The objective of this thesis is to determine why Canada, a state that pioneered nuclear technology, and that faced, throughout the Cold War, the Soviet threat to its national security, consistently rejected any opportunity to convert its latent nuclear capability into an indigenous nuclear weapons program. The answer to this research question must address a number of explicit contradictions in Canadian foreign policy. While Canada has, on the one hand, rejected the bomb, it has, on the other hand, pursued defence and industrial policies based upon intimate involvement with nuclear weapons. Moreover, Canada espouses, on the one hand, a clearly realpolitik view of international relations, while, on the other hand, committing to forging for itself a role as an international peace broker. It becomes, therefore, unclear which theory of international relations could adequately explain this dualism in Canadian policy formulation. This thesis argues that power and self-interest are not separable from Canada's decision to reject the bomb, and that by modifying certain precepts of realist theory, we may substantiate the hypotheses that two disincentives to proliferation are at the root of Canada's policies: first, Canada's political and geographical proximity to the United States and thus a credible U.S. nuclear umbrella; and second, prestige, where Canada interpreted both the rejection of its nuclear option and its internationalist policies as a sign of independence vis-a-vis the United States.

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This thesis presents a foreign policy decision-making analysis of Kazakhstan's foreign relations in the initial post-independence period. The study applies a neoclassical realist theoretical framework in order to provide the understanding of Kazakhstan's external behaviour. The thesis conceptually assumes that the integration of the presidential decision-making element in the analysis of the republic's foreign policy is essential to account for Kazakhstan's foreign strategies, which would otherwise appear to be anomalous from the deterministic perspective of the structural theories of international relations. The set objective of the work is to produce a theoretically informed historical narratives of Almaty's policymaking during three episodes in the republic's diplomatic history – the elaboration of a distinct balancing strategy; the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal; and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace mission. The reconstruction of events behind the decisions made by president Nursultan Nazarbayev and his key advisors through the assessment of primary materials sourced from the archives of Kazakhstani foreign policy demonstrates that foreign decision-making process played a crucial role in the identification of national interests and development of appropriate policy responses in each of the episodes under examination. Chapter IV illustrates how the nation's policymakers developed a unique balancing strategy to ascertain the country's sovereignty and eliminate security risks under overwhelming geopolitical pressures that emanated from Russia and China. Chapter V discusses the episode when Nazarbayev was subjected to direct international pressure to surrender the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal on the terms imposed by the USA, in response to which Nazarbayev devised a deliberately ambivalent and protracted strategy in regard to the republic's nuclear status. Chapter VI reveals the adaptability of the republic's policymaking to the changing international context as the regression of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace initiative demonstrates. The exposition of intricate policy planning and profound diplomatic endeavours reflected in archival documents reinforces the thesis's premise about the non-deterministic nature of Kazakhstan's foreign policy.

The objectives of the study were to demonstrate that South Africa's decisions to develop and destroy its nuclear weapon capability were influenced by reactions to domestic security and other issues unrelated to security. South Africa obtained a nuclear weapon capacity because of an incremental approach to the nuclear weapon decision. The threat perceptions in the mind of the decision maker were also dominant factors, especially when the final decision for a nuclear deterrent was taken. The decision to destroy the nuclear weapon capacity was not primarily influenced by the growing non-proliferation norm, but by the changing security environment regionally as well as globally and possibly a realisation that a nuclear weapon capability was a significant security and financial liability for South Africa in the end. / Political Science / M.A. (International Politics)

The objectives of the study were to demonstrate that South Africa's decisions to develop and destroy its nuclear weapon capability were influenced by reactions to domestic security and other issues unrelated to security. South Africa obtained a nuclear weapon capacity because of an incremental approach to the nuclear weapon decision. The threat perceptions in the mind of the decision maker were also dominant factors, especially when the final decision for a nuclear deterrent was taken. The decision to destroy the nuclear weapon capacity was not primarily influenced by the growing non-proliferation norm, but by the changing security environment regionally as well as globally and possibly a realisation that a nuclear weapon capability was a significant security and financial liability for South Africa in the end. / Political Science / M.A. (International Politics)

Strategic upheavals, such as the emergence or disappearance of geopolitical threats or radical technological changes, generate profound uncertainty and intense debate about a state’s future strategy. How do decisionmakers reexamine and revise strategy amidst these upheavals? Existing theories of strategic change recognize the significance of upheavals, but raise questions about the mechanisms by which decisionmakers embrace or discard new ideas about strategy. contend that understanding strategic change requires attention to narratives––stories about the past and present of international politics that suggest legitimate pathways for future action. I develop a theory of narrative emergence, positing that after upheavals, national security elites compete to mobilize support for their vision of future policy. They use public and private debates to legitimate their positions and build domestic coalitions. I identify four rhetorical strategies––persuasion, rhetorical coercion, co-optation, and transgression––that have different effects in mobilizing or demobilizing coalitions. If one coalition builds cross-cutting support, this can entrench their rhetoric in public discourse over time as part of a dominant narrative that shapes subsequent strategy debates through constraining and enabling effects. I evaluate this theory in the context of two cases of strategic upheaval in the United States, focusing on the puzzles of U.S. nuclear strategy: the arrival of the atomic age and the achievement of strategic parity between the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals. In the first case, I use qualitative and text analysis to track the rise of a dominant narrative about nuclear weapons during the early Cold War. In this contradictory narrative which I label “Waging Deterrence,” the bomb was both an unusable, revolutionary deterrent and an essential tool for fighting and winning the next war. I draw on archival sources to trace the emergence of this narrative during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, showing this narrative was not predetermined, but contingent on domestic debates as speakers––Presidents, civilian advisors, military elites, and others––used rhetorical strategies in public and private to co-opt and silence opponents. This narrative constrained the possibilities for strategic revision during the later Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In the second case, parity’s mutual vulnerability upended this narrative; narratives remained unsettled until the Carter administration, where domestic legitimation contests facilitated the return of Waging Deterrence to justify competitive nuclear postures that had a lasting impact on U.S. nuclear strategy. The project offers a novel mechanism to understand strategic change and highlights the discursive and domestic politics of nuclear strategy, showing that foundational U.S. deterrence concepts emerged in part from domestic legitimation contests that rendered other options illegitimate. It also offers insights into policy debates about the future of nuclear and grand strategy amidst contemporary upheavals, suggesting contested processes of narrative construction will be central to shaping future strategy.