Multilateralism and Institutions

Multilateralism and Security
Institutions in an Era
of Globalization
Featuring an outstanding international line-up of contributors, this edited

volume offers a timely examination of two of the most crucial and contro-
versial issues in international relations, namely the evolution of particular
concepts of multilateralism and whether international security institutions
are the objects of state choice and/or consequential.
The book combines a variety of theoretical perspectives with detailed
empirical examples. The subjects covered include:
• the development and contemporary application of the concept of

multilateralism
• American foreign and security policy in the post 9/11 era (unilateralism
vs. multilateralism)
• humanitarian intervention and liberal peace
• case studies of a variety of security institutions including the EU, UN
and NATO
• a broad selection of geographical examples from North America,
Europe and Asia.
This book is a significant contribution to the contemporary debate on multi-

lateralism and the effects of multilateral security institutions and will be of
great interest to scholars of international relations and security studies.
Dimitris Bourantonis is an Associate Professor of International Relations at

Athens University of Economics and Business. His previous books include
The History and Politics of UN Security Council Reform (Routledge, 2006)
and The UN’s Role in Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations (Dartmouth, 1993).
Kostas Ifantis is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the

University of Athens, Greece. His books include Turkish-Greek Relations:
The Security Dilemma in the Aegean (Routledge, 2004) and International
Security Today (SAM, 2006).
Panayotis Tsakonas is an Assistant Professor of International Relations

and Security Studies at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes. His books
include A Breakthrough in Greek–Turkish Relations? Understanding Greece’s
“Socialization Strategy” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007).
Multilateralism and Security
Institutions in an Era of
Globalization
Edited by
Dimitris Bourantonis, Kostas Ifantis and
Panayotis Tsakonas
First published 2008
by Routledge
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© 2008 Selection and editorial matter, Dimitris Bourantonis, Kostas Ifantis
and Panayotis Tsakonas; individual chapters, the contributors
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Contents
List of figures vii

List of tables viii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
DIMITRIS BOURANTONIS, KOSTAS IFANTIS AND
PANAYOTIS TSAKONAS
PART I
Multilateralism and security: concepts, issues and strategies 19
1 State power and international institutions: America and the

logic of economic and security multilateralism 21
G. JOHN IKENBERRY
2 Unipolar empire and principled multilateralism as strategies for

international change 43
JACK SNYDER AND LESLIE VINJAMURI
3 US military commitments: multilateralism and treaties 60

LISA L. MARTIN
4 The crisis of the transatlantic security community 78

THOMAS RISSE
5 State attributes and system properties: security multilateralism

in central Asia, southeast Asia, the Atlantic and Europe 101
JAMES SPERLING
vi Contents
6 Is multilateralism bad for humanitarianism? 136
MICHAEL BARNETT
7 Horizontal and vertical multilateralism and the liberal peace 163

OLIVER RICHMOND
PART II
Assessing multilateral security institutions 181
8 Transatlantic relations, multilateralism and the transformation

of NATO 183
FRANK SCHIMMELFENNIG
9 Persuasion and norm promotion: international institutions in

the western Balkans 202
GEOFFREY EDWARDS AND MLADEN TOŠIĆ
10 From “perverse” to “promising” institutionalism? NATO,

EU and the Greek-Turkish conflict 223
PANAYOTIS TSAKONAS
11 Evaluating multilateral interventions in civil wars:

a comparison of UN and non-UN peace operations 252
NICHOLAS SAMBANIS AND JONAH SCHULHOFER-WOHL
12 Why no UN Security Council reform? Lessons for and from

institutionalist theory 288
ERIK VOETEN
13 The reform and efficiency of the UN Security Council:

a veto players analysis 306
ARIS ALEXOPOULOS AND DIMITRIS BOURANTONIS
References 324
Index 359
Figures
3.1 Number of references in the New York Times to multilateral

and bilateral agreements 69
3.2 Fraction of all agreements that are multilateral, by year 74
3.3 Total multilateral agreements, by year 75
4.1 The European-American value space 86
4.2 Foreign policy coalitions in the USA and Europe 95
7.1 Multilateralism and gradations of liberal peace 176
7.2 Unilateralism, multilateralism and liberal peacebuilding 177
12.1 Annual number of Chapter VII resolutions, 1946–2004 291
12.2 Bargaining with heterogeneous preferences: the effects of
outside options 299
13.1 Three- and five-member unanimity cores in two dimensions,
where five members can reach a decision more easily than a
three-member decision body that is more distant 308
13.2 A fifteen-member decision body in a two-dimensional policy
space 311
13.3 The core of the UNSC 312
13.4 The UNSC’s preference mapping 314
13.5 The UNSC’s preference mapping in 25 years: a hypothetical
scenario 320
13.6 A fifteen-member decision body in a two-dimensional policy
space, with majority core 10/15 (compared with a majority
core 9/15) 321
Tables
1.1 Incentives and opportunities behind the institutional bargain 27

3.1 Incidence of treaties: bilateral versus multilateral agreements 69
3.2 Treaties versus executive agreements: logit analysis 70
3.3 Multilateral agreements and the president’s party 73
3.4 Multilateral agreements and the president’s party: logit analysis 73
3.5 Descriptive statistics and data sources 77
4.1 US image in Germany and France ( June 2003) 87
4.2 Structure of foreign policy attitudes in the US and Europe 88
5.1 State attributes 105
5.2 System properties 107
5.3 Constituent elements of security multilateralism 109
5.4 Characteristics of the varieties of security governance 111
5.5 State attributes found in central Asia, southeast Asia, the
Atlantic and Europe 115
5.6 Regional system properties of central Asia, southeast Asia,
the Atlantic and Europe 121
5.7 The varieties of security multilateralism 126
6.1 Humanitarianism: classical and solidarist 144
8.1 Multilateralism in post-Cold War NATO co-operation 192
8.2 Community and multilateralism in post-Cold War NATO
co-operation 199
11.1 Matching problem type and strategy type 260
11.2 The effect of UN and non-UN peace operations on
participatory peace 263
participatory peace, without the undivided sovereignty criterion 265
components of participatory peace 268
sovereign peace 269
11.6 Non-UN operations involving the participation of advanced
militaries and peacebuilding 271
11.7 Non-UN operations involving the participation of advanced
militaries and war recurrence (survival model of peace duration) 272
Contributors
Aris Alexopoulos is Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Political Science

at the University of Crete, Greece.
Michael Barnett is Harold Stassen Chair of International Affairs at the
Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science at
the University of Minnesota, USA.
Dimitris Bourantonis is Associate Professor of International Relations in the
Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens
University of Economics and Business, Greece.
Geoffrey Edwards is Reader in European Studies in the Centre of International
Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College,
Cambridge, UK.
Kostas Ifantis is Associate Professor of International Relations in the
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of
Athens, Greece.
G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and Inter-
national Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, USA.
Lisa L. Martin is Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the
Department of Government at Harvard University, USA.
Oliver Richmond is Professor of International Relations at the School of
International Relations, University of St Andrews, UK.
Thomas Risse is Professor of International Politics in the Department of
Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin, Germany.
Nicholas Sambanis is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Depart-
ment of Political Science at Yale University, USA.
Frank Schimmelfennig is Professor of European Politics at the Centre for
Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
x Contributors
Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Rela-
tions in the Department of Political Science and Institute of War and
Peace Studies at Columbia University, USA.
James Sperling is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Akron, USA.
Mladen Tošić is a PhD candidate in the Centre of International Studies and a
member of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, UK.
Panayotis Tsakonas is Assistant Professor of International Relations in the
Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, Greece.
Leslie Vinjamuri is a Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London.
Eric Voeten is Peter F. Krogh Assistant Professor of Global Justice and
Geopolitics in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and
Government Department at Georgetown University, USA.
Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political
Science at Yale University, USA.
Acknowledgments
The origins of this volume are to be found in an international conference that

took place in Delphi, Greece in June 1995. The conference brought together
IR scholars who presented their research findings on the evolution of multi-
lateralism and its relationship to particular issues and strategies, as well as
on the important, if not critical, question of how and under what conditions
international security institutions matter. The discussion that ensued was
invaluable and provided an opportunity for the contributors to this book to
improvise their papers. The editors of this volume, who were the convenors of
the meeting in Delphi, wish to thank all the participants at the conference
including Jeffrey Checkel and John Duffield who, for reasons beyond their
will, did not contribute papers to this volume but actively participated in the
Delphi conference.
In the period since the Delphi conference the papers have been redrafted.
Contributors have been patient during this process and our thanks go to
them. Additionally we would like to thank the Department of International
and European Economic Studies at the Athens University of Economics
and Business for organizing the conference on which this volume is based.
The work of preparing the manuscript for publication was ably assisted by
Dr Spyros Blavoukos and the staff of the Hellenic Center for European
Studies. Finally the editors wish to express their appreciation to Craig Fowlie
of Routledge for providing encouragement and his role in overseeing the
technical details of publishing.
Abbreviations
ABM Anti-ballistic Missile

AFOR Albanian Force
APEC Asian Pacific Economic Forum
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASC ASEAN Security Community
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BiH Bosnia and Herzegovina
CEECs Central and Eastern European Countries
CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy
CJTF Combined Joint Task Force
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
ECB European Central Bank
ECJ European Court of Justice
ECOSOC Economic and Social Council
EDC European Defence Community
ESDI European Security and Defence Identity
EU European Union
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HR High Representative
ICC International Criminal Court
ICJ International Court of Justice
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia
IFIs International Financial Institutions
IFOR Implementation Force
IMF International Monetary Fund
INTERFET International Force for East Timor
IOs International Organizations
ISAF International Stabilization and Assistance Force
JHA Justice and Home Affairs
KFOR Kosovo Force
xiv Abbreviations
MONUC UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
MSF Medécins Sans Frontières
NAC North Atlantic Council
NAFTA North America Free Trade Agreement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations
OEEC Organization for European Economic Co-operation
OHR Office of the High Representative
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
PCO Peacekeeping Operation
PfP Partnership for Peace
PIC Peace Implementation Council
PRC Police Restructuring Commission
ROs Regional Organizations
RS Republika Srpska
SAA Stabilization and Association Agreement
SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
SAP Stabilization and Association Process
SC Security Council
SCO Shanghai Co-operation Organization
SFOR Stabilization Force
SQ Status Quo
START Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
TAC Treaty of Amity and Co-operation
TLEs Treaty Limited Equipments
TRNC Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
UN United Nations
UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNOC United Nations Operation in the Congo
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
WTO World Trade Organization
Introduction
Dimitris Bourantonis, Kostas Ifantis
and Panayotis Tsakonas
The perception of the Cold War nuclear era in the West was of a clear and
present threat from the Soviet Union that had to be matched by the United
States and its allies. The Cold War superimposed on the international security
agenda a political and conceptual framework that simplified most issues,
while magnifying some and obscuring others. During this period, almost
every Western government defined national security in excessively narrow,
military terms. That meant there was an enduring acceptance of the need for
a balance of terror, with mutually assured destruction ensuring a stable inter-
national system. The end of the Cold War has allowed for burgeoning of the
security agenda to include a different set of threats and dangers, not really
new but previously kept outside the Cold War context. These new threats are
again global in scope, persistent in nature, and potent in their implications
(Lynn-Jones and Miller 1995: 3).
A NEW SECURITY AGENDA
Among the new factors that transcend boundaries and threaten to erode
national cohesion, the most perilous are the “new risks”: drug trafficking,
transnational organized crime and nuclear smuggling, refugee movements,
uncontrolled and illegal immigration, environmental risks, and international
terrorism. As already noted, these are not new sources of potential conflict.
They all existed to some extent during the Cold War, but were largely sub-
sumed by the threat of military conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
A new/old issue is the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
and Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, and Radiological (NBCR) agents. The
issue of proliferation is profoundly old, but the dimension of threat is new.
Indeed, trans-sovereign problems – problems that move beyond sovereignty
and traditional state responses – have started to fill the post-Cold War agenda
and make a mockery of state borders and unilateral state responses. The rise
of trans-sovereign problems has been made possible by changes since the end
of the Cold War: the opening of societies, economies, and technologies
(Cusimano 2000: 4).
2 Dimitris Bourantonis, Kostas Ifantis, and Panayotis Tsakonas
The spread of religious fundamentalism, the “criminalization” of state
institutions and economic transactions, the increase in cross-border narcotics
trafficking, and the potential proliferation of WMD represent an interrelated
network of transnational challenges to states and societies in regions like the
Caspian, Caucasus, Central Asia, North Africa, and (to a lesser extent) South-
east Europe, and they can serve as a potential catalyst for future conflicts.
Moreover, trans-sovereign issues present a very difficult dilemma for policy
makers: the very same policies that work to bring about open, democratic,
pluralist societies and open markets also make trans-sovereign threats pos-
sible. It is obvious that these problems can be difficult for states to address,
because effective action requires greater international co-ordination.
The same can be true for environmental problems, which are profoundly
trans-sovereign in nature: they do not respect state borders and they defy
unilateral state action. Recent times have witnessed an explosion of attention
to and concern about environmental challenges, which have become much
more salient in public discourse, more prominent in media coverage, more
visible and important in political deliberations. Indeed, the environment has
become a significant factor in international politics. Although not all
environmental problems are relevant to international security, many of them
can be a source of political conflict and can contribute to violence within and
between states. In any case, much depends on the capacity of states to adapt
and respond to the social and economic effects of environmental degradation
– for example, reduced agricultural production, declining economic perform-
ance, the displacement of populations, the disruption or even destruction of
communal relations, and the collapse of legitimate authority.
The developing world is particularly vulnerable to the social consequences
of eco-problems, because those states have fewer or no technical, financial,
and institutional resources to devote to containing or coping with the con-
sequences. In such cases, conflicts are easily born of scarcity, deprivation, or
ethnic, racial, or cultural strife exacerbated by scarcity and deprivation
(Homer-Dixon 1995). It is beyond doubt that environmental degradation
leads to refugee flows and violent conflicts, thus undermining state institu-
tions and authority, as occurred in Chiapas in Mexico, and in Rwanda. The
flow of refugees can cause further environmental damage, which in turn adds
more pressure on state authority and economic capacity, thus providing
fertile ground for drug trafficking and organized criminal activity.
Trans-sovereign problems tend to be mutually reinforcing.
Refugee movements, along with uncontrolled or illegal immigration, repre-
sent yet another non-traditional threat to international security and stability.
Refugees place economic and social burdens on government services, burdens
that have become substantial. In some cases they have overwhelmed and
drained the already fragile institutions and infrastructure of host states,
resulting in violent conflicts and military interventions. Former Yugoslavia is
a case in point. There are 30 to 40 million people displaced across state
boundaries or within states, and this figure is expected to rise.
Introduction 3
As a result, numerous countries in Europe are beginning to re-examine
their immigration policies and enforce more stringent standards, thus moving
towards neo-conservative, undemocratic practices. This could have a destabil-
izing effect on the less economically advanced nations in Europe and could
threaten inter-state relations. It also could lead to domestic unrest if more is
not done soon to regulate the flow of refugees and expedite safe repatriation
of those not accepted for long-term residence. Such policies will almost
inevitably result in much suffering and not a little “militant migration” as
marginalized migrants are radicalized. In the interim, Europe is experiencing
an increase in crime rates and hatred crimes, any of which could lead to
instability and thence to conflict and insecurity.
At the same time, international terrorism has become more than ever a
source of grave concern. This was true even before 11 September 2001, but
“9/11” finally answered the question of what the dominant security problem
in the post-Cold War world is: “mega-terrorism”, a non-state form of terror-
ism in which a readiness to take life knows no limits (Muller 2003: 7). Con-
straints on the use of violence are not effective. There are no bounds to the
number of fatalities a group like al-Qaeda wishes to cause. The new breed of
terrorist seems to want only to kill, create havoc and cause destruction on a
massive scale; in most cases they are not seeking to negotiate to achieve certain
objectives; they are very well organized, trained, funded, and supported; and
their worldwide networks include an excellent intelligence and communications
structure that gives them enough information about their targets to be able to
direct their operatives, often over the internet, from thousands of miles away.
The challenge has been enormous, especially for the United States.
A NEW SECURITY DISCOURSE?
Post-Cold War global processes have been changing the nature of threat and
forcing some adaptation of basic strategic principles, and the patterns of
allegiance associated with them. Each of these dimensions – threat, strategy,
and affiliation – is understood most readily “in terms of a sharp conceptual
distinction: the difference between a deliberate opponent and a natural pro-
cess, between strategies of prevention and strategies of reaction, and between
cooperative and confrontational alignments” (Steinbruner 2000: 195). Secur-
ity challenges become more complex when one turns to those issues that may
not directly challenge the viability of the state, in traditional terms, but may
nevertheless undermine its sovereignty, compromise its ability to control
the penetrability of its borders, and exacerbate relations – either between
groups within the polity or between states in the regional or global system.
Moreover, the 9/11 terrorist attacks by militant Muslims, the subsequent
counter-terrorist campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the war
against Saddam’s regime in Iraq have further changed the post-Cold War
security discourse.
Throughout the 1990s, the security debate remained rather tentative,
unfocused and vague. The formulations of threat now in use – ranging from
major regional contingencies, via lesser nationalist or fundamentalist war-
prone regimes and groups, to the eventual emergence of peer competitors –
refer to the deliberately aggressive actions of calculating enemies, who are
assumed to have conscious identity even if they are not mentioned explicitly.
Armed conflicts like the ones in Kosovo and Afghanistan have clearly dem-
onstrated the difficulty of anticipating and meeting the new problems that
have arisen from the debris of the old order.
The scope of political change and the complexities of international
security are making the new challenges much harder to understand. All the
above represent a new class of security problem, in which dispersed processes
pose dangers of potentially large magnitude and incalculable probability. In
reaction to those problems, policies seem to be shifting from contingency
reaction to anticipatory prevention, pre-emptive action and coalitional crisis
management. In that context, contemporary security discourse seems to be
aimed at taking account of security’s geographical and functional scope, its
degree of institutionalization, its strength and fragility, and its ideological
and normative elements. Also, more often than in the past, there are new and
sometimes unexpected linkages between political, security and economic
concerns, which have challenged the capacity of the state to recognize and
respond to new dangers and needs for action. They have also challenged
international institutions – the adequacy of existing bodies for action, and
the potential for multilateral co-ordination.
A CHANCE FOR MULTILATERALISM AND

