ I N T E R N AT I O N A L INTERNATIONALE S E C U R I T Y IN PROGRAMME CONJOINT UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL/MCGILL UNIVERSITY LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? *** CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR The Research Group in International Security (REGIS) is an inter-university consortium that studies international relations, both from a security and an international political economy perspective. The group consists of nine core members based at McGill University and the Université de Montréal, as well as several faculty associates and doctoral student members. REGIS is part of the Canadian network of university centres in the field of defence and security studies, the Security and Defence Forum, which is funded by the Department of National Defence. (http://www.gersi.umontreal.ca) The Globalization and the National Security State (GNSS) project is directed by an inter-university, interdisciplinary group of faculty from McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Concordia University, examining questions about the effects of globalization on the traditional security functions of the nationstate. The research program seeks to explore how war and warmaking affected the development of the state from 1945-1999; the status of the relationship between war, war making, and the state at the turn of the century; and the effects of globalization on the legitimacy of the state. The project is funded by the Quebec government’s FQRSC grant program. (http://www.gnss.mcgill.ca) Notes de recherche du GERSI/REGIS Working Papers Dirigée par/Edited by : T.V. Paul Editeur Associé/Associate Editor: William Hogg 1. ZARTMAN, I. WILLIAM, “The Structuralist Dilemma in Negotiation” (1997). 2. LEBOW, RICHARD NED, “Transitions and Transformations: Building International Cooperation” (1997). 3. BUNCE, VALERIE, “The collapse of Socialism, the Soviet Bloc and Socialist States: An Institutionnal Account” (1998). 4. ROUSSEL, STÉPHANE, GERVAIS, MYRIAM ET RONALD HATTO, “Chronologie de la réaction du Canada face aux conflits intraétatiques vol. 1: l’ex-Yougoslavie” (1998). 5. ROUSSEL, STÉPHANE, GERVAIS, MYRIAM ET RONALD HATTO, “Chronologie de la réaction du Canada face aux conflits intraétatiques vol. 2 : l’Afrique des Grands Lacs (Rwanda et Est-Zaïre) ” (1998). 6. GAGNON, RÉMY, “Les théories de l’émancipation et l’étude de la sécurité internationale : entre le rationalisme et le réflexivisme” (1999). 7. TESSIER, MANON, “Guide pratique de la recherche sur le maintien de la paix sur Internet” (2000). 8. JOLICOEUR, PIERRE, “L’identité civilisationnelle : un concept utile pour l’analyse des conflits caucasiens?” (2000). 9. KUBALKOVA, VENDULKA, “The tale of two constructivisms at the cold war’s end” (2001). 10. PAUL, T.V., “States, Security Function and the New Global Forces” (2001). 11. KRAUSE, KEITH, “Norm-Building in Security Spaces: The Emergence of the Light Weapons Problematic” (2001). 12. LYNN-JONES, SEAN M., “Does Offense-Defense Theory Have a Future” (2001). 13. HALL, JOHN A., “International and Transatlantic Images of Belonging: The United States and Europe in the 21st Century” (2001). 14. MILLER, BENJAMIN, “When (and How) Regions Become Peaceful: Explaining Transitions from War to Peace” (2001). 15. GRIECO, JOSEPH M., “America Adrift?: Myths and Realities About the United States in the New Word” (November 2004). 16. WAY, CHRISTOPHER, SASIKUMAR, KARTHIKA, “Leaders and Laggards: When and Why do Countries Sign the NPT?” (November 2004). 17. THOMPSON, WILLIAM R.,“Explaining Rivalry Termination in Contemporary Eastern Eurasia with Evolutionary Expectancy Theory” (November 2004). PDF versions of these reports can be accessed at http://www.gersi.umontreal.ca,or through Columbia International Affairs Online (www.ciaonet.org). Christopher Way is an Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University. He specializes in international political economy and international security issues. His articles have appeared in World Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, APSR, ISQ, BJPS, and Comparative Political Studies. He is currently completing a book titled : Manchester Revisted : Economic Interdependence, Democracy and Conflict. Karthika Sasikumar has an M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and is currently finishing her Ph.D. in the Government Department, Cornell University. Her dissertation explores the interaction between India and the international nuclear nonproliferation order, and its implications for the emerging global counter-terrorism regime. Her research interests are in International Relations theory, international security, nuclear weapons and nonproliferation, and South Asia. Her minor field is Political Theory. In 2004-05 she is a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR* Introduction The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was concluded at the end of the 1960s, a decade which saw the drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the height of the nuclear arms race between the superpowers, and the entry of France and China into the club of countries that had tested nuclear weapons. The basic bargain underlying the NPT allows countries to surrender their right to develop nuclear weapons in return for access to international assistance in civilian nuclear technology. Five countries (the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China) that had tested nuclear devices before 1 January 1967, were conferred the status of Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) by Article IX. All other signatories (Non Nuclear Weapon States or NNWSs) pledged to abjure the development and diffusion of nuclear weapons technology. Recent events have heightened debate over the utility of the NPT as a means of stemming nuclear proliferation. In the Persian Gulf, European countries placed renewed faith in an Iranian * This is a revised version of a paper given at McGill University for the REGIS Workshop on International Security and Political Economy, October 22, 2004. ❖ 1 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? re-commitment to the NPT at the center of their strategy for stopping Tehran’s efforts to acquire nuclear arms. In the same vein, the reinforcement of multilateral agreements such as the NPT is at the center of the European Union’s strategy against weapons of mass destruction unveiled in December 2003 (European Union, 2003). Meanwhile, on the Korean peninsula, the relentless pursuit of nuclear arms by an NPT signatory state seems to underscore the futility of the regime. North Korean actions point to a weakness of the regime long emphasized by critics: countries can make clear progress towards the nuclear threshold under NPT auspices and then simply withdraw shortly before assembling weapons. Is the NPT a paper tiger, as critics claim, or the foundation of a successful anti-proliferation strategy? To answer this question, we need to understand why countries sign the NPT in the first place. For those who believe in the importance of regimes or place great faith in the NPT as a means of stemming proliferation, understanding why and when countries sign the treaty is an important question. One group of countries jumped on the NPT bandwagon with little hesitation. Many of these had no obvious reason not to do so; lacking pressing security concerns, nuclear weapons posed little temptation in the first place. For others, however, the apparent costs were considerably higher, yet they signed the treaty. Germany, Japan, Australia, and Italy, for example, all had plausible security concerns and a suitable technology base, yet all ratified the treaty by 1975. Another group of countries has proven hesitant to join the regime. Some of these, like France or China, had little reason not to sign (since they were accepted as nuclear powers by the NPT), yet still held out for decades. Others had compelling reasons not to give up the nuclear option and resisted for many years, yet nearly all of these were eventually brought into the fold. India, Pakistan, and Israel still hold out against the now overwhelming majority of states that are NPT signatories. If the NPT is a paper tiger that may even aid countries in 2❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR advancing their nuclear technology, as critics allege, why did so many countries hesitate to sign it? On the other hand, if the NPT poses real restrictions, as advocates claim, then why do countries that could potentially benefit from a nuclear deterrent nonetheless sign away their right to make the bomb? Understanding who signs the treaty, why, and when is an important step towards a better understanding of how the NPT functions and whether it works. Assessing the NPT’s effectiveness is difficult because most countries have signed it, and most countries have not acquired nuclear weapons. It is therefore difficult to assess whether the NPT has made any difference. But knowing this is important because policy proposals often focus on modifying the NPT. We can get around some of the difficulty by asking another, related question: what explains the large variance in willingness to sign the NPT? What are the costs and benefits that states weigh when deciding whether or not to join the regime? And what does this tell us about whether the NPT affects countries’ decisions about nuclear weapons? Despite the importance of these questions, systematic studies of decisions to join the NPT have been rare. Single country studies often chronicle the debates about the NPT in great detail. Yet there have been few, if any, comparative cross-country studies designed to provide generalizable answers to these questions. We seek to fill this void by presenting a simple cost-benefit framework for understanding decisions to sign (or not to sign) the NPT, and by testing our framework with statistical tests spanning the entire life of the NPT and including all potential signatory countries. To test this framework, we estimate survival models of the decision to sign the NPT, using data covering potential signatories (185 countries) spanning the 1968 - 2000 time period. Our results show that a cost-benefit framing of the decision to join the regime can explain most of the variance in acceding to the NPT; in choosing whether to sign, states follow the logic embodied in the treaty’s design. Security and energy are the most important ❖ 3 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? costs making countries hesitant to sign the NPT. States with acute security concerns are less like to join the NPT, states with high energy needs are more likely to join it, and states for whom developing nuclear weapons would be a simple and inexpensive task are reluctant to join. Specifically, states facing a challenging security environment are only about half as likely to join the NPT in a given year, although a defense pact with a great power can cancel out this effect. States at a higher level of industrial development (those for whom developing nuclear weapons is highly feasible) are about half as likely to join quickly as less developed states. On the other hand, unusually high energy needs increase the likelihood of joining by about 40%. In addition, democracies are about 40% more likely to sign up quickly, perhaps due to a disposition towards the legalization of international affairs. Using the results of our statistical model, we also identify NPT “leaders” and “laggards.” The decisions of some countries – what we call “laggards” – to stay out of the NPT longer than our model suggests they should helps us better understand how the NPT functions. And the decisions of other countries -- what we call “leaders” – to join more quickly than our model anticipates points towards things that the conventional wisdom may have missed. In particular, we suggest that the NPT becomes a strategic resource for these countries. They can use accession to signal their peaceful intentions and try to garner international support (and advantages over their rivals) with their renunciatory act. The rest of this paper proceeds as follows. The next section outlines our cost-benefit framework, describing the potential economic, security, and political costs and benefits of joining the NPT. After that we briefly describe the data, including the measures of costs and benefits, and our dependent variable: signature on the treaty. We then describe the results of survival models of the decision to join the NPT. By way of a conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the mechanisms 4❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR through which the NPT works, as well as and for crafting strategies to strengthen the treaty. To Sign or Not to Sign: A Cost-Benefit Framework To investigate the spread of the NPT, we adopt a cost-benefit framework in which we imagine states weighing the pros and cons of accession. As a preliminary, let us briefly review the core of the NPT bargain. The impetus for the NPT grew out of dissatisfaction with the “Atoms for Peace” policies promoted by the Eisenhower administration during the 1950s. Under this program, the United States offered unrestricted access to nuclear fuel in exchange for the promise that it be used only for peaceful purposes. The Atoms for Peace framework established the core bargain that would underpin the NPT: countries that give up the military potential of the atom should be able to enjoy the full peaceful benefits of the atom. To enlist multilateral support for this initiative, President Eisenhower supported vesting oversight tasks in a United Nations agency; this led in 1957 to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its charge was to insure the peaceful use of nuclear materials transferred under the Atoms for Peace framework. However, shortcomings in the Atoms for Peace/IAEA framework soon became apparent. By focusing only on nuclear materials transferred explicitly under specific agreements, the arrangement neglected to regulate technology, material, and knowledge developed indigenously (or copied from transferred material). At the initiative of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union, a new framework designed to monitor and regulate all nuclear material was negotiated. This became the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, which opened for signatures in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. Under the treaty, non-nuclear weapons states must accept safeguards – intended to detect the transfer of ❖ 5 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? nuclear materials from peaceful to military uses – on all nuclear materials in their territory, no matter what its source.1 The costs and benefits of joining the NPT laid out in the text of the treaty itself are quite straightforward. On the cost side, nonnuclear states give up the right to possess or create nuclear weapons.2 In return, parties agree to the “fullest possible exchange” of knowledge, material, and equipment useful for peaceful purposes. In addition, some hope of taming vertical nuclear proliferation is offered by the NWS’ pledge to negotiate towards ending the nuclear arms race and to pursue international nuclear disarmament. Given these costs and benefits, what types of countries should rush to sign up, and what type should resist? Here we make two observations. First, the weighing of costs and benefits is more complicated than suggested by this simple statement for several reasons. Beyond the formal stipulations of the treaty, powerful states create informal costs and benefits by their actions. They may, for example, link the NPT to other issues, allowing it to affect diplomacy more broadly. Moreover, the translation of the security and economic costs into action is mediated by beliefs and domestic politics. The specific context of a country and its domestic politics are likely to shape its calculation of costs and benefits (Sasikumar, 2004). Second, since the treaty offers a generic bargain to a heterogeneous group of states, its appeal will vary widely according to the security and economic situations of specific states. For some states, the costs are negligible and the benefits attractive; for others, the costs are substantial and the benefits slight. To develop a more fine-grained assessment of the relative attractiveness of the NPT, we turn to a 1 2 Originally, however, the IAEA limited its monitoring to declared facilities, and did not investigate the possibility of undeclared sites. After 1991, however, and the revelation of Iraq’s substantial undeclared facilities, the IAEA widened the scope of its activities to include special inspections of suspected undeclared sites. This surrender is not absolute, since parties can withdraw from the treaty on 90 days notice by citing "extraordinary events" that have "jeopardized its supreme interests" (Article X). 6❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR more nuanced and comprehensive accounting of costs and benefits under three headings: security, economic, and political. Costs of Signing the NPT Security Costs Signing any international agreement imposes some costs on states, because it implies a surrender of sovereignty. In the case of security regimes, the most significant cost may be the loss of long-term strategic freedom. Nuclear weapons are often seen as a way for weaker powers to level the playing field with more powerful rivals, or to provide an effective deterrent at relatively low expense (Kapur, 2001; Potter, 1982; Quester, 1973, 1977). By giving up the nuclear option a state lowers its degrees of strategic freedom, apparently paying a high price for joining the NPT. However, this does not translate into a real burden for the majority of NPT signatories, most of whom never had any intention of developing nuclear weapons, or lacked the ability to do so at reasonable expense. For some states, the security environment is not sufficiently threatening to make costly acquisition of nuclear weapons worthwhile. For others, the economic burden of developing weapons is too great to contemplate; many small undeveloped countries are not giving up a realistic option in eschewing nuclear weapons. Why might these countries nonetheless hesitate to sign the NPT? The reason is that, for them, hesitating to sign the NPT may actually provide a way to extract benefits from the United States and other treaty ‘promoters.’ They could use their accession as a bargaining chip, wresting concessions from great powers who have an interest in controlling proliferation in exchange for giving 3 However, since it was generally believed that China would veto such a proposed resolution in the Security Council, this was not a very credible threat. ❖ 7 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? up freedom of maneuver; thus they retain some incentive to delay signing the treaty. In sum, for states in challenging security environments who possess the wherewithal to develop nuclear weapons, the costs of acceding to the NPT are substantial. However, even states lacking the incentives and ability to develop the bomb may “drag their feet” in an effort to extract concessions from treaty promoters (chiefly the United States) who are eager to see widespread adoption. Even for states with serious security concerns, however, the costs of foreswearing the nuclear option and joining the NPT may be reduced by a defense pact with a nuclear armed-great power. In this view, the acquisition of nuclear weapons and forging of alliances serve as substitutes in the quest for security (Betts, 1983; Davis, 1993; Thayer, 1995). With the backing of a nuclear-armed great power ally, states may perceive lower costs to joining the NPT. By committing themselves to the NPT, states also face the possibility of exit costs should they choose to leave the treaty in the future or punishment costs should they choose to violate it. Aside from the loss of reputation in the international arena, there are specific legal consequences attached to the violation of the NPT. While the NPT itself has no provisions to enforce compliance, all members sign an enforcement agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the extreme case, violations uncovered by the IAEA can serve as a legal justification for international military action against the transgressor state. When North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 1993, the IAEA referred the issue to the Security Council. The implication was that action could be taken under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which permits military intervention by other states when there is a threat to international peace and security.3 (After negotiations, North Korea rejoined the treaty after a gap of two months). More commonly, signatories can impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on treaty violators. 8❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR Economic Costs States signing the NPT incur no clear direct economic costs, with one possible exception: a state possessing a large nuclear power industry counting on large exports may feel hamstrung by the requirement not to export nuclear equipment or material to nonnuclear weapons states except under IAEA safeguards. If a country wished to export nuclear technology and materials to states not submitting to safeguards, the costs of joining the NPT rise. France, for example, with the world’s largest nuclear energy industry, declined to restrict nuclear exports to IAEA-safeguard countries until 1991 (and finally ratified the NPT in 1992). Under this heading, we note an important indirect factor. More developed states – those with greater industrial and scientific infrastructure – face much lower economic opportunity costs in developing and deploying nuclear weapons. Thus, they are in effect paying a higher price in acceding to the NPT than are less developed states; only the former are giving up a relatively low-cost, eminently feasible option. Because they pay lower opportunity costs (in terms of foregone alternative uses of scarce economic resources) if they develop nuclear weapons, they pay a higher opportunity cost (in terms of the attractiveness and feasibility of foregone nuclear option) in joining the NPT. Because the economic (opportunity) cost of nuclear weapons is lower for more developed states,4 the cost of joining the NPT is higher. 4 Although we have couched this discussion in terms of economic opportunity costs, the absolute financial cost of developing nuclear weapons is probably lower for developed states as well. This is because more of the costly economic and scientific infrastructure is already in place, and need not be developed specifically for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. In addition, the marginal cost to scientific/industrial endeavors is likely lower due to scale and learning economies. ❖ 9 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Political Costs Signing the NPT implies possible domestic political costs as well. A government that accedes to the NPT can face the wrath of domestic pro-nuclear constituencies. These could be influential religious leaders (as in Iran, where Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, head of the influential and conservative Guardians Council, has at times been a vigorous opponent of the NPT), the armed forces (as in Pakistan), opposition parties (as in Israel), or important sections of the bureaucracy (as in India). In April 1994, for instance, the ruling party was forced to clarify that India was not negotiating a possible signature of the treaty at “secret talks” with the United States in London. Similarly, Mitchell Reiss claims that as Brazilian and Argentinean policy-makers moved toward renunciation of nuclear weapons, they rejected IAEA inspections in favor of bilateral inspections because of the history of domestic political opposition to the NPT (Reiss, 1995). For some prominent non-aligned countries who have long considered the NPT hypocritical and discriminatory, signing the treaty imposes significant symbolic costs, which have mostly