Elegant Coercion and Iran

Coercion involves the use, or threatened use, of force to influence an adversary's choices. At its core, then, coercion is about state decision-making. Most theories of coercion describe states as if they were unitary actors whose decision-making results from purely rational cost-benefit calculations. However, models that are more robust portray state decision-making as the result of complex interactions among important sub-state actors. This thesis presents a framework of coercion based on state decision-making involving multiple actors. The thesis uses the framework to answer the question: how can the United States persuade Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons? The framework identifies four key actors in Iranian decision-making regarding nuclear weapons: the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Mohammad Khatami, Head of the Expediency Council Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These actors operate in a complex and delicate balance of constitutional processes and clerical authoritarianism that characterizes Iranian decision-making. The framework articulates a strategy of coercion to guide the employment of instruments to affect things these actors value and thereby their cost-benefit calculus. If properly developed, the framework predicts that the key actors in Iranian decision- making, and thus Iran itself may be persuaded to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons.