ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that states respond to policy challenges by either adapting or learning. India’s faltering nuclear responses in the years 1980–2004 and its more normalized behaviour thereafter are better explained through the lenses of institutional adaptation and learning. Between 1998 and 2005, the socialization of the Indian state into the operational practices of nuclear deterrence proceeded slowly leading to the observation that the distinguishing characteristic of the India’s arsenal was operational passivity. The year 1980 marks the approximate start date for India’s decision to begin developing nuclear weapons. And the year 2010 marks a temporary end point in its rapidly maturing nuclear weapons-related institutional and technical developments. Through the combination of new data and insights from institutional, psychological and organization theories, the chapter shows that the Indian state’s propensity prior to1998 was to adapt piecemeal to proliferation pressures. The chapter aims to combine historical “process tracing,” and elite interviewing methods.
