NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NATIONAL PRESTIGE By

Leaders and historians see prestige as important, but international relations theorists have neglected the concept, in part for lack of a clear definition. It is proposed that a party “holds prestige” when group members generally believe that they generally believe that the party has a certain desirable quality, and this situation gives the party perceived power in the group. The definition gains support from a survey of international affairs writings on the sources of prestige. Prestige is strategically important when a party wants support from others who would rather join the side that more of the others are joining. Some general ways of acquiring prestige are discussed. Compared to achieving social progress, building and testing nuclear weapons is better at bearing prestige because it has distinct borders separating success and failure, because it is salient and because it involves the symbolism of power. In some cases when prestige is a factor, one can better demonstrate one’s ability to perform an accomplishment by refraining from doing it. The analysis yields suggestions for reducing nuclear proliferation. Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Ken Binmore, David Edelstein, Lynn Eden, Virginia Foran-Cain, Roland Hain, Steve Morris, Greg Pollock, Robin Pope, Dov Samet, Frank Schuhmacher, Reinhard Selten, Avner Shaked, Judith Stacey, David Sylvan and Steve van Evera, for many helpful suggestions. Support is gratefully acknowledged from Hebrew University’s Center for Rationality, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at Bonn University, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, the Cowles Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation.