Are non-proliferation regimes effective? If so, under which circumstances? Existing theoretical and empirical studies fall short of providing consistent indications of the constraining power of security institutions and non-proliferation regimes on state decisions.
On the one hand, proponents of regimes highlight the overall capacity of institutions to contain the number of proliferators. On the other hand, detractors maintain that regimes have little or no effect on state decision to pursue specific weapons. The empirical associations between framework conventions and the non-proliferation of the weapons under provision have proved unsatisfactory and weak.
Moving from a broader idea of regimes and a graduated notion of effectiveness, this project develops a theoretical argument about the importance of networks of individual institutions (regime complexes) in regime analysis. I argue that regime-complex level data can enhance our capacity to explain actual regime effectiveness, as well as the link between specific institutional features and non-proliferation outcomes.
The project does so, interalia, by introducing a new dataset, which gathers information on several institutions that are part of the biological non-proliferation regime complex. The work then illustrates the use of the new dataset by developing measures of state exposure to the regime-complex in terms of overall embeddedness and compliance
