Alliance Credibility and Nuclear Pursuit: Survey Experiment in South Korea

• In Event: Poster Session: Innovations in the Study of Foreign Policy

Abstract

The proposed paper examines one of the most important—but understudied—concepts that can impact the strength of a security alliance: alliance credibility. It updates the existing research on credibility to better explain what determines alliance credibility and when and how alliance credibility changes. By focusing on the historical case of South Korea’s pursuit of a clandestine nuclear program in the 1970s, the research provides an analysis of U.S. crisis management in the 1960s and how that influenced the perception of alliance credibility that led to nuclear pursuit. In addition to the case study, the paper presents the result from survey experiments from South Korea where elites and public received cues from different crisis scenarios in which the nuclear capable ally demonstrates different crisis behaviors. The paper’s theory and results build on a growing number of findings that the lack of alliance is an important pathway towards nuclear pursuit as opposed to an adversary’s threat. The paper ends with implications for the U.S. alliance credibility and management as well as non-proliferation policy.

Author

• Jooeun Kim, Council on Foreign Relations