UC San Diego

Since 1945, states in the international system have cooperated heavily to reduce the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, but their strategies have differed significantly. For nuclear weapons, states made use of international organizations from an early point, delegating significant authority to define, monitor, and enforce a collective bargain. In contrast, such an act of delegation occurred much later for chemical weapons and not at all for biological weapons. This dissertation argues that international cooperation on nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons issues requires states to perceive significant threats from NBCWs and share general preferences over strategies for dealing with these threats. However, delegation to an international agent is costly and therefore should occur only when an international agent is valuable for overcoming the many possible barriers to cooperation. I show international organizations can be more efficient producers of information, can be safer and more reliable as informational intermediaries, and can reduce the costs of enforcing an NBCW agreement