When personalism matters: Nuclear latency and conflict propensity

Abstract

While some scholars conclude that there is a positive relationship between the possession of nuclear latency and the initiation of international conflict, others conclude that there is no relationship between them. As such, these findings are in need of reconciliation, but there have been almost no scholarly efforts to do so. In this article, I argue and find that latent nuclear states with personalist authoritarian regimes are more likely to initiate international conflict than those with other types of regimes (i.e. both democratic regimes and nonpersonalist authoritarian regimes). My finding indicates that not only personalist regimes drive the positive relationship between nuclear latency and conflict initiation, but also inconclusive findings in previous studies stem from an oversight of the variation in the level of personalism across latent states.