Skip to main content
  • Book
  • © 2018

Crossing Nuclear Thresholds

Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear Decisionmaking

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Provides focused case studies on key strategic states like Iran, Ukraine, and North Korea
  • Wide geographic scope of the contributed chapters offers insight into US strategic relations with the Middle East, Europe, and Asia
  • Contributors vary from academics to practitioners and government officials

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.

Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
  2. The Cultural Topography Analytic Framework

    • Jeannie L. Johnson, Marilyn J. Maines
    Pages 29-60
  3. Prospects for Proliferation in Saudi Arabia

    • J. E. Peterson
    Pages 109-139
  4. Ukraine’s Nuclear Culture: Past, Present, Future

    • Ekaterina Svyatets
    Pages 199-226
  5. Back Matter

    Pages 267-277

About this book

​This book applies the cutting-edge socio-cultural model Cultural Topography Analytic Framework (CTAF) pioneered in the authors’ earlier volume Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) with an eye towards isolating those vectors of nuclear decision-making on which the US might exert influence within a foreign state. The case studies included in this volume tackle a number of the nuclear challenges—termed “nuclear thresholds”—likely to be faced by the US and identify the most promising points of leverage available to American policymakers in ameliorating a wide range of over-the-horizon nuclear challenges.  Because near and medium-term nuclear thresholds are likely to involve both allies and adversaries simultaneously, meaning that US response will require strategies tailored to both the perception of threat experienced by the actors in question, the value the actorsplace on their relationship with the US, and the domestic context driving decision-making. This volume offers a nuanced look at each actor’s identity, national norms, values, and perceptual lens in order to offer culturally-focused insights into behavior and intentions. 

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Political Science, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    Jeannie L. Johnson

  • Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    Kerry M. Kartchner

  • Center for Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Marilyn J. Maines

About the editors

Jeannie L. Johnson is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Utah State University, USA.

Kerry M. Kartchner is Visiting Lecturer at the Bush School of Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M University, USA.

Marilyn Maines is Faculty Member at the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. 


Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access