Atomic Bonds: Elite Networks in the Global Nuclear Trade

• In Event: Shifting Nuclear Balance

Abstract

This article uses social network analysis to examine civilian reactor exports in strategic frontiers such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East and explain the puzzle of why some allies of the West are purchasing their reactors from its rivals instead and explore the significance of this phenomenon for great-power competition. Previous research on the global nuclear trade has focused exclusively on the proliferation risks associated with the exchange of reactor technology and the spread of fissile material and technical know-how. As important as they are, proliferation risks are not the only matter salient to nuclear reactor sales. The political and power implications of nuclear reactor sales are a curiously underexplored subject. It is only recently that the transnational actors and market processes underlying the global nuclear trade began to attract academic attention (e.g., Gheorghe, 2019). This is an important omission from both the security and the political economy literature. The ability to neutralize foreign competitors – especially in strategically sensitive sectors such as the nuclear industry – is a barometer of power and influence. I argue that nuclear reactor sales are not solely a strategic competition between states or a commercial rivalry between firms, but also a global competition for influence and power waged among transnational networks of political, bureaucratic, and business elites. I investigate the competing networks; map out their various interests, interactions, and relationships; and examine how they bear on nuclear procurement decisions. On this basis, I situate civil nuclear trade in "global power politics" (Goddard and Nexon, 2016) and explore whether such commerce is a "probing strategy" by revisionist powers such as Russia and China (Grygiel and Mitchell, 2016). This article is also the first to apply social network analysis - a method already used by nuclear proliferation scholars - to study the civil nuclear trade and its strategic effects. This article's findings generalize to other nuclear aspirants in strategic frontiers like the Middle East and Southeast Asia. They also offer empirical and policy-relevant insights on how the great-power competition between the U.S., Russia, and China is playing out globally.

Author

• Selim Can Sazak, Brown University