been ignored in the literature. In 1985 the doyen of Indian strategic analysts, K. Subrahmanyam wrote that the NPT was a means for the nuclear weapons states to legitimize their nuclear arsenals, license further unlimited vertical proliferation, and establish hegemony over the development of nuclear technology in the developing world (Subrahmanyam, 1985). In a strategic culture such as this, any government that accedes to the NPT exposes itself to substantial symbolic political costs. A more narrow political concern is that, as with any other international treaty whose fulfillment requires regular inspections, NPT obligations relating to reporting and the facilitation of international inspections impose financial costs which some countries feel more keenly than others. Some countries have also worried about 10 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR possible industrial espionage during inspections. Brazil, for example, recently balked at inspection of its centrifuge technology, claiming that providing full and open access would jeopardize commercial and technological advantages hard won by Brazilian researchers and companies. Nuclear science is seen as a field where ongoing research and development are essential to keep up in the race. While the NPT bargain claims to facilitate progress in nuclear technology, countries may be skeptical about this, and worry about the opportunity costs of restricting indigenous technological development. This concern can be especially salient for developing countries striving to join the club of technologically advanced industrial (or post-industrial) economies, such as India or Brazil. Benefits of signing the NPT Security benefits The NPT does not have an explicit security guarantee built into it, and this has often been cited by critics as a fatal flaw in its design. Some NWS have, however, given an assurance that they will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear signatory to the treaty. Russia, for example, pledged in 1993 not to use nuclear weapons against NPT signatory countries, and the United States made a similar pledge in 1997.5 In addition, the nuclear weapons states, through a 1968 Security Council Resolution, promised to come to the aid of a NNWS threatened with nuclear weapons. However, this guarantee is problematic, since such action would be subject to a veto by the NWS who are permanent members of the Council. 5 The US pledge, issued in a Presidential Decision Directive, contains the caveat that nuclear weapons may be used against a non-nuclear state in defense of American territory or troops. The Russian pledge is more restrictive, reserving the option to use nuclear weapons only in response to an attack on Russia by a non-nuclear weapon state in concert with a nuclear-armed state. ❖ 11 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Aside from formal institutional guarantees, the NPT may provide a tool for countries that wish to signal peaceful intentions, perhaps in trying to de-escalate an enduring rivalry. By formally eschewing the nuclear option, a state can credibly demonstrate a commitment to alleviating tensions, potentially easing the security dilemma of its neighbors and avoiding a costly arms race. For example, signing the NPT was seen as a firm signal of resolve to change policy priorities on the part of the new civilian governments in Brazil and Argentina, reducing tensions in their sometimes rocky relationship (Solingen, 1998). In a similar fashion, accessions by Germany and by Japan to the treaty were seen at that time as a final marker of their pacification and renunciation of militarism. Economic benefits On the economic front, the core of the NPT bargain is access to nuclear energy technology, with all the concomitant economic benefits, to states that would otherwise be unable to develop a civilian nuclear infrastructure. Furthermore, signatories to the NPT, having signaled their peaceful intentions, are more likely to be exempted from export control regimes relating to dual-use technology, such as CoCom or the Nuclear Suppliers Group, further facilitating their development of nuclear power as an energy source. Less transparently, it has often been alleged that economic aid, both bilateral and multilateral, is used as a carrot to induce countries to join the NPT regime. When this is the case, states can receive direct economic benefits from accession to the treaty. For instance, the US threatened to block IMF loans to Pakistan until the latter made some movement towards signing the NPT. Countries may also receive concessions in other areas as a reward for signing the NPT. Many observers believe, for example, that the nuclear powers provide NPT signatories with favored access to conventional arms. In short, multilateral loans and aid, trade 12 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR agreements, and conventional arms trade can all be linked to a county’s stance towards the NPT, providing benefits for signatories and posing opportunity costs for hold-outs. Political Benefits On the domestic political front, governments may use the NPT to downgrade the status and power of their rivals, as Fernando Collor and Carlos Menem did in Latin America. In addition, for governments with an uncertain hold on power, signing an international treaty may provide an effective way to bind their successors. By signing the NPT, governments can raise the costs of pursuing nuclear weapons for future governments. Moreover, domestic antinuclear constituencies may be strengthened by accession, furthering the “lock-in” effect of making an international commitment. In short, political volatility may actually induce governments to join the NPT. Domestic political benefits for joining the NPT may also be greater for governments in democracies. The literatures on the democratic peace and legalization in international politics both suggest that states tend to externalize their domestic conflict resolution procedures. The essence of democracy is rule of law, and it is thus not surprising that domestic political constituencies in democracies would push for greater legalization of the international realm, delivering greater rewards to governments that join and promote legalized international institutions (Kahler, 2000). Finally, for many countries signing the NPT provides status benefits that derive from a sense that they have joined the mainstream of international society. It has been suggested that a ‘nuclear taboo’ begun to grow steadily in strength fairly soon after the invention of nuclear weapons (Tannenwald, 1999). Especially after the end of the Cold War, attempts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction have been seen as a marker of ‘rogueness,’ in con- ❖ 13 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? trast to earlier periods in which acquisition of nuclear arms was often seen as a marker of modernity. Signing the NPT may thus provide diplomatic benefits in the form of coveted recognition as a “modern” state. Data Dependent Variable: NPT Signing and Ratification Accession to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is our dependent variable. We collected data on signing and ratification dates from the United Nations. Our analysis below focuses on ratification dates, although results are very similar if signing dates are used instead. We do so because it is the decision to ratify the NPT that has often proved particularly contentious and subject to delay. South Korea, for example, signed the treaty quickly in 1969, but deferred ratifying it in order to keep its nuclear options open, finally ratifying the treaty only under extreme pressure from the United States in 1975. 