States’ Motivations to Acquire or Forgo Nuclear Weapons: Four Factors of Influence

Abstract

This article contributes to answering a key question in the field of nuclear weapons proliferation: why do states wish for nuclear weapons, or not? Without understanding what motivates states to aim for or refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons, it is complicated to forecast nuclear proliferation dynamics and to develop policies aimed at influencing these dynamics. Instead of developing a new theory, this article aims at increasing the insights in the large amount of existing theories on nuclear proliferation motivations by grouping the many theories into only four factors of influence. This meta-analysis could be helpful to policy makers and future researchers who got lost in the current richness of theories and their critics.