MULTILATERAL SECURITY INSTITUTIONS?
The 9/11 terrorist attacks truly changed the world security system. The scale
of these attacks, the destruction they caused, the relative ease with which they
were organized and executed against the most powerful country in the world,
made it very clear to everybody that no country was immune. The attacks
that followed in Madrid and London showed that no country could afford to
be complacent about terrorism any more. Like drug traffickers, nuclear
smugglers, and international crime cartels, terrorist groups take advantage of
the infrastructure that open societies, open economies, and open technologies
afford. Such groups are more easily able to move people, money, and goods
across international borders thanks to democratization, economic liberaliza-
tion, and technological advances. They rely on international telecommunica-
tions to publicize their acts and political demands. Even if propaganda is
nothing new, tools like CNN and the Internet dramatically extend the scope
of a terrorist’s reach. Terrorists also take advantage of weaker or developing
states to serve as operational bases for training and carrying out attacks
against Western targets. As the 11 September attacks indicated, counter-state
Introduction 5
and counter-society abilities have already become more available to radical
and fundamentalist groups. Overall these trends suggest that seemingly
invulnerable states, however powerful and wealthy they may be, have innate
weaknesses.
All these trends, probably as much as the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction (nuclear, chemical, and biological) and their means of delivery as
well as human-rights abuses, pose profound challenges to efforts to build a
new global order. They contribute to terrorist groups’ capability for violence
and other forms of coercion. Contrary to other global challenges (the com-
munications revolution, water shortages, access to energy resources, financial
flows), they call directly into question the very authority of the state, and are
therefore potentially, if not openly, subversive. However, this multifaceted
conception of security entails a multifaceted approach to security. That does
not mean analysis cannot be state-centered. Rather, it means that, while a
state-centered analysis is capable of illuminating most facets of discord and
conflict in the 1990s (for example, proxy wars and irredentism), it should
acquire a multidimensional optic, beyond accounts of military power
distribution.
This multifaceted/multidimensional security concept means that there is
no rigid link between a comprehensive concept for understanding a new
situation and the quality of the response. On the contrary, a broad concept –
where military force and defense policy continue to occupy a central place
– allows a flexible, tailored policy in which force is a major element, but
only one of the means that could be employed. In the final analysis, security
is a politically defined concept. It is open to debate whether the widening
of security might be a good or a bad political choice, but security is
not intrinsically a self-contained concept, nor can it be related to military
affairs only. If political priorities change, the nature and the means of
security will inevitably follow and adapt to the different areas of political
action.
In an age of protean threats, transnational in nature, trans-sovereign in
quality, and coupled with insidious weapons of enormous destructive cap-
ability, the only way forward seems to be through co-operation, preparedness,
vigilance, and creative diplomacy. The tools to make a safer world already
exist: political fora, international law, economic levers, intelligence assets, and
(where necessary) military power. What remains to be harnessed is a collect-
ive will to succeed, a will grounded in the UN Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and the International Law.
Moreover, the deepening of global interdependence has bred multiple
transnational problems that no country can resolve on its own, from humani-
tarian catastrophes to financial instability, from environmental degradation
to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. By implication, and given the
spread of liberal principles and the rise of a new global agenda, multilateral-
ism would seem to offer the USA the obvious way to advance its national
interests, pursue common objectives, and exercise leadership. Yet, the United
States has been deeply ambivalent about multilateral engagement (Patrick
2002: 2).
In fact, instead of viewing multilateralism as a tool for expanding – rather
than limiting – US options, the G. W. Bush Jr. administration clearly indicated
from the outset its intention to pursue unilateral strategies. Based on a state-
centric world view in the most traditional sense – formed by a concern with
traditional conceptions of security, such as great powers, rogue states, and
proliferation of WMD – and equipped with unmatched military capacity and
the world’s largest national economy, Washington has found multilateral co-
operation constraining. This is not surprising, because multilateralism
implies a relationship based on rules rather than power, with states agreeing
that behavior on a certain issue should be governed by shared principles, rules
and norms, regardless of individual interests and circumstances (Caporaso
1993: 53–4). US policy makers have also been sensitive to potential patholo-
gies of multilateral institutions, such as “free-riding” and “buck-passing”, while
viewing the institutions as constraints that could slow decisions, dilute object-
ives, and even entangle the United States in foreign adventures on behalf of
global agendas.
By implication, multilateralism was seen as carrying certain costs for a
dominant power like the United States and did not appear to be a very
attractive grand strategy or/and foreign-policy option. Instead, the com-
bination of unprecedented military might and the most vibrant single
national economy drove the political and military strategy of “engagement
and enlargement” that has become the lynchpin of US foreign and
national security policy. Indeed, the 1991 Gulf war, the 1995 and 1999
Balkan campaigns, and most of all the 2001 Afghanistan intervention and
the spring 2003 war against Iraq have been impressive US exhibitions of
its capacity to go to war. They have demonstrated that military power is
not obsolete.
Indeed, the most profound effect of 9/11 has been the reordering of Ameri-
ca’s international engagement, coupled with reinforcement of the administra-
tion’s strident unilateralism. America’s attempt to make its own international
rules is the most vivid example of unilateralism. Washington pushes a mili-
tary agenda that aims self-confidently to master the “contested zones”
because it believes that primacy depends only on vast, omni-capable military
power. It also believes that the USA need not tolerate plausible threats to its
safety from outside American territory. These threats are to be eliminated.
Insofar as pre-emptive war is perceived negatively abroad, this strategy
requires a unilateral, global, offensive military capability. The effort to
achieve such a capability will further alienate America’s traditional allies, it
will definitely produce balancing tendencies, it will drive the costs of sustain-
ing US military pre-eminence to unacceptable levels, and it will thus create
great difficulties in sustaining, improving, and expanding the global network
of US military bases (Posen 2003: 45). Most importantly, with its pre-emptive
strategies and tendency to treat different global challenges as being all in the
Introduction 7
same category, the Bush doctrine is seen as damaging the fabric of inter-
national law and the world multilateral acquis.
In that context, the Iraq war has been a crisis for the United States,
because UN members saw a prospect of unchecked American power being
tested. For many around the world the Iraq war is viewed as a step towards
seizing global energy control, or hegemonic world economic and trade dom-
ination, or to assure Israel’s ambitions. They have seen the United States as
being unable to provide a rationale for its Iraq policy that can convince the
majority of the democracies, its natural supporters. They have seen it
intemperately denounce those who criticize it. In short, they have seen Wash-
ington demand submission and take steps to obtain it by force. To the rest of
the world, this is not very reassuring, to put it mildly. Unchecked American
global power seems to be rapidly losing its appeal. Indeed, rather than prov-
ing the unilateralists’ point, Iraq illustrates the continuing need for co-
operation and a return to multilateralism as a rich source of legitimacy and
order.
MULTILATERALISM AND SECURITY INSTITUTIONS IN

AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION
In Ruggie’s influential account of multilateralism, it is defined as “an insti-

tutional form that coordinates relations among three or more states on the
basis of generalized principles of conduct” (Ruggie 1993b: 8). Moreover,
multilateralism is closely related to legitimacy, and it has three aspects. First,
multilateralism entails a commitment to common ways of working, including
agreed rules and norms: creating common rules and norms, solving problems
through rules and co-operation, and enforcing the rules. Secondly, it means a
commitment to working with, and through the procedures of, international
institutions. Thirdly, multilateralism also has to include co-ordination, rather
than duplication or rivalry.
But multilateralism is, first and foremost, about envisioning and imple-
menting a system of international legitimacy and empowerment. It is about
defining the rules of the game in international life, with the aim of socializa-
tion, co-ordination of relations and co-operation among states, on the basis
of generalized principles or codes of conduct. In the various applications of
multilateralism, these codes of conduct express the values that significant
actors consider to be indispensable elements of the quest for a workable and
justice-oriented international system (Coicaud 2001).
All three aspects of multilateralism and its development as an institution
highlight the critical link to multilateral security institutions. Their role has
been central to the study of world politics since the end of the Second World
War. Yet there is some disagreement on what exactly international security
institutions should be about. The end of the Cold War has further blurred the
limits of the contested concept of security and made the task of defining
international security institutions even more problematic. In order to place
some reasonable limits in the debate, we employ herein a definition that treats
international security institutions as relatively formal and consciously con-
structed “sets of rules meant to govern international behavior” (Simmons
and Martin 2002: 194), especially those that are negotiated and endorsed by
states (Duffield 2006).1
It is worth noting that there is as yet no distinct body of theory on the
effects of multilateral security institutions. By implication, as has been aptly
demonstrated by a prominent student of international institutions,
one should turn to the more general theoretical literature on the signifi-
cance of international institutions, identifying where possible the distinct
ways in which international security institutions might (or might not) make
a difference. Especially international security is an issue-area, which can
provide a particularly valuable arena for adjudicating among the compet-
ing claims of different theories insofar as it is the area where theorists of all
stripes have expected international institutions to be least consequential.
(Duffield 2006: 639)
This volume brings together world-renowned scholars from various theor-

etical perspectives to present their research findings on the evolution of multi-
lateralism and its relationship to particular issues and strategies. The book
also attempts to explore a rather timely question in international relations
theory, namely how multilateral security institutions matter and under what
conditions. Accordingly, its range of topics is rather broad: contributions
examine the ambivalent US position on multilateralism in the post-9/11 era,
empirical assessments (qualitative and quantitative) of whether international
security institutions are objects of state choice and/or are consequential (with
case studies of certain functions of the UN, NATO and EU), and multi-
lateralism at the periphery (in certain sub-systems and/or bilateral conflicts).
The volume is divided into two parts. In the first part – entitled Multi-
lateralism and Security: Concepts, Issues and Strategies – the contributions
discuss the evolution of particular concepts of the term “multilateralism,”
such as “opportunistic,” “effective,” “humanized” and “principled” multi-
lateralism, and their relationship to the most important issues and strategies
of current world affairs. In the second part – entitled Assessing Multilateral
Security Institutions – the analysis turns into a more detailed empirical
assessment of the difference that particular multilateral arrangements and
institutions (such as the UN, EU and NATO) can make in the security
domain.
Part I of the book

More specifically, the contributions in the first part provide a wide assessment
of the contemporary discourse on multilateralism, not just as an institution,
but in the context of novel developments in global security.
Introduction 9
In his contribution, John Ikenberry discusses US ambivalence about multi-
lateral institutions and variations in the USA’s institutional relations with
Europe and the rest of the world. The central question in regard to US
economic and security ties, one that American policy makers have confronted
over the decades since 1945, Ikenberry argues, is how much the policy “lock-
in” of other states – ensured by institutionalizating various commitments and
obligations – is worth, and how much reduction in US policy autonomy and
constraint of its power is politically sustainable? Ikenberry claims that
institutions are best seen as tools of political control. Their basic value to
states is that they alter the levels of state autonomy and political certainty.
Seen in this way, the leading state’s ability to credibly restrain and commit its
power is, ironically, a type of power. The leading state wants to lock other
states into specific institutional commitments. It could use its power to coerce
them, but this would be costly and lose any chance of building a legitimate
order. If the leading state can bind itself and institutionalize the exercise of
its power – at least to some credible extent – offering to do so becomes a
bargaining chip that may obtain the institutional co-operation of other states.
But it is only a bargaining chip when power disparities make limits and
restraints desirable to other states and when the leading state can in fact
establish such limits and constraints. It is variations in these enabling circum-
stances, Ikenberry argues, that explain why the USA sometimes seeks to build
multilateral institutions, binding itself to other states, and in other cases does
not.
Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri critically examine the two dominant
strategies for promoting a more democratic and just international order. They
argue that the unilateralist and multilateralist policy agendas are both
problematic because both are based on flawed theories of social change. For
Snyder and Vinjamuri, both strategies suffer from a wilful voluntarism, which
inevitably runs up against hard political and social facts. The liberal activists
overstate the efficacy of normative persuasion; the unilateralist strategy as
expressed by the Bush administration overestimates the efficacy of military
force. Both underestimate the need to ground international change firmly in a
set of facilitative preconditions: an economic basis to support a liberal polit-
ical order, a strong political coalition that supports political reform, and the
creation of administrative and judicial institutions that support the rule of
law. In particular, both approaches underestimate the need to develop a strat-
egy for creating these preconditions in the right sequence, taking into account
the realities of particular political and social contexts. In their contribution,
Snyder and Vinjamuri examine what happens when weak theories of social
change run into the hard realities of social facts, and offer some thoughts on
change that have a better sociological grounding.
At a micro-level, Lisa Martin examines why and how the USA chooses to
commit itself to multilateral and bilateral agreements on security issues. Her
chapter takes further the previous arguments that the choice of an inter-
national agreement’s form is a strategic one, taking into account both
domestic and international considerations. This choice is of interest, Martin
argues, because it tells us something about the president’s freedom of man-
euver in security affairs and the factors that constrain his choices. By intro-
ducing international strategic considerations, Martin argues that the major
expectation derived from the purely domestic perspective cannot be sustained
in equilibrium. The president does face domestic constraints, but he must also
address the concerns that other governments have about the president not
living up to the terms of an agreement.
Thomas Risse focuses on the transatlantic relationship and the crisis that
plagued it after the Iraq war. For Risse, the current crisis stems from domestic
developments on both sides of the Atlantic, which have led to different per-
ceptions of security threats, including transnational terrorism, and – more
importantly – to different prescriptions on how to handle them. For Risse, a
major source of concern is that unilateral and even imperial tendencies in
contemporary US foreign policy, and particularly its official discourse, have
violated constitutive norms on which the transatlantic security community
has been built over the years, namely multilateralism and close consultation
with allies. Although unilateralism is currently receding into the background
of US foreign policy, the danger, Risse warns, remains that “instrumental
multilateralism” is still the preferred course in Washington. In this sense then,
the current disagreements between Europe and the United States go beyond
ordinary policy conflicts: they touch issues of common values and the core of
the security community.
In the face of this crisis, Risse argues forcefully that a new transatlantic
bargain is needed, a bargain that dismisses calls for European balancing or
bandwagoning responses against US unilateralism. Instead, Risse argues for
a new transatlantic dialogue to be started in the EU, with its unique capacities
and experience in the economic and political aspects of international security.
An EU that puts “teeth” into its concept of a “civilian power” and gets its
foreign-policy act together is the pre-condition – Risse argues – for a new
transatlantic bargain.
James Sperling’s contribution offers an understanding of how the inter-
action of state attributes and system properties produces specific forms of
security multilateralism. By capturing the precise interaction of system- and
unit-level variables – and the forms of security multilateralism arising from
that interaction – Sperling assesses whether the varieties of security multi-
lateralism in the contemporary international system can be explained by
changes in the nature of the state. Sperling also examines the extent to which
there are identifiable patterns of internal and external variables that produce
a narrow range of outcomes in multilateral security, and criteria that effect-
ively differentiate between varieties of security multilateralism. The substan-
tive purpose of Sperling’s contribution is to identify and explain the type of
security multilateralism represented by the Shanghai Cooperation Organiza-
tion (SCO), ASEAN, NATO, and the EU. The key hypothesis emerging from
Sperling’s survey is that the post-Westphalian state provides the permissive
Introduction 11
context for the creation of an international civil society, just as the Westphalian
state precludes it.
Michael Barnett examines how the emergence of a humanized multilateral-
ism and a politicized humanitarianism can compromise the provision of
relief and the protection of civilians in zones of conflict. He explores the
factors that contributed simultaneously to the humanization of multilateral-
ism and the politicization of humanitarianism. Barnett,in order to explore
these issues, focuses on NATO’s “humanitarian war” in Kosovo. He argues
that, though the willingness of states to use force in the defense of civilian
populations can be interpreted as a victory for principled action, this prin-
cipled action also represents a potential threat to humanitarianism, especially
since many agencies felt rather comfortable associating so closely with a com-
batant and suspending their sacrosanct principles of impartiality, independ-
ence, and neutrality. Barnett concludes by reflecting on how different versions
of institutionalism help us understand the different kinds of control mechan-
isms exerted by the environment over humanitarian organizations, the need
for an interpretive perspective to understand why humanitarian organiza-
tions might view this principled development – a humanized multilateralism –
as a threat to their principles, and humanitarianism’s relationship to world
order.
Last, but by no means least in this first part of the volume, Oliver
Richmond’s contribution takes as its starting point the debate about the
qualities and dynamics of the liberal peace in the context of multilateral
relations between IOs, states, NGOs and other non-state actors. By focusing
on the multilateral activities of non-state actors, Richmond goes beyond the
traditional, horizontal, state-to-state multilateral architecture. According to
the author, there is a “new,” vertical multilateralism, which is defined by any
relationship between an official and a private/unofficial actor. Vertical multi-
lateralism allows a replication of the norms that arise in the context of hori-
zontal multilateralism within conflict societies. Richmond argues that new
and often informal forms of multilateralism have had an important impact
on liberal peacebuilding. Moreover, horizontal and vertical forms of multi-
lateralism are vital if the peacebuilding process is to receive wide support and,
with the transmittal of norms of governance, have a plausible chance of
leading to a sustainable peace. Whether or not these new forms operate an as
extension of the old multilateralism or are representative of a radical depart-
ure from it, remains to be seen, but it is now mainly through vertical multi-
lateralism – Richmond argues – that norm transmittal and diffusion occurs
within conflict zones.
Part II of the book
In the second part of this volume, an attempt is made to empirically assess