14 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR As a preliminary, let us examine patterns over time and across regions in ratification of the NPT. The treaty opened for signature and ratification in 1968, and by 1998 (the end point of our analysis) nearly all sovereign states had acceded.6 Figure 1 plots the spread of the NPT across the globe over this period. The solid line records the cumulative number of states that had ratified the treaty by a given year against the left-hand axis. The dotted line reflects the percentage of all possible members ratifying the treaty, plotted against the right-hand axis. As Figure 1 indicates, after an initial rush to ratify the treaty, the number of member states expands in an almost perfectly linear progression from 1970 to 1991. Then in 1992 another rush to ratify occurs, as the Soviet successor states join the NPT in large numbers. The percentage of eligible states belonging shows a similar pattern: it jumps up from zero to over 40 per cent in the first three years, and then follows a steady linear expansion until 1991. At that time, the percentage dips – reflecting the increase in the number of eligible states following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the break-up of Yugoslavia – only to continue its upward path as the successor states signed on quickly. By 1998, 96 per cent of eligible states were parties to the NPT. While the world-wide story is one of a steady spread of the NPT, regional differences in the rate of spread are apparent. Figure 2 provides a glimpse at this pattern. For each of five regions, it plots the percentage of eligible states within the region that had ratified the treaty by 1985. Globally, 75 per cent of eligible states had signed the treaty by 1985; this is portrayed by the dotted horizontal line in Figure 2. In Europe, the rate is above the world-wide average, with nearly 85 per cent of eligible states on board by 1985. The accession rate is also slightly above the overall average in Asia, a fact that is somewhat surprising given the number of well known NPT hold-outs in the region: India, China, North Korea, and 6 By 2001, only Cuba, India, Israel, and Pakistan had declined to sign, providing the NPT with the widest scope of participation of any arms control treaty in history. ❖ 15 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Burma among them. In Africa and the Americas, the take-up rate is nearly indistinguishable from the overall average; both achieve approximately 75 per cent coverage by the mid 1980s. The Middle East provides the major outlier, with an accession rate about a third lower than the world average: only about 50 per cent of eligible states had ratified the NPT in this strife-torn region by 1985. Although there are noticeable regional differences, in general the global march towards NPT accession is surprisingly uniform across different geographic areas. 16 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR Explanatory Variables: Economic, Security, and Political In accord with our cost/benefit framework, we group proxy explanatory variables under the headings of economic, security, and political variables. While we cannot find proxies for all of the factors discussed above, we do have measures for the most important variables. Table 1 summarizes the variables and theoretical expectations. ❖ 17 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Economic Variables Level of development. We use two variables to tap level of economic development: gross domestic product per capita and energy consumption per capita. Whereas aggregate economic size indicates total resources available, per capita GDP more accurately reflects level of economic development, which is most closely linked to the sophisticated technical, engineering, and manufacturing knowledge necessary for the development and construction of nuclear arms. Purchasing power parity GDP data is taken from version 6.1 of the Penn World Tables (Heston, Summers, & Aten, 2002).7 We supplement this with data on energy consumption per capita, drawing on version 3.01 of the Correlates of War project’s national material capabilities dataset (Singer, 1987). We expect a negative coefficient on the economic development variables because more developed countries are giving up a potentially attractive policy option by signing the NPT. Industrial Capacity Index. To tap the level development of industrial capabilities useful for a nuclear weapons program, we created a simple three-step index based on electricity generating capacity and steel production. This variable takes on a value of one if a country both produces steel domestically and has installed electricity generating capacity greater than 5,000 MW, two if it both produces more than 5,000 metric tons of steel and has electrical generating capacity in excess of 10,000 MW, and zero otherwise.8 As with GDP, we 7 8 18 For countries not covered by the Penn World Tables, we turned to Angus Maddison’s data of purchasing power parity GDP covering 124 countries from 1950 to 1998 (Maddison, 2002), converting his data from base year 1990 to 1996 for comparability with the PWT data. For countries still not covered by either of these sources, we drew on Gleditsch’s expansion of the IMF’s GDP data (Gleditsch, 2002). To create the index, we used data on electricity generating capacity from the United Nations (Energy Statistics Yearbook, various; Statistical Yearbook, various) and on steel production from the Correlates of War project’s Composite Index of Capabilities (Singer, Bremer, & Stuckey, 1972), extracted using EUGene (Bennett & Stam, 2000), and updated through 2000 using the United Nations Statistics Yearbook. ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR expect a negative coefficient; the opportunity cost of signing the NPT (in terms of the ease with which nuclear weapons could be developed) is higher for more industrially developed states. Electricity Demand/Needs. Countries with “unusually” high electricity demands would presumably find the NPT bargain more attractive. To create a proxy for high electricity needs, we regressed electricity consumption on variables for size of population and the economy.9 The residuals from this regression can be interpreted as “unusually” high or low electricity demand; we expect them to be positively related to likelihood of signing the NPT. Security Variables Enduring Rivalry. While perceptions of security threats can vary substantially, participation in an enduring rivalry can be safely taken as an indicator of a significant security threat, especially since the vast majority of wars and militarized disputes occur in the context of enduring rivalries (Diehl, 1998). Drawing on Bennett’s (1998) coding for enduring rivalries and their dates, we create a dichotomous variable indicating whether or not a state was involved in one or more enduring rivalries in a given year. Giving up the nuclear option is costly for countries in an enduring rivalry, so we expect a negative coefficient. Frequency of Dispute Involvement. As an alternate measure of intensity of the security threat, we calculated the five-year moving average of the number of militarized interstate disputes per year in which a state is involved, drawing on Version 3.0 of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) dataset (Ghosn & Palmer, 2003). As with enduring rivalries, we expect a negative coefficient: states with a recent history of frequent MIDs pay a higher cost in giving up the atomic option. 9 The fit from the this regression was excellent, with an R2 of just over .9. ❖ 19 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? Security Guarantee. The allure of nuclear weapons as an avenue to security may be attenuated by a security guarantee, in the form of a defense pact, from a nuclear-armed great power. A pact thus reduces the costs of acceding to the NPT. Drawing on Singer and Small’s (1982) standard list of great powers, we count the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom (from 1952), France (from 1960), and China (from 1964) as nuclear-capable great power allies. Basing our coding on version 3.0 of the Correlates of War alliance dataset (Gibler & Sarkees, 2002), we count only defense pacts as providing significant security guarantees, deeming ententes and neutrality treaties insufficiently reassuring to elide the temptation for an insecure state to pursue nuclear weapons.10 Political Variables Democracy. We use the Polity IV data (Jaggers & Gurr, 1995) to test suspicions that democracies may be quicker to sign the NPT than authoritarian states. Our measure assesses democracy for each country-year: we create a derived measure of the level of democracy within each state by combining the two separate eleven-point scales for democracy and autocracy from Polity IV: demi = democi autoci. Political Volatility. Higher levels of political uncertainty may encourage governments to join the NPT today in effort to tie the hands of tomorrow’s leaders. To tap volatility, we created an index of the frequency, over the preceding 10 years, of changes in government and regime-type characteristics, drawing on regime-type data from Polity IV (Jaggers & Gurr, 1995) and newly available leadership data. 10 20 Alliance data was extracted using the Eugene software program (Bennett & Stam, 2000). ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR Satisfaction with US Leadership. The United States is the chief “promoter” of the NPT, so it stands to reason that closer ties with the US would both make shared preferences more likely and render a country more responsive to diplomatic suasion. Yet coming up with an indicator for satisfaction with US leadership covering 175 countries for 30 years poses insurmountable difficulties. As a proxy for satisfaction with the international status quo, we employ the Sindex measure (Signornino & Ritter, 1999) of the similarity between alliance portfolios. This compares each country’s alliance portfolio with that of the United States, taken to be the global hegemon throughout the period under consideration. Although this is a crude proxy, we suspect that similarity of alliance portfolios is correlated with satisfaction with US leadership, providing a reasonable, albeit far from perfect, indicator. Quantitative Results Methods We employ event history models to evaluate the usefulness of our cost-benefit approach to understanding decisions to sign the NPT. Event history models – also called survival, hazard, or duration models – provide estimates of the probability of an event occurring at a particular time, given that it has not yet happened (Allison, 1984; Box-Steffensmeier & Jones, 1997). For our topic, the relevant question is: how likely is a country to sign the NPT in a given year, given that it has not done so up until this point? In the language of event history analysis, this probability is given by the hazard rate, which tells us the “risk” that a country will sign the NPT in a given year. Event history models can be either parametric, requiring the specification of a particular distributional form (such as the Weibull, exponential, or Gompertz) for the baseline ❖ 21 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? hazard function, or semi-parametric, allowing one to avoid making such assumptions when there is no strong a priori reason to favor one distributional form over another. In order to facilitate the inclusion of both time-invariant and time-varying variables, we estimate parametric hazard models using a Weibull distribution to characterize the baseline hazard function.11 The hazard rate is then given by: h(t|xj) = ptp-1exp (`0 + xjBx) where h(t) is the hazard rate, t is time, and `0 + xjBx are the estimated coefficients and variables. P is a shape parameter estimated from the data: when p equals one, the baseline hazard is constant over time; if p is less than one, it is decreases monotonically; and if p is greater than one, hazard increases with time at risk. Since survival models are non-linear, interpretation of coefficients is not straightforward. Unlike those in standard OLS regression models, the beta coefficients do not represent the marginal effect on the dependent variable of a one-unit change in the independent variable. To ease interpretation, we estimate the models in both standard and log relative-hazard forms; in the latter case, the coefficient can be read as the number by which we would multiply the odds of, for example, ratifying the NPT in a given year for a one-unit increase in the independent variable. More specifically, the coefficient can be read as the number by which we would multiply the odds of signing the NPT for a one-unit increase in the independent variable. For example, a coefficient of 3 on the democracy dummy variable would imply a 200% increase in the likelihood of signing the NPT (in other words, the chance is three times as great). In interpreting results, we present the coefficients and their standard errors in the tables, but discuss these relative 11 22 Since parametric models derived from contending distributions are non-nested, we used the Akaike information criteria to assess the relative appropriateness of models using exponential, Weibull, Gompertz, log-logistic, and log-normal distributions. ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR risks in the text in order to ease interpretation of the substantive meaning of the findings. Results To explore decisions to sign the NPT, we estimated a series of models with the variables in our cost-benefit framework. For the hazard models, durations consist of strings of country-years. When a country ratifies the NPT, it exits the risk pool and thus the analysis. In principle, a country can re-enter the risk pool if it withdraws from the NPT: at this point, it is again deemed “at risk” and can choose to re-enter the regime. In practice, however, only North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT, and it did so after the end-date of our analysis.12 We first explored the effects of variables representing the three types of costs and benefits – economic, security, and political – separately, and then combined variables from all three approaches in a comprehensive model. Before turning to the details, it is worth noting that the shape parameter, p, is greater than one in all of the models that follow. This indicates that the hazard rate increases over time after entry into the risk pool; countries that initially hold out are increasingly likely to sign on over time.13 Table Two presents the estimates of the hazard models featuring, in turn, each set of variables: economic, security, political, and all together. Starting with model one, economic variables have strong and significant effects on the hazard rate. More developed countries, as proxied by greater energy consumption per capita and higher scores on the industrial development index, were less likely to sign the treaty quickly. The pattern of coefficients on GDP per 12 13 Since our unit of analysis is years, we do not count North Korea’s earlier, monthslong withdrawal from the NPT in 1993. In the language of event history analysis, this means there is positive duration dependence in the conditional probability of exiting the state of non-signatory. ❖ 23 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? capita suggests a non-linear relationship between level of development and willingness to sign the treaty: at low levels of GDP, further economic growth steadily increases the likelihood a country will sign the NPT; yet at high levels of development, the effect lev- 24 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR els off and then reverses, as very high levels of income are associated with reduced likelihood. Reflecting the logic of the core NPT bargain, countries with high energy needs – as measured by higher energy consumption than is predicted from population and economic data – are more likely to sign the treaty quickly (presumably because nuclear energy is more attractive to them), an effect that is significant at better than the 1% level. In sum, the more developed the economy, the more hesitant was the country to sign the NPT, and the greater the need for electricity generating capacity, the more eager it was to sign on. Model Two focuses on the security environment. Here we expect that the opportunity costs of joining the NPT are higher for states