Summary:
When leaders issue nuclear threats, how are those threats perceived? A nuclear threat should lack credibility because carrying out the threat could trigger massive retaliation of some kind. Nonetheless, nuclear threats are not simply dismissed as non-credible. Instead, nuclear threats appear to inspire fear. In this seminar, Professor Lisa Koch will present her research on how US decision-makers perceive and respond to 21st-century nuclear threats.

Bio:
Lisa Langdon Koch is Associate Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, where she won the 2023 Glenn R. Huntoon Award for Superior Teaching. She specializes in international relations. Koch is the author of the book Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs (Oxford University Press 2023), which received the Robert Jervis Best International Security Book Award. She has published articles on topics like nuclear proliferation, nuclear restraint, and foreign policy. Koch is a 2021 Stanton Foundation Nuclear Security Grant Program winner and a 2000 Harry S. Truman Scholar. Her work has also been funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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