the difference that particular international security institutions, such as the
UN, EU and NATO, can make in the security domain. Moreover, contribu-
tions from various theoretical perspectives do not explore simply whether
institutions matter but, more importantly, how they matter and under what
conditions. By implication, then, the theoretical gap addressed by relevant
accounts of the effects of international institutions is also limited: “research
should increasingly turn to the question of how institutions matter in shaping
the behaviour of important actors in world politics . . . and emphasize theor-
etically-informed analysis based on observable implications of alternative
theories of institutions” (Martin and Simmons 2001: 437).
Obviously, contributions in this part of the volume are not based on
approaches covering the entire theoretical spectrum of the existing literature
on the effects of international institutions. Indeed, highly sceptical – if not
negative – realist and neo-realist views about the influence international
institutions can exert over state behavior are self-excluded from any attempt
to test institutional effects. By implication, analysis is mainly based on
rational (mainly neo-liberal institutionalist or neo-institutionalist) and social
constructivist accounts – and/or on a synthesis of these two approaches – of
the effects of particular international security institutions. Both approaches
assume, though for different reasons and through different channels, that
international institutions can affect and alter states’ interests as well as their
identities.
For neo-institutionalists, international institutions can make the difference
and affect states’ strategies through a plethora of channels, including –
among others – their ability to serve as focal points that help states solve co-
ordination problems, to function as well-defined standards of behavior that
reinforce the incentives to co-operate, to reduce uncertainty about each
other’s capabilities, behavior, and interests, and to reduce transaction costs,
thus facilitating co-operation and making it easier for states to resolve dis-
putes over distributional conflicts (Keohane 1984; Martin 1992; Duffield
1994; Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger 1997).
From a social constructivist perspective, international institutions can have
more profound effects and can succeed in changing states’ preferences and
even their identities. This happens mainly through the dispersion of norms,
beliefs and standards of appropriate behavior (Finnemore 1993) and the sub-
sequent internalization of the institutions’ rules and norms into states’
domestic legislation and practice (Muller 1993; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998;
Risse and Sikkink 1999). Teaching, learning and/or the use of international
institutions as discourse fora that facilitate argumentative goals are the most
common mechanisms through which ideational change might take place
(Finnemore 1993; Checkel 1997 and 2001b; Risse 2000).
Most recently, rational and constructivist efforts have generated some
promising propositions to better specify the mechanisms of institutional
effects, as well as the conditions under which international institutions are
expected to lead to the internalization of new roles or interests from their
member states (International Organization special issue, Fall 2005). However,
Introduction 13
a series of interesting and important issues seem to remain under-researched
and thus unanswered.
More specifically, attention in the institutional literature has turned to the
causual significance of institutions, which, as a result of the fact that only a
few studies take the problem of institutional endogeneity seriously, has
remained inadequately demonstrated (Botcheva and Martin 2001: 3). Apart
from constructing well-delineated causal mechanisms, however, a rationalist
inquiry has so far given rise to a series of related research directions and
issues, such as how institutions might resolve bargaining and distributional
conflicts (Hasenclever et al.,1997), how to bring domestic politics more
systematically into the study of international institutions (Cortell and Davis
1996), and how to explain variation in institutional effects.
It is worth noting that only a few empirical studies specify the conditions
under which institutions should have the predicted effects (Botcheva and
Martin 2001: 3). By implication, the existence of unanticipated effects poses a
challenge to a rationalist approach and calls for a more synthetic approach,
namely one that might integrate the premises and insights of other schools of
thought. From a sociological point of view, this would mean that future
research should address how non-state actors can not only be empowered by
institutions, but how they can also use the latter as leverage to promote their
agenda. This point brings to the fore another important area for future
research: international institutions as dependent variables. Indeed, as pin-
pointed by Duffield, “literature has not paid particular attention to inter-
national security institutions and the ways in which they may differ both
among themselves and from international institutions in other issue areas”
(Duffield 2006: 649). Last, but not least, recent research also draws particular
attention to research enterprises that would allow for a departure from the
currently dominant single-issue, single-organization and single-country for-
mat to more theory-guided comparative research across time, across states
and/or across international institutions (Simmons and Martin 2002: 205).
The contributions in the second part of the volume treat particular inter-
national institutions as both independent and dependent variables, and are
constructed methodologically as tests of different influencing variables. By
doing so, all contributions address some of the aforementioned issues that
remain under-researched while their findings provide theoretically significant
insights. It should be noted, however, that these contributions should not be
viewed as integral parts of a concrete analytical framework in which one may
situate these insights. Rather, each contribution should be viewed as an
independent source of theoretical refinement of particular under-researched
issues on the effects of international security institutions on states’ behavior,
which could, in turn, be fruitfully integrated in any future attempt to refine,
elaborate, and confirm the state of the art on the sources and, most import-
antly, on the effects of international institutionalization. One should also
highlight the policy relevance each contribution carries with it. Indeed, given
that institutions evaluate their domestic impact, learn from the unintended or
counterproductive effects of their policies and change them accordingly,
studying the effects of a series of multilateral security institutions can also
provide those particular institutions with insights on the limits and/or on the
unintended effects of their actions and thus contribute to their ability to
refine the strategies they choose to follow.
Serving the purpose of helping interested readers think more systematic-
ally about how international institutions matter, Frank Schimmelfennig
raises the question of how multilateralism has developed in NATO since the
end of the Cold War. In assessing NATO’s post-Cold War multilateralist
quality, the author analyzes both the formal institutional development of
NATO and co-operative behavior within the alliance. Schimmelfennig argues
that, due to the change in the nature of the threat and NATO’s co-operation
problems, multilateral institutions within the post-Cold War, “new NATO”
have been expanded but at the same time weakened as a result of flexibiliza-
tion and decentralization.
However, the more flexible and less multilateralist structure of the “new
NATO” does not lead per se, the author argues, to less multilateralist behavior
among its members. Rather, behavior varies with the kind of security threats
or challenges at issue. Multilateral co-operation has been strongest when core
values and norms of the liberal transatlantic community were at stake –
either as a result of their massive violation (as in the “ethnic cleansing” in the
Balkans) or their strong reaffirmation (as in the candidates for NATO mem-
bership). It was weakest in the Iraq case, which was neither located in the core
community region nor related initially to the protection of liberal community
values. In between are the Afghanistan and Darfur cases. Thus, in the absence
of a common and clearly identifiable threat to their security, the member
states of NATO are mainly held together – and bound to act together – by
their common liberal democratic identity and the shared liberal values and
norms of the transatlantic community of all member states. Whenever this
identity was at stake, member states eventually felt compelled to co-operate
even in the absence of a threat to their own security.
The contribution of Geoffrey Edwards and Mladen Tošić and that of
Panayotis Tsakonas attempt to analyze the effects of “international socializa-
tion” in a systematic, theory-informed and comparative way.2 Edwards and
Tošić explore the role that international institutions can play in promoting
norms and bringing about changes in the domestic systems of states. The
instruments and policies by which organizations have sought to achieve com-
pliance with such norms and bring about a process of socialization have been
explored particularly fruitfully in relation to the EU, and especially in terms
of its policies towards its near-neighbors to the south or east. However, in the
part of Europe where the involvement of international institutions and
organizations has been most intense, the western Balkans, these models –
outlining conditions under which policies have been effective – have not
accounted for compliance/socialization of the local governments.
Starting with the two most prominent models in the literature on
Introduction 15
persuasion and international norm promotion – the thick persuasion/social
learning model and the external incentives model – the authors re-examine
the conditions under which compliance by target governments comes about.
More specifically they show that, though the conditions identified in the
existing models hold for the cases in the western Balkans, they are not suf-
ficient. Looking closely at the role of particular international organisations in
Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Office of the High Representative and the EU
– the authors identify four further conditions that affect compliance/
socialization: the impact of war, the level of co-ordination among inter-
national institutions, the levels of economic activity, and the impact of
coercion.
Although rational and constructivist efforts have generated some promis-
ing propositions to better specify the mechanisms of institutional effects and
the conditions in which international institutions are expected to lead to the
internalization of new roles or interests by member states, Tsakonas argues
that much less has been done on the role of institutions as facilitators of
co-operation and conflict management and/or transformation. Bridging
“rational-institutionalist” and “constructivist” accounts, the author explores
the impact the two most successful and prominent international institutions,
namely NATO and the EU, have had on the management and/or transform-
ation of the long-standing Greek–Turkish territorial dispute.
The author specifies the reasons that NATO’s role has always been – and is
doomed to remain – poor and parochial, whereas the EU appears able to
change the interests and/or identity scripts of the conflict parties. To this end,
certain core arguments are being developed about when and under what
conditions NATO and the EU may have a positive impact on the conflict
parties’ strategies toward co-operation and conflict transformation. Through
a comparative assessment of the empirical record of NATO and EU roles in
the transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute, the author identifies two
conditions that accounts most for NATO’s pervasive and the EU’s promising
role in the Greek–Turkish conflict: the strength of the norms each institution
exerts vis-à-vis the conflict parties, and the “type of socialization” or depth of
internalization the two institutions’ mechanisms have produced. The author
also draws attention to the need for international security institutions that
fulfill the aforementioned conditions to be careful enough to promote the
right mix of conditionalities and incentives to the disputants in order to
positively contribute to the transformation and/or resolution of an inter-state
dispute.
In a pioneer study on the UN peacebuilding enterprise, by employing new
quantitative methods to measure peacebuilding success defined by self-
sustaining peace (two or more years after the peacekeepers have left),
Nicholas Sambanis and Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl find that the UN has
been much more successful in peacekeeping than other organizations.
Building on a particular “ecological model of peacebuilding” Sambanis and
Schulhofer-Wohl test the hypothesis of the effectiveness of non-UN
operations empirically and find that non-UN operations have no significant
effect on peacebuilding success, unlike UN operations, which have a rather
positive effect. The authors postulate several possible explanations why non-
UN operations seem to have no significant effect on peacebuilding success
and they explore the differences between the outcomes of UN and non-UN
peace operations as a way to analyze the determinants of the composition of
a peace operation.
In their chapter, Sambanis and Schulhofer-Wohl make a valuable contribu-
tion to our understanding that certain peace operations are more successful
than others. However, a better approach, as the authors admit, would be to
isolate at a high level of detail those aspects of peace operations that are
important for success and to ensure that, whatever the originating organiza-
tion or state, a peace operation possessed these characteristics. Thus, a new
challenge for analysts of peacekeeping and policy makers is still to grasp the
political process by which peace operations are created and placed in the field.
Pursuing this line of research further promises to generate policy recom-
mendations on how to design any type of peace operation for the maximum
positive impact on peacebuilding.
In the contribution by Erik Voeten and that by Aris Alexopoulos and
Dimitris Bourantonis, analysis turns to treating international security institu-
tions as dependent variables. More specifically, Erik Voeten’s chapter tries to
shed light on the timely issue of reform in the world’s leading multilateral
organization, the UN Security Council. Voeten evaluates various plausible
explanations for the UNSC’s institutional persistence despite its increased
activity and shows why traditional explanations for the persistence of sub-
optimal institutional configurations provide insufficient explanations and do
not contribute much to our understanding of this question.
The author argues that, in order to understand the UNSC’s institutional
persistence, we need a fuller appreciation of how the UNSC fits into its
strategic environment. After introducing the issues that arise in delegating
decisions on uses of force to an international institution, Voeten provides
some simple illustrations of how outside power affects bargaining in an insti-
tution such as the UNSC. His empirical findings suggest that the most prom-
ising account focuses on the institutional characteristics of the bargaining
process that underlies the reform process. In addition, Voeten’s chapter
evaluates various other aspects of the bargaining process and draws conclu-
sions about the UNSC and institutionalist theories of change and continuity
in the international system. His analysis points – inter alia – to the limits of
the impact that institutional reform and design have when decisions need to
be self-enforcing and non-institutionalized power asymmetries matter. In
addition, the benefits of clever constitutional engineering will most likely be
relatively small, both for the production of public goods (peace) as well as for
the private interests of individual states.
On a more positive note, on the ability of the UNSC to successfully reform,
Alexopoulos and Bourantonis apply the work of George Tsebelis – a theory
Introduction 17
produced to explain the function of domestic political institutions – in order
to examine the element of enlargement of the UN decision body and its
correlation with its decision efficiency. The authors analyse the current
structures of the UNSC and discuss the decision capacity of the UN system
under alternative reform scenarios on the membership and institutional
arrangements of the future UNSC.
The authors convincingly argue that it is misleading to connect, as many
used to do, enlargement with less decision capacity in the UNSC. Hence, a
UNSC larger than the current one, with more permanent members equipped
with institutional veto power, could arrive at a decision with less difficulty
than the current, more restricted UNSC. The important element for the deci-
sion capacity of the UNSC is therefore not its size but the location of the
ideal preference points of its members and the decision rule according to
which these members vote for the proposed draft resolutions.
Notes
1 As all the contributions in Part II deal with (mostly the effects of) particular multi-
lateral security institutions, such as the UN, EU and NATO, this volume adheres to
the definition of international institutions given by Robert Keohane, who includes
international organizations in his definition of international institutions (Keohane
1989: 3–4).
2 For the need of future research undertakings to follow these directions, see Schim-
melfennig (2002: 22).
Part I
Multilateralism and security

Concepts, issues and strategies
1 State power and international
institutions
America and the logic of
economic and security
multilateralism
G. John Ikenberry
Introduction
The United States has been one of the great champions of multilateral, rule-
based international order, but it has also frequently sought to resist and
exempt itself from entangling institutional obligations. Across the twentieth
century – and in particular at the major postwar turning points of 1919, 1945
and 1989 – the United States pursued ambitious strategies that entailed the
use of an array of multilateral institutions to remake international order. No
other great power has advanced such far-reaching and elaborate ideas about
how institutions might be employed to organize and manage the relations
between states. But despite this enthusiasm for creating institutions and a
rule-based international order, the United States has been reluctant to tie itself
too tightly to these multilateral institutions and rules (Ikenberry 2003).
After World War I, the United States put the League of Nations at the
center of its designs for world order: collective institutions were to play an
unprecedented role in organizing security and providing mechanisms for dis-
pute resolution and the enforcement of agreements. After World War II, the
United States pushed onto the world a remarkable array of new institutions –
multilateral, bilateral, regional, global, security, economic, and political. After
the Cold War, the United States again pursued an institutional agenda – the
expansion of NATO and the launching of the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), the Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC),
and the World Trade Organization (WTO). But at each turn, the United
States also resisted the loss of sovereign authority or the reduction of its
policy autonomy. The League of Nations in 1919, the International Trade
Organization in 1947, and the recent cases of the International Criminal
Court (ICC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty are all
monuments to America’s reluctance to bind itself to international institu-
tions. Indeed, the George W. Bush administration has made resistance to
binding international agreements a hallmark of its foreign policy.
The puzzle is to explain the logic and variation in the extent to which the
United States has agreed to establish binding institutional ties – particularly
multilateral ties – with other states. Why did the United States at the zenith of
22 G. John Ikenberry
its hegemonic power after World War II and again after the Cold War seek
the establishment or expansion of multilateral institutions and agree to insert
itself within them? Why did it agree to bind itself to Europe in a 1949 security
pact, deepen that commitment in the years that followed, and seek the expan-
sion of NATO in the 1990s, even after the Soviet threat that prompted secu-
rity co-operation disappeared? Why did the United States seek to establish
order after World War II in western Europe through multilateral commitments
and pursue a series of bilateral security agreements in Asia?
The most basic hypothesis is that the United States organizes and operates
within international institutions when it can dominate them and resists doing
so when it cannot. But a slightly more complex set of calculations seem to be
involved. This chapter argues that American ambivalence about multilateral
institutions – along with variations in its institutional relations with Europe
and the rest of the world – reflects a basic dilemma that lies at the heart of
international institutional agreements. The attraction of institutional agree-
ments for the leading states is that they potentially lock other states into
stable and predictable policy orientations, thereby reducing its need to use
coercion. But the price that the leading state must pay for this institutional-
ized co-operation is a reduction in its own policy autonomy and its unfettered
ability to exercise power. The central question that American policy makers
have confronted over the decades after 1945 in regard to its economic and
security ties is: how much policy “lock-in” of other states – ensured by the
institutionalization of various commitments and obligations – is worth how
much reduction in American policy autonomy and restraint on its power?
The result is a potential institutional bargain – a bargain that lies at the
heart of America’s multilateral ties to other Western democracies and the
wider array of postwar multilateral institutions championed by the United
States. It is a bargain that is most fully available when the old order has been
destroyed and a newly powerful state must engage weaker states over the
organization of the new order. In the institutional bargain, the leading state
wants to reduce compliance costs and weaker states want to reduce their costs
of security protection – or the costs they would incur trying to protect their
interests against the actions of a dominating lead state. This is what makes
the institutional deal attractive: the leading state agrees to restrain its own
potential for domination or abandonment in exchange for the long-term
institutionalized co-operation of subordinate states. Both sides are better off
with an institutionalized relationship than in an order based on the constant
threat of the indiscriminate and arbitrary exercise of power. The leading state
does not need to expend its power capabilities to coerce other states, and the
other states do not need to expend resources seeking to protect themselves
from such coercion. It is the mutually improving nature of this exchange that
makes the institutional deal work.
The central theoretical claim is that institutions are best seen as tools of
political control. Their basic value to states is that they alter the levels of state
autonomy and political certainty. Seen in this way, the ability of the leading
State power and international institutions 23
state to credibly restrain and commit its power is, ironically, a type of power
(Schelling 1960: 22–8). It wants to lock other states into specific types of
institutional commitments. It could use its power to coerce them, but to do so
is costly and it loses any chance of building a legitimate order. If the leading
state can bind itself and institutionalize the exercise of its power – at least to
some credible extent – offering to do so becomes a bargaining chip it can play
as a way to obtain the institutional co-operation of other states. But it is only
a bargaining chip when the power disparities make limits and restraints desir-
able to other states and when the leading state can in fact establish such limits
and constraints. It is the variations in these various enabling circumstances
that explain why the United States sometimes seeks to build multilateral
institutions and bind itself to other states and why in other cases it does not.
State power and institutions

