Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2022
The nuclear nonproliferation regime lacks formal enforcement mechanisms, but this does not mean that violations of nonproliferation commitments always go unpunished. States that violate the NPT routinely face pressure from others to change their behavior, including through economic sanctions. But the lack of formal enforcement measures does contribute to significant variation in the states that are targeted for punishment – enforcement is always at the discretion of the punishing state. Why do some states face punishment while the transgressions of others are overlooked? This chapter argues that enforcing states look to the policy preferences of violators for signals about the likelihood that enforcement will change state behavior and about the cost to the international community of allowing the violation to continue. Patterns of institutional membership within the larger regime help to credibly reveal the preferences of state parties. Using data on membership in the various agreements that make up the nuclear nonproliferation regime, this chapter shows that violating states are less likely to face costly enforcement action the more embedded they are within the regime.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.