Inventing Proliferation: The Creation and Preservation of the Inevitable Spread of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

For over half a century, scholars have predicted vast, unstoppable nuclear proliferation. The world has experienced, in contrast, a relative lack of new nuclear states. This article uses constructivism to account for this enduring nuclear order. Its claim is that states create and ultimately preserve 'proliferation' as a real and known thing in a way that prompts others to embrace and respond properly to its presence by rejecting nuclear arms. The study first describes how states, diplomatically and rhetorically, created 'proliferation' and then suggests how - in a world without widespread proliferation - states sustain it. Finally, it situates this claim within the literature on constructivism, institutionalism and nuclear studies.