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This dissertation studies nuclear crisis behavior. Specifically, it theorizes behavior between middle powers with nuclear weapons that are nested within a world with larger hegemonic states. The situation represents a paradigm shift from the bipolar context of the Cold War where all nuclear crises involved one or both superpowers, thereby implying an absence of stronger third parties that could fundamentally alter their crisis behavior. We have focused on the India-Pakistan rivalry, and specifically on their three nuclear crises since South Asia's overt nuclearization: the 1999 Kargil crisis; the 2001-02 standoff; and the 2008 Mumbai crisis. These three case studies form the universe of crises between two middle power nuclear states with stronger third parties present to influence their behavior. Using the structured focused comparison method and relying on existing empirical analyses of these crises, interviews with relevant officials and experts, and newspaper archival research, we have process-traced the key developments in each crisis to identify the processes and mechanisms underpinning behavior. The dissertation argues that middle power nuclear crises ought to be seen as trilateral engagements that accord a key crisis management role to stronger third parties. Crisis behavior can be best understood through "brokered bargaining" - defined as a three-cornered bargaining exercise between the two principal antagonists and a third party which is primarily seeking crisis de-escalation. Brokered bargaining theory predicts that this three-cornered engagement will play out in the expected manner each time a middle power nuclear crisis occurs as long as the outside actors do not intervene as competitor third parties. We reject theories that posit the dynamics of bilateral nuclear deterrence as the principal drivers of de-escalation, and equally, analyses that see third parties as standalone explanations for peaceful outcomes. We contend that it is the process of trilateral interaction encompassed by the brokered bargaining model and marked by a recursive interplay of perceptions, expectations, incentives, and strategies of the three actors that shapes crisis behavior, and in turn, trajectories and outcomes. The research is generalizable to potential nuclear rivalries in the Middle East and remains relevant to the Sino-Indian dyad and rivalries on the Korean peninsula. / 2019-05-31

This doctoral thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and historical analysis of foreign policy behaviour of the principal states involved in nuclear talks on North Korea known as the Six-Party Talks (SPT). Despite the failure in achieving a primary objective of denuclearizing North Korea, the SPT were believed to provide interesting and informative cases to investigate dynamic interactions among states engaged in security talks with different motives and interests. For a holistic approach to foreign policy analysis, the thesis adopts a newly introduced theoretical framework called Interactionist Role Theory (IRT) which integrates the levels of analysis from individuals to international system by incorporating the concept of ‘roles’. Based on IRT, the thesis examines what drove the concerned states’ foreign policy shifts; what kinds of discrepancies the states experienced between or among competing roles (role conflicts); how successful their deliberate policy implementations were (role-makings); and what structural effects their foreign policy decisions had on the overall Six-Party Talks process. The thesis findings support the IRT premise that it is critical to understand a state’s perceived ideal roles to accurately identify the state’s motives for actions regarding particular foreign policy issues. The prevalence of inter-role conflicts at the time of states’ role-makings evinces that the SPT as social constraints did exert competing role expectations that challenged the member states’ role conceptions. Above all, the sequential analysis of the SPT process clearly shows the mutual influence between the member states (agents) and the SPT (social structure), which implies successful multilateral negotiations require reciprocal relations among participating states where all parties’ desired roles (role conceptions) are mutually verified and affirmed. The thesis is deemed to give insightful messages to conventional foreign policy readings that predominantly view the nuclear drama in the Northeast Asia region from a binary focus of US-DPRK mutual deterrence.

This doctoral thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and historical analysis of foreign policy behaviour of the principal states involved in nuclear talks on North Korea known as the Six-Party Talks (SPT). Despite the failure in achieving a primary objective of denuclearizing North Korea, the SPT were believed to provide interesting and informative cases to investigate dynamic interactions among states engaged in security talks with different motives and interests. For a holistic approach to foreign policy analysis, the thesis adopts a newly introduced theoretical framework called Interactionist Role Theory (IRT) which integrates the levels of analysis from individuals to international system by incorporating the concept of ‘roles’. Based on IRT, the thesis examines what drove the concerned states’ foreign policy shifts; what kinds of discrepancies the states experienced between or among competing roles (role conflicts); how successful their deliberate policy implementations were (role-makings); and what structural effects their foreign policy decisions had on the overall Six-Party Talks process. The thesis findings support the IRT premise that it is critical to understand a state’s perceived ideal roles to accurately identify the state’s motives for actions regarding particular foreign policy issues. The prevalence of inter-role conflicts at the time of states’ role-makings evinces that the SPT as social constraints did exert competing role expectations that challenged the member states’ role conceptions. Above all, the sequential analysis of the SPT process clearly shows the mutual influence between the member states (agents) and the SPT (social structure), which implies successful multilateral negotiations require reciprocal relations among participating states where all parties’ desired roles (role conceptions) are mutually verified and affirmed. The thesis is deemed to give insightful messages to conventional foreign policy readings that predominantly view the nuclear drama in the Northeast Asia region from a binary focus of US-DPRK mutual deterrence. / The full text has been embargoed.