facing a challenging security environment, disposing them to be NPT laggards. This logic gains considerable support from the hazard estimations. Participation in an enduring rivalry sharply lowers the likelihood a state will join the NPT in a given year, and the negative coefficient is significant at better than the 5 per cent level. In addition, more frequent militarized dispute involvement in the recent past reduces the likelihood of signing the NPT. Model 2 provides a hint that great power security guarantees can reduce the opportunity costs of signing away the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons: a defense pact with a nuclear-armed power increasing the predicted probability of signing the NPT, although with a p-value of only .17 the coefficient is not significant by traditional criteria. The third grouping of variables taps political variables. In accord with expectations, more democratic polities are more likely to sign onto the NPT quickly, an effect that is significant at better than the 1 per cent level. More surprisingly, greater political volatility over the past 10 years is associated with a greater likelihood of signing the NPT. Instead of leading to political paralysis, as one might conjecture, greater volatility in leaderships and regime type characteristics is associated with a greater likelihood of deciding to ❖ 25 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? commit to the NPT.14 Finally, our crude proxy for satisfaction with the United States – tapped by similarity of alliance portfolios, which one might suspect captures similarity of preferences and interests as well as greater susceptibility to US diplomatic pressure – provides a surprise with a negative coefficient, although it falls short of statistical significance. The comprehensive model reported in column four reinforces most of these relationships, and controlling for political, economic, and security variables all together pushes some variables over the threshold of statistical significance. Perhaps most importantly, a defense pact with a nuclear power now has a significantly positive effect on the likelihood of signing the NPT. A great power security guarantee reduces the opportunity costs of giving up the nuclear option, rendering states more willing to accept the NPT bargain. However, the puzzle posed by the “satisfaction with the US” variable is heightened as the coefficient remains negative but now attains statistical significance.15 Our explorations have turned up many statistically significant variables, but what of their substantive significance in shaping the likelihood that a state is a NPT leader or laggard? Drawing on relative risk ratios, Table 3 interprets the substantive role played by each variable in the decision to join the NPT regime.16 The entries represent the percent change in the baseline hazard rate for a given change in the explanatory variable. For example, a country with a nuclear power military alliance has a predicted likelihood of signing 14 15 16 26 One might suspect this result derives from transitions towards democracy (with South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina’s accessions to the NPT serving as prime examples). However, this is not the case: a variable tapping democratic transitions is not significant. We suspect that this result may derive from our focus on the United States as the chief promoter of the NPT. After China’s development of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union was also an ardent supporter of the NPT up until the end of the Cold War. If the Soviet Union was more successful than the US in encouraging its allies to sign the NPT quickly, it would not be surprising that affinity with the US is not connected with quicker accession. Table 3 is derived from the results of the comprehensive model in Table 2. ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR the NPT in a given year 63% greater than a similar country without an alliance. On the other hand, participation in an enduring rivalry reduces the hazard rate by 35%, and involvement in two additional militarized disputes over the past five years reduces the likelihood a country signs the NPT by 40%. The economic ❖ 27 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? variables have effects of similar magnitude. Increasing energy consumption per capita by one standard deviation reduces the likelihood of signing by a relatively modest 15%, but taking a step up the industrial development index cuts the predicted hazard in half, reducing it by 50%. A country with electricity demand one standard deviation above average is 36% more likely to sign onto the NPT. The final three rows reveal that political variables also play a non-trivial role. Increasing the 20-point by democracy index by ten increases the predicted likelihood of joining the NPT by 44%. Political volatility plays a smaller role: increasing the volatility index by one standard deviation increases the hazard by 13%. Finally, greater similarity of alliance portfolios with the United States surprisingly reduces the likelihood that a country signs the NPT in a given year by 30%. Leaders and Laggards These results strongly suggest that hesitation to sign the NPT is closely related to a country’s willingness and ability to acquire nuclear weapons. States paying higher opportunity costs in giving up the nuclear option – that is, those facing severe security challenges and for whom developing and fielding weapons would be relatively easy – are cautious to sign on. On the other hand, states giving up little by forgoing nuclear weapons – those enjoying benign security environments or for whom developing weapons would be technologically too difficult or too expensive – sign on relatively quickly. One way of exploring further this relationship is to look at cases where the models miss by a substantial amount: that is, which countries did not join the NPT quickly although the models suggest they should have, and which countries did join more quickly than the model anticipates. We dub the former countries NPT laggards since they were surprisingly slow to join and the latter NPT leaders since they were surprisingly quick to join. 28 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR To this end, Table 4 lists the top NPT leaders and laggards. To identify leaders and laggards, we used the comprehensive model from Table 2 to calculate the median number of years a country is expected to take to sign the NPT; in other words, the model predicts a 50% likelihood of signing in less than the median number of years and a 50% chance of signing in more than the median number of years.17 We then compared the median expected time to 17 In the language of survival analysis, this is the predicted median survival time. It is calculated from the quantile function for an accelerated failure time estimation of the hazard models. ❖ 29 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? sign with the actual time to sign; countries taking more than twice the median number of years to sign were dubbed laggards, and countries taking less than a third of the median number of years were labeled leaders.18 Among the surprisingly quick joiners, we find Cambodia, Jordan, Peru, the Soviet Union, Syria, Yugoslavia, and Zaire. An immediate pattern is apparent: most of the countries who signed more quickly than anticipated were involved in enduring rivalries or otherwise difficult security situations. Syria and Jordan were embroiled in an ongoing rivalry with Israel and, moreover, Israel was widely rumored to be on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Having little hope of matching Israel on the nuclear front, signing the NPT may have been a way to seize the moral high ground and hopefully forestall Israel from going nuclear. The Soviet Union, of course, was a nuclear power at the time of the NPT’s founding and thus faced little disincentive to joining, something not taken into account by our estimation.19 The other four all faced significant tensions with neighbors – Peru with Ecuador, Zaire with South Africa, Cambodia with Thailand and Vietnam, Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union – and may have wished to reduce the risk of an arms race by signaling intentions of restraint.20 In sum, for all seven of these leaders, it is plausible that nuances of their security situation not captured by our indicators provide a reason for their alacrity in acceding to the NPT. If we turn the question around and look at countries that took an unexpectedly long time to join the NPT (or that have yet to do 18 19 20 30 Neither list in Table 4 is exhaustive of leaders or laggards thus defined; however, the most dramatic cases are all listed in Table 4. Of course the same could be said for France and China, both of whom deferred signing for over two decades. It is worth noting that although Yugoslavia ratified the NPT in 1970, it seriously considered re-starting its dormant nuclear weapons program after India’s detonation in 1974. ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR so), the list is reassuringly comprehensible.21 Many of these countries have pursued nuclear weapons at various times; given a demonstrated interest in nuclear weapons, their resistance to the NPT is hardly surprising. Argentina, Algeria, Israel, and Pakistan have all pursued nuclear weapons in the NPT era. Israel and Pakistan have both acquired weapons, and thus their accession to the NPT would either require them to give up nuclear arms or force a modification of the regime to recognize new nuclear weapons states. Argentina only signed after giving up its nuclear aspirations following major political upheaval and regime change, and Algeria signed only under great duress (and the genuineness of its commitment to the NPT has been questioned). Albania and Cuba seldom participate in international regimes – especially those promoted primarily by the United States – for reasons not captured by our model, and France resisted both to protect the commercial freedom of its substantial nuclear energy industry and for symbolic reasons. In short, most of the outliers in our model were laggards for a good reasons: they had a strong interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, and were loathe to give that up by joining the NPT. Conclusions The nonproliferation regime is one of the most important efforts at international cooperation today, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of that regime. Understanding why and when countries sign it is of utmost importance. The NPT commands near-universal adherence. With very few known exceptions, its signatories have not pursued nuclear weapons. It is therefore hard to test whether signing the NPT itself 21 One missing country is worth noting: China does not appear as a laggard because our model correctly predicts a hesitance to join. India is another laggard that is not a surprise in the context of our model (although interesting Pakistan is an outlier). ❖ 31 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? makes any difference to countries’ decisions to pursue nuclear weapons. In our future work we plan to use both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer this important but complex question. For now, we suggest that the results presented in this paper provide important hints towards the answer. We ask: what explains the large variance in willingness to sign the NPT? If the behavior of potential signatories does not reflect the logic of the bargain offered by the NPT, we would begin to suspect that the NPT does not work in the way that it was intended to function, bolstering suspicions that it is an ineffective paper tiger with little real importance. In fact we find that a cost-benefit framework reflecting the logic of the NPT bargain can explain much of the variance in signing the NPT. Specifically, states that have serious security concerns are less likely to sign the NPT, states with high energy needs are more likely to sign it, and states that could easily develop atomic weapons at low cost are more reluctant to join. Thus, it seems that states believe that the NPT does have an effect. They do not treat it as a paper tiger. In effect, reactions to the NPT appear to “sort” states according to their interest in nuclear weapons; the NPT may function as a mechanism for inducing states to reveal their preferences over nuclear arms. While we do not claim that this is conclusive proof that the NPT stops countries from going nuclear, we do suggest that since countries that have good reasons to want nuclear weapons hesitate to sign the treaty, we should give it the benefit of the doubt. Another concern of ours is to identify ‘leaders’ and ‘laggards’. The decisions of some countries to stay out of the NPT when our variables suggest that they should (and those of countries that join more quickly than predicted) can tell us about things that the conventional wisdom may have omitted. We see that several countries have joined the treaty even when they did not have alliances with NWS great powers, and were facing security threats, and/or when they had high energy needs. Why is this so? What motivates these 32 ❖ CHRISTOPHER WAY AND KARTHIKA SASIKUMAR NPT “leaders”? We hypothesize that the NPT becomes a strategic resource for these countries. They signal their peaceful intentions and try to garner international support with their renunciatory act. States may use the NPT as a resource for strategic signaling of their preferences or attempting to gain the normative higher ground against rivals. This ‘role’ of the NPT may be something that requires further investigation. We also suggest that we can account for laggards by looking at security and economic considerations. Scholars and policymakers often claim that misguided notions of grandeur or vested interests at the domestic level are responsible for states’ hesitation to sign the NPT. But in fact there may be rational reasons for them not to do, which are related to the very real ‘efficacy’ of the NPT. If the NPT actually poses costly constraints, then states with plausible reasons to keep the nuclear option open are quite prudent in spurring the NPT. The identities of the NPT “laggards” identified by our model support this interpretation. Finally, we leave for future research the question of time-period specific effects on the functioning of the NPT. Early in the regime’s history, nuclear energy was perceived as a great economic boon that would help solve the world’s energy problems and provide poorer countries with a source of abundant, cheap, and safe electricity. In later decades, it became apparent that these expectations had been over-optimistic, and nuclear energy’s economic appeal declined. The practical consequence of this development was to change the costs and benefits of the core NPT bargain. In addition, early in regime’s life nuclear weapons were often perceived as a marker of modernity, something that conferred status and prestige upon their possessors. Towards the end of the century, the symbolic meaning of nuclear weapons had changed: now their pursuit was seen as a marker of “rogueness” and nuclear forbearance was seen by many as a marker of maturity and modernity. This change too may have ❖ 33 LEADERS AND LAGGARDS: WHEN AND WHY DO COUNTRIES SIGN THE NPT? changed the relative attractiveness of the NPT bargain for many states. What are the policy implications of our findings? First, we suggest that in order to strengthen the treaty its basic bargain needs to be reaffirmed. While the promise of nuclear technology – power too cheap to meter – has not been fulfilled, there are several fields in which the application of this technology could greatly benefit developing countries. Supporters of the treaty should not hesitate to continue cooperation with adequate safeguards. Second, this implies that proposals that would dilute this basic bargain may weaken incentives to continue adherence. Thus recent US proposals to cut off nuclear cooperation may severely undermine the treaty. 34 ❖