Before policymakers can combat proliferation of nuclear weapons they need to know how states choose to go about pursuing them, Vipin Narang told a Stanford audience at the Center of International Security and Cooperation.

“I wanted to go back to a more fundamental question which I think hasn’t really been explored by political scientists very much which is about strategies of nuclear proliferation. How do states that are pursuing nuclear weapons go about doing so given the constraints they face both domestically and in the international system?” Narang said, presenting an outline for what will be his second book on nuclear weapons.

Vipin Narang is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT and member of MIT’s Security Studies Program. He previously was a junior faculty fellow at CISAC, and he received his bachelor and master degrees from Stanford where he was part of the first class of CISAC Honors students.

Professor of Political Science and CISAC Senior Fellow Scott Sagan was Narang’s undergraduate thesis advisor. This time around Sagan led commentary on Narang’s presentation.

“I was Vipin’s undergraduate thesis advisor and one of the great pleasures of my job is to see former undergraduates do extremely well and experience the transformation of someone being a student of yours to becoming a colleague and friend,” Sagan said.

Current thinking on nuclear proliferation tends to focus on why states pursue nuclear weapons, Narang said. It’s only recently that scholars have started thinking about the process question. Narang hopes to take aim at two overriding assumptions: that pursuers seek a functional nuclear weapon and that they seek to acquire it as quickly as possible.

“I think both of these assumptions may not be accurate and it gives rise to strategic logic of pursuit where we can disaggregate the political strategies of acquisition. States may be pursuing in different ways and pursuing different ends. I think the ‘how’ question is really important because it helps us think about different strategies and points of vulnerabilities in those strategies, and it helps us think about nonproliferation in different ways,” Narang said.

Narang is attempting to build a theoretical model of varieties of political strategies states choose to use to acquire nuclear weapons. Narang sees roughly four types of strategies–hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding–with some varied sub-categories for each.

Hedging is putting a state in a position of acquiring nuclear weapons, but deferring the decision to weaponize. Sprinting is acquiring a nuclear capability as quickly as possible using any means necessary. Sheltered pursuit is using superpower protection from other states to proliferate. Hiding is maximizing secrecy with the aim of presenting a nuclear weapon as a fait accompli.

States choose a strategy based on whether or not they face an acute security threat, have superpower protection, and have domestic political consensus.

Narang argued that differentiating the types of proliferating strategies can help non-proliferation policymakers. “I think one of the big policy takeaways for this is that a complete roll back may not be a realistic objective, but pushing a state from an active strategy of pursuit to an inactive one can be realistic and can be a win for nonproliferation policy,” he said.

Overall, Narang’s efforts were warmly welcomed and encouraged.

“It’s always great to be back here,” Narang said afterwards. “CISAC is where it started for me. I was in the first honors program group in 2001 and I got into security studies and kept going. So, this is where my career started. It was nice to be back here as a Stanton fellow to finish my first book. It’s one of the few places where science, engineering, and social science are brought together. This where I was trained and it will always be home.”

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law proudly congratulates its graduating class of honors students for their outstanding original research conducted under the CDDRL Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Honors Program. Among those graduating includes Garima Sharma who was awarded the Firestone Medal for her thesis entitled "Factors Shaping Mothers' Aspirations for their Daughters in India: A Case Study of Forbesganj, Bihar." Sharma's project used both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore cultural, social and economic factors that shape female expectations in one of the poorest parts of India.

The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research recognizes Stanford's top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science and engineering among the graduating senior class.

Initially struck by the high rates of early marriage upon her visit to northern India, Sharma conducted field interviews and surveys last summer, finding that exposure to educated and employed female role models produced an increase in mothers’ aspirations for their daughters.

Cara Reichard (left) and Garima Sharma (right) both received awards under CDDRL for their outstanding theses projects.

Sharma's research was conducted under the advisement of Associate Professor of Education and CDDRL Affiliated Faculty Member Christine Min Wotipka. In addition to the Firestone Award, Sharma received the 2015 Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo Prize in the Social Sciences under the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Among other award winners, CDDRL honors student Cara Reichard received the CDDRL Best Thesis Award for her honors thesis "The Logic of International Courts: An Exploration of the East African Court of Justice," which analyzed the impact and legitimacy of rulings under the East African Court of Justice. Stefan Norgaard received a Firestone Medal under the Urban Studies program for his thesis entitled "Rainbow Junction: South Africa’s Born Free Generation and the Future of Democracy," which assessed democratic consolidation in South Africa via hyper-local civic interactions among the country's active youth.

"The CDDRL honors program has allowed us to write theses around issues that really matter," said Norgaard. "What sets the program apart is that it pushes us to pursue projects aimed at changing things and making an active contribution to scholarship around the world."

Norgaard, Sharma and Reichard are part of a cohort of ten graduating CDDRL honors students who have spent the past year working in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attending honors research workshops to develop their theses projects. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in South Africa, India, North Korea, Swaziland, Cuba and Uganda, among others.

Stefan Norgaard with CDDRL Director Larry Diamond (left) and FSI Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama (right).

In the upcoming 2015-2016 academic year, the program will bring in the new leadership of CDDRL Deputy Director Stephen Stedman who will advise a cohort of 15 honors students, one of the program's largest and most diverse classes to date.  

The CDDRL Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops; attend honors college in Washington, D.C.; connect to the CDDRL research community; and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law.

A list of the 2015 graduating class of CDDRL honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found below: