ARTICLE
Trustworthy Nuclear Sovereigns?
India and Pakistan after the 1998 Tests
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University of Birmingham
Publication date: 2016-06-30
Stosunki Międzynarodowe – International Relations 2016;52(2):289-306
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ABSTRACT
India and Pakistan both faced widespread international condemnation following their
1998 nuclear tests. Today the two countries stand apart in the global nuclear order.
Pakistan remains a nuclear outsider, while India has been labelled a responsible
nuclear state and permitted access to exceptional civil nuclear trading rights. This
article offers an explanation for the divergent international responses to India
and Pakistan’s decision to become nuclear-armed states. Rather than presenting
a materialist explanation for the differing responses of the international community
in terms of geopolitical, strategic and economic factors, or a normative approach
that focuses on shifting conceptions of India and Pakistan’s identities as political
systems, we focus instead on changes in individual and collective perceptions of
India’s trustworthiness. At the base of the starkly contrasting response to a nuclear
India and a nuclear Pakistan, we argue, is an assessment that India can be trusted
with nuclear weapons, while Pakistan cannot. We show how India made the journey
from nuclear rogue to nuclear partner and demonstrate where Pakistan fell short.
We conclude with some reflections on perhaps the most important question that
can be asked of states and leaders in the nuclear age: who can be trusted with the
possession of nuclear weapons?