| Summary/Abstract |
France took a hardline stance against Tehran’s nuclear program. Yet for several decades, the French government adopted a softer line with regard to nonproliferation. France was the last permanent member of the UN Security Council to ratify the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In the 1960s and 1970s, Paris sold nuclear facilities to Israel, Iran, and Iraq, some of which had potential military uses. Why did France change its policy on nonproliferation? By reconstructing the evolution of France’s position with respect to Iraq’s and Iran’s nuclear programs since the 1970s, this article explains how Paris shifted from reluctant loner to one of the main promoters of the norm of nonproliferation. The changing role of a second-tier power stems from transformations in the division of diplomatic labor inside and outside the state. Drawing on archival and interview data, we show how a group of French diplomats, followed by political leaders and nuclear scientists, mobilized the nonproliferation norm and carved out a role for France in the international system. Throughout this period, successive presidents faced fragmented domestic fields in which bureaucratic and political struggles shaped French policy. These struggles refracted the impact of the international system on France’s slow and uneven convergence with the US position.
|