Why would a leading state surrounded by a world of weaker states want to
establish multilateral institutions? The answer is that institutional agreements
can lock other states into a relatively congenial and stable order. The institu-
tions help create a more favorable and certain political environment in which
the leading state pursues its interests. This is possible because institutions can
operate as mechanisms of political control. When a state agrees to tie itself to
the commitments and obligations of an inter-state institution, it is agreeing to
reduce its policy autonomy. A leading state that has created an institutional-
ized order that works to its long-term benefit is better off than a leading state
operating in a free-floating order requiring the constant and costly exercise of
power to get its way.
Institutions can serve two purposes. First, as neo-liberal institutionalists
argue, institutions can help solve collective action problems – reducing the
commitment problems and transaction costs that stand in the way of efficient
and mutually beneficial political exchange (Keohane 1984). But institutions
are also instruments of political control. As Terry Moe argues, “political
institutions are also weapons of coercion and redistribution. They are the
structural means by which political winners pursue their own interests, often
at the expense of political losers” (Moe 1990: 213). A winning political party
in Congress will try to write the committee voting rules to favor its interests.
Similarly, in international relations, a powerful state will want to make its
advantages as systematic and durable as possible by trying to rope weaker
states into favorable institutional arrangements.1
The attraction of institutional agreements for the leading state is two-fold.
First, if the leading state can get other states to tie themselves to a multi-
lateral institution that directly or indirectly serves its long-term interests, it
will not need to spend its resources to constantly coerce other states. It is the
most powerful state, so it is likely that it would win many or most of the
endless distributive battles in a non-institutionalized relationship with sub-
ordinate states, but locking these lesser states into institutional agreements
reduces these costs of enforcement (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Martin
1993).2 Second, if the institutional agreement has some degree of stickiness –
that is, if it has some independent ordering capacity – the institution may
continue to provide favorable outcomes for the leading state even after its
power capacities have declined in relative terms. Institutions can both conserve
and prolong the power advantages of the leading state.
In general, when deciding whether to sign a multilateral agreement, a state
faces a trade-off. In agreeing to abide by the rules and norms of the agree-
ment, the state must accept a reduction in its policy autonomy. That is, it
must agree to some constraints on its freedom of action – or independence of
policymaking – in a particular area. But in exchange it expects to get other
states to do the same. The multilateral bargain will be attractive to a state if it
concludes that the benefits that flow to it through the co-ordination of pol-
icies achieved through rule-based constraints on policy choice are greater
than the costs of lost policy autonomy. In an ideal world, a state might want
to operate in an international environment in which all other states are heav-
ily rule-bound, while leaving itself entirely unencumbered by rules and insti-
tutional restraints. But because all states are inclined in this way, the question
becomes one of how much autonomy each must offer in order to get rule-based
behavior out of the others.
A state’s willingness to agree to a multilateral bargain will hinge on several
factors that shape the ultimate cost–benefit calculation. One is whether the
policy constraints imposed on other states (states B, C, D) by the multilateral
agreement really matter to the first state (state A). If the “unconstrained”
behavior of other states is judged to have no undesirable impact on state A,
then state A will be unwilling to give up any policy autonomy of its own. It also
matters if the participating states are actually able to credibly restrict their
policy autonomy. If state A is unconvinced that states B, C, and D can actually
be constrained by multilateral rules and norms, it will not be willing to sacrifice
its own policy autonomy (Fearon 1997). Likewise, state A will need to con-
vince the other states that it too will be constrained. These factors are all con-
tinuous rather than dichotomous variables – so judgments must be made by
states about the degree of credibility and relative value of constrained policies.
But why would weaker states agree to be roped in? After all, they might
calculate that it is better to not lock themselves into an institutional agree-
ment now (T1) and wait until some later time (T2 or T3) when the power
asymmetries do not favor the leading state as much. Weaker states have two
potential incentives to buy into the leading state’s institutional agreement.
First, if the institutional agreement also put limits and restraints on the
behavior of the leading state, this would be welcome. In a non-institutionalized
relationship, these lesser states are subject to the unrestrained and unpredict-
able domination of the leading state. If they believed that credible limits
could be placed on the arbitrary and indiscriminate actions of the lead-
ing state, this might be enough of an attraction to justify an institutional
agreement at T1. Second, when the leading state does in fact circumscribe its
behavior, it is giving up some opportunities to use its power to gain immedi-
ate returns on its power – it settles for fewer gains at T1 by operating within
institutional rules and obligations than it could otherwise achieve with its
brute power. It does this with an eye toward longer-term gains that are speci-
fied above. But weaker states may have reason to gain more sooner rather
than later. The discount rates for future gains are potentially different for the
leading and lesser states, and this makes an institutional bargain potentially
more mutually desirable.
So the leading state is faced with a choice: how much institutional limita-
tion on its own policy autonomy and exercise power is worth how much
policy lock-in of weaker states? Institutionalization tends to be a two-way
street. A newly powerful state can try to embed other states in a set of multi-
lateral institutions, but it will likely need to give up some of its own discre-
tionary power to get the desired outcome. Terry Moe (1990: 227–8) notes
this in regard to a ruling party’s control of government institutions:
They can fashion structures to insulate their favorable agencies and pro-
grams from the future exercise of public authority. In doing so, of course,
they will not only be reducing their enemies’ opportunities for future
control; they will be reducing their own opportunities as well. But this is
often a reasonable price to pay, given the alternative. And because they
get to go first, they are really not giving up control – they are choosing to
exercise a greater measure of it ex ante, through insulated structures that,
once locked in, predispose the agency to do the right things. What they
are moving away from – because it is dangerous – is the kind of ongoing
hierarchical control that is exercised through the discretionary decisions
of public authority over time.
Several hypotheses follow immediately from this model of state power and
institutions. First, a leading state should try to lock other states into insti-
tutionalized policy orientations, while trying to minimize its own limitations
on policy autonomy and discretionary power. This is the story that Michael
Crozier tells about politics within large-scale organizations. Each individual
within a complex organizational hierarchy is continually engaged in a dual
struggle: to tie his colleagues to precise rule-based behavior – thereby creating
a more stable and certain environment in which to operate – while also trying
to retain as much autonomy and discretion as possible for himself (Crozier
1964). Similarly, leading states will try to lock other states in as much as
possible while also trying to remain as unencumbered as possible by insti-
tutional rules and obligations. Second, the leading state will make use of its
ability – to the extent the ability exists – to limit its capacity to exercise power
in indiscriminate and arbitrary ways as a “currency” to buy the institutional
co-operation of other states.
The availability of the institutional bargain will depend on several cir-
cumstances that can also be specified as hypotheses. First, the amount of
“currency” available to the leading state to buy institutional co-operation
of weaker states is determined by two factors: the ability of the leading state
to potentially dominate or injure the interests of weaker states and its ability
to credibly restrain itself from doing so. Although all states might offer to
restrain and commit themselves in exchange for concessions by other states,
the willingness and ability of powerful states to do so will be of particular
interest to other states. Chad may offer to lock itself into an institutional
agreement that lowers its policy autonomy and make its future policy orienta-
tion more predictable, but few states will care much about this offer to bind
itself and they are not likely to offer much in return to get it. But if a powerful
state with the capacity for serious domination and disruption offers to
restrain itself – this will get the attention of other states and they are likely to
be willing to offer something to get it. But it is not just the domination and
disruption potential of the leading state that generates “currency” to buy the
institutional co-operation of other states. It is also the capacity to actually
make good on restraint and commitment. If a powerful state cannot credibly
limit its power, its currency will amount to very little.
Two other factors will also determine if the leading state – if it has the
“currency” with which to buy institutional co-operation – will in fact want to
do so. One is the degree to which the leading state is in fact interested in
locking in the policy behavior of other states. This is a question about the
extent to which the actions of other states actually impinge on the interests of
the leading state. The security policy orientation of Europe states would tend
to qualify as important, but other policy orientations of European states –
and the wide range of policy orientations of other states around the world –
are not significant enough to justify efforts by the leading state to lock in
stable and favorable policy behavior, particularly if the price of doing so
entails a reduction of policy autonomy. The other factor is simply the ability
of weaker states to be locked in. The United States may want to lock in the
policy behavior of other states – particularly the security policy behavior –
but not have enough confidence that these institutionalized commitments and
obligations can be effectively locked in.
Taken together, these considerations allow us to see how a leading state and
weaker states might make trade offs about binding themselves together
through multilateral institutions. The four factors are summarized in Table
1.1. The more that the leading state is capable of dominating and abandoning
weaker states, the more that weaker states will care about restraints on the
leading state’s exercise of power – and the more they are likely to make some
concessions to get leading state restraint and commitment. Similarly, the
more that a potentially dominating state can in fact credibly restrain and
commit itself, the more that weaker states will be interested in pursuing an
institutional bargain. When both these conditions hold – when the leading
state can dominate and abandon, and when it can restrain and commit itself –
that state will be particularly willing and able to pursue an institutional bar-
gain. From the perspective of the leading state, the less important that the
Table 1.1 Incentives and opportunities behind the institutional bargain
Variable Implications
Domination/abandonment potential of Weaker states more willing to make

the leading state concessions to gain restraint
Leading state has enhanced institutional
bargaining advantage
Restraint/commitment potential of the Weaker states more willing to make
leading state concessions
Leading state has enhanced institutional
bargaining advantage
Lock-in importance to leading state Leading state has greater incentive to offer
restraint and commitment
Lock-in potential of weaker states Leading state has greater incentive to offer
restraint and commitment
policy behavior is of weaker states (that is, the less consequential it is to

the leading state), the less the leading state will offer restraints on its own
policy autonomy to achieve policy lock-in. Likewise, the less certain that the
leading state is that policy lock-in of weaker states can in fact be accom-
plished, the less the leading state will offer restraints on its own policy
autonomy.
American institution building

This model is useful in making sense of the broad sweep of American institu-
tion building over the twentieth century. The major patterns of American
policy toward multilateral institutions can be sketched. It is not only that the
United States has tended to support the creation of multilateral institutions
when it can dominate them. This is the most straightforward hypothesis, and
there is a great deal of evidence to support it. But there is also a slightly more
complicated calculation in American institutional thinking. The United States
has tended to weigh the costs of reducing its policy autonomy in relation to the
gains that it would realize by locking other states into enduring policy
positions.
Postwar institution building

The United States has been most active in seeking institutional agreements
after major wars – as it did in 1919, 1945, and 1989. The reason why is made
clear in the foregoing model. There are several distinctive features of postwar
moments that lend themselves to new institutional initiatives. First, the old
institutional order has been cleared away by the war and therefore, in contrast
to more “normal” moments in international relations, basic issues of order are
on the table. It is difficult simply to fall back on the status quo. Second, wars
tend to create new winners and losers – and ratify a new and often heightened
asymmetrical distribution of power. As a result, the new leading state will be
faced with a decision how to use its new power assets. It has, in effect, received
a windfall of power. Should it simply use these new power assets to win in the
endless distributive struggles after the war or use them to invest in an order
that serves its long-term goals? The leading state does have incentives at these
junctures to act in a relatively far-sighted way. Institutional agreements are
potentially a form of investment in the future – but only if they are capable of
playing a shaping and constraining role even in the face of shifts in the
distribution of power.
Third, because the leading state is newly powerful, secondary states will be
particularly eager to gain assurances about the actions of the leading state.
They will be interested in agreements that reduce the ability of the leading
state to dominate or abandon them. The more powerful and potentially dis-
ruptive the new leading state is, the more other states will worry about this
problem and the more they will be willing to concede in order to get credible
restraints and commitments. Fourth, the war itself also tends to disrupt the
domestic institutions of the new leading state and the new secondary states.
Often the leading state is actually in a position to occupy and help rebuild the
secondary states. As a result, the postwar moment may be particularly con-
genial for the establishment of institutional agreements that lock weaker
states into a long-term policy orientation. Put differently, the lock-in capacity
is particularly high after major wars.
Finally, if the leading state does want to create an order that is legitimate, it
will be attracted to institutional agreements that not only lock weaker states
into a desirable order but also render the postwar order legitimate – that is,
mutually acceptable or desirable. To the extent that the institutional agree-
ments restrain and commit the power of the leading state, this may be an
attractive option. The institutional agreement lowers its costs of enforcement.
After wars, newly powerful states are confronted with these sorts of dilemmas
and trade-offs.
Variations in postwar institutional outcomes

The United States pursued a much more elaborate and wide-ranging insti-
tutional agenda after 1945 than it did after 1919. The proposal for a League
of Nations was an ambitious and demanding institution that sought to estab-
lish a global system of collective security. But the hard work of building these
institutions was not in the institutional concessions and obligations that the
United States and the other countries agreed to, but in the democratic revolu-
tion that Wilson saw as insuring the success of the League of Nations (Knock
1992). In contrast, the scope and depth of the post-1945 proposals and the
ambition with which the United States sought to remake Europe and Asia
entailed a more fully institutionalized postwar order than Wilson could
imagine. Why did the United States pursue a much more far-reaching insti-
tutional agenda after 1945?
The model presented earlier is helpful in untangling this postwar variation.
The United States was in a much more asymmetrical power relationship with
Europe after 1945 than it was in 1919. This had a major impact on the ability
and willingness of the leading and weaker states to seek an institutional
bargain. More so than in 1919, the United States was a full-fledged hege-
monic power after 1945, and because of this the Europeans attached a pre-
mium to harnessing and restraining this newly powerful state. Europe was
much more willing to accept an institutional agreements in return for a more
restrained and committed America. Likewise, the United States had tremen-
dous “currency” with which to buy the institutional agreement of other states,
particularly the Europeans.
Other factors also facilitated the unprecedented post-1945 institutionalism.
The United States ended World War II with a much more sophisticated
critique of what had caused the world war and what would be necessary to
insure a peaceful and stable postwar order. In 1919, the Wilson administration
did have a strong view about how Europe needed to transform itself. It made
stark contrasts between its new thinking and the militarism and balance-of-
power thinking of the Old World. The leaders in France and Britain also felt
threatened by Wilson’s crusade to remake the world. But the American pos-
ition after World War II entailed a much more comprehensive critique of
European and world politics. Europe needed to integrate itself more fully.
Wider social and economic reform would be needed to sustain liberal demo-
cratic regimes, and these reforms would need to be embedded in regional and
global multilateral institutions. Just as importantly, the domestic systems in
Japan and Germany would need much more thorough-going reform – made
possible by the unprecedented opportunity of the American and allied occu-
pation (Smith, T. 1994: ch. 6). Compared to 1919, in 1945 the United States
saw more lock-in importance and more lock-in opportunity in Europe. As a
result, it was willing to give more to get it. Likewise, the Europeans were more
willing after 1945 to give more concessions in order to get institutionalized
American restraints and commitments.
This analysis suggests that three of the four variables that bear on the
incentives and opportunities for an institutional bargain were more evident in
1945 than in 1919. What about the fourth variable: the ability of the leading
state to make credible restraints and commitments? It is difficult to argue that
the institutional character of the United States was radically different after
1945 in a way that facilitated the establishment of credible restraints and
commitments. But there was a difference. The sheer density of post-1945
institutional initiatives provided more “strings” with which to tie the United
States down and tie it to Europe. American restraint and commitment
to Europe in 1919 was based on the fragile tie of a single treaty. In 1945
it was based on dozens of inter-governmental agreements, most importantly
NATO.
Variations in American policy toward Europe and Asia
American institution building after 1945 took different forms in Europe and
Asia. The United States pursued a multilateral strategy in Europe – with
NATO as the anchor – while in Asia it pursued a series of bilateral security
agreements with Japan, Korea, and several southeast Asian states. This con-
trast provides an important puzzle that can sharpen the logic of American
multilateralism.
The first observation is that the United States actually did float the idea of
a multilateral security institution in Asia – in the early 1940s and during
1950–1 – that was to be a counterpart to NATO. The second observation
is that some of the elements that allowed security multilateralism to be
embraced in Europe did not exist in Asia – quite apart from American inter-
ests or intentions. Europe did have a group of roughly equal sized and
situated states that were capable of being bound together in a multilateral
security institution tied to the United States, while Japan was alone and
isolated in east Asia. The third observation is that the countries in east Asia
that might have been party to a multilateral security pact – South Korea,
South Vietnam, and Taiwan – were all countries that were interested in
reunification. The NATO pact in Europe seemingly made permanent the
division of Germany. This was a development that these Asian states sought
to avoid.
The model presented earlier adds to these explanations. The basic differ-
ence between Asia and Europe is that the United States was more dominant
in Asia but also wanted less out of Asia. This meant that as a practical matter
it was less necessary for the United States to give up policy autonomy in
exchange for institutional co-operation in Asia. In Europe, the United States
had an elaborate agenda for uniting the European states, creating an insti-
tutional bulwark against communism, and supporting centrist democratic
regimes. It had ambitious lock-in goals. These goals could not simply be
realized through the brute exercise of power. To get what it wanted it had to
bargain with the Europeans and this meant agreeing to restrain its exercise of
power.3 In Asia, the United States did not have goals that were sufficient
important enough to purchase with an agreement to restrain its power.
Bilateralism was the desired strategy because multilateralism would have
required more restraints on policy autonomy. Put differently, the United
States had much more unchallenged hegemonic power in Asia than in west-
ern Europe, and therefore it had fewer incentives to secure its dominant
position with international institutions. Peter Katzenstein (1997) argues that
[i]t was neither in the interest of the United States to create institutions
that would have constrained independent decision making in Washington
nor in the interest of subordinate states to enter institutions in which they
would have minimal control while foregoing opportunities for free-riding
and dependence reduction. Extreme hegemony thus led to a system of
bilateral relations between states rather than a multilateral system that
emerged in the North Atlantic area around the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) and the European Community.
This view is also consistent with the more recent developments. As American
hegemony has declined in relative terms within east Asia and as the United
States has developed more specific lock-in goals for the states within the
region, its interest in multilateral institutional building has increased some-
what (Crone 1993). American support for APEC – while not an institution
that requires much, if any, real policy restraint by the United States – is
emblematic of this new multilateralism in Asia.
Institutionalism on the cheap

The United States has consistently attempted to get as much institutionalized
order building after major wars as possible on the cheap – that is, with min-
imal cost to it in real restraints on its policy autonomy or political sover-
eignty. This is the basic logic that the model illuminates: the leading state
will try to lock in other states and create as stable and favorable a political
environment as possible with the least possible cost in policy encumbrances.
This logic is seen in the American impulse after 1919 and 1945. At both
moments, the United States did not initially foresee specific or legally demand-
ing American commitments to the rest of the world. Instead, the United
States sought to encourage general tendencies in the international system that
would work independently to foster a stable and favorable international
order. In 1919, Wilson understood that the major leverage that the United
States had over the policies of other states was not an offer of American
commitments and restraints. The leverage was the worldwide democratic
revolution. It was Wilson’s optimism about the trajectory of history and the
groundswell of world public opinion that was to launch the League of Nations
and transform world politics. The democratic structure of the world, rather
than the legal character of binding ties, was to be the source of America’s
stable and favorable world order.
The American president’s view of international law and inter-government
agreements was firmly rooted in nineteenth-century understandings. The
inter-governmental institutions themselves were not the mechanisms that
bound states to each other. It was the democratic disposition to co-operate
that was the critical source of institutional co-operation. As a result, Wilson
did not think the United States was giving up much policy autonomy to get a
desired institutionalized order. The League of Nations treaty had an escape
clause that made the American commitment to a postwar collective security
system consistent with the United States constitution and the wishes of the
American Senate. Wilson ultimately did not object to his antagonists in the
Senate – and their proposed “reservations” – because he thought their pro-
posals would break the American commitment to Europe. His rejection of
their reservations was more symbolic: that the Senate would send the world
the wrong message. This in turn was consistent with his view of the unfolding
postwar political situation. The United States needed to encourage the world
democratic revolution because that – not specific agreements to reduce
American policy autonomy – was the motor of world order building.
After 1945, the United States again began its thinking about postwar order
with a view of an “automatic” world order that would require little direct
American involvement – or specific commitments or restraints on its power
(Ikenberry 1989). Throughout the war, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and
the American State Department anticipated a postwar order built around
free trade. This was before the postwar social and economic debilitations and
potential for political collapse in Europe were fully apparent to American
officials and before the Cold War rudely shifted official thinking. But the free
trade idea was perfect. The United States would get a stable and favorable
postwar order without either directly managing the system or placing res-
traints on its policy autonomy. An open world economy, once the major
states moved in this direction, would be self-generating. It would lock other
states into a liberal internationalist policy orientation and the United States
would not need to offer concessions or reduce its policy discretion.
What was different after 1945 is that the situation changed quickly. The
United States realized almost immediately that more direct and specific insti-
tutional commitments would be needed to stabilize and orientate Europe.
In effect, American lock-in goals expanded. They expanded as a result of
numerous developments discussed below. Also, for the Europeans the costs
of not securing postwar agreements that restrained and committed the
United States would be much greater after World War II than after the earlier
war. These considerations drove the institutional bargain forward. But even
as this rolling process of institutional bargaining proceeded, the United
States sought to squeeze out as much policy lock-in from Europe with as few
restraints on its policy discretion as possible.
The institutional bargain with Europe

The postwar order in Europe and across the Atlantic was built around multi-
lateral institutions that created an elaborate system of restraint, commit-
ments and reassurances. The United States and Europe each attempted to lock
the other party into specific postwar institutional commitments. They accom-
plished this in part by agreeing in turn to operate within those institutions as
well, even if sometimes reluctantly (