Positive Incentives and the Challenge of North Korean and Iranian Nuclear Programs.

While negative incentives (sanctions and other forms of coercion) are deeply rooted in the theoretical structures on which international relations scholarship rests, and in associated research, much less attention has been devoted to the impact that positive inducements might have as tools for eliciting behavioral change on the part of international adversaries. The theoretical bias flows from the doctrinal paradigms that have dominated the discipline (realism and neo-realism); it also reflects the political obstacles facing those who would appear to be rewarding misbehavior in other nations. The outcome, however, is that positive inducements are under-theorized and under-researched, and that our understanding of foreign policy options is correspondingly impoverished. This paper will develop a theoretical framework within which the role and effectiveness of positive inducements could be captured. I will argue that these inducements can be conceived of within the terms of, either, (a) an exchange model, or, (b) a catalytic model. In the first case, the purpose of concessions to an adversary is to elicit a finite qui-pro-quo, with no expectation of fundamental change in its goals and priorities. In the second case, a more basic and longer term goal is pursued: altering the adversary's basic priorities, by affecting the structure of interests and incentives within that political and social system. The paper will develop the causal assumptions imbedded in both models. Further, it will apply these two models to a discussion of strategies for achieving nuclear restraint on the part of Iran and North Korea. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]