Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East

This is one book that actually lives up to its marketing blurbs and publisher's review. The author starts out by reviewing existing theories for nuclear proliferation. She then poses her own theory that outside threats that provide an incentive for nuclearization and outside constraints working against nuclearization are all examined against and filtered through the domestic regime. Regimes that are authoritarian, autarkic and inward-looking tend to magnify threats and shrug off economic disincentives against going nuclear. The theory even accounts for Israel, a democracy, and presumably India as well (although South Asian cases aren't examined in the case studies). Etel Solingen then argues that nuclearization is the norm in the Middle East and the exception in East Asia because these inward-looking regimes are the norm in the Middle East and the exception in Asia. She gives Egypt in the Mideast and North Korea in East Asia as exceptions that defy the regional norm but not her theory. In each individual case study she compares her theory with traditional explanations to demonstrate the superiority of her theory both for explanatory purposes and for making preditions. This is how I was taught as a graduate student that theory should be done, but which is rarely seen after the doctoral dissertation is completed. In taking on Israel she even demonstrates that she is willing to take on the tough rather than the easy cases--the ones that seem to defy her theory on the face of it. This book is highly recommended both for those interested in nuclear proliferation and those interested in how International Relations (or social science in general) theory should be done.