210061 LK BAK8: LK Theorie und Empirie Internationaler Politik (2017S)

Ever since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear proliferation has mostly been seen as an almost inevitable if not natural process. Given the expectation that any state capable of building the bomb would, at some point, do so, forecasts made by governmental agencies as well as independent pundits have usually been too pessimistic about the future course of proliferation anticipating nuclear tipping points or chain reactions in various parts of the world. If one closely looks at the historical record, however, proliferation has been the exception rather than the rule. Only nine countries possess nuclear weapons while the nature of Iran’s nuclear activities and ambitions remains contested. Many countries that have the capability to build the bomb have foregone nuclear weaponization. Others have even given up an existing stockpile. The question students of international relations have to answer is, “why?”. So far, different schools of thought have offered varying explanations and identified a whole set of factors that seem to play into nuclear decision-making. However, overall, the explanations put forward remain as contested as the future course of proliferation as such.

This course will supplement the lecture series “Internationale Politik” (note that the first half of the course will be devoted to issues and topics dealt with in this VO) and look into the phenomenon of proliferation (in the second half of the term). It will first explore and discuss as to what theories of international relations (neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, constructivist approaches, democratic peace thesis, regime survival thesis) have to offer in terms of explaining and forecasting these phenomena. So, the role of security and power considerations, domestic challenges and priorities, institutional and regime constraints, as well as of norms and status and prestige thinking will be scrutinized and highlighted. In a next step, these theories will be applied to and tested against a number of case studies. Overall, this course will advance students’ familiarity with and understanding of a major issue area of international relations, related theoretical approaches and empirical findings.