The French Fourth Republic's Decision to Build a Bomb: Prestige, Politics, and Alliances

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Why, during a time of resource drain after the Second World War and ongoing colonial conflicts, did the unstable French Fourth Republic make the decision to build a nuclear weapon? Conventional wisdom suggests that the French pursued atomic weapons to regain their prestige and grandeur on the world stage. This thesis weighs four explanations for the French govern-ment’s decision, prestige, French internal politics, bureaucratic politics, and alliance dynamics, across four decision points from 1952-1958 during which the French publicly discussed the possibility of militarizing atomic energy. Prestige was a necessary factor for nuclear develop-ment across the four decision points, but it is an insufficient explanation. As the program accel-erated, the role of alliance dynamics became an increasingly significant force propelling the French towards nuclear development. During this time period, neither internal politics nor bureaucratic politics consistently propelled the French case and were often factors both motivating and pushing against nuclear development.

Type of resource	text
Date created	2019

Author	Haines, Megan
Primary advisor	Blacker, Coit

Subject	Center for International Security and Cooperation
Subject	France
Subject	Nuclear Weapons
Subject	Proliferation
Subject	North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Subject	Weapons
Subject	Charles De Gaulle
Subject	World War II
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/fx574bp5204

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Haines, Megan. (2019). The French Fourth Republic's Decision to Build a Bomb: Prestige, Politics, and Alliances. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/fx574bp5204

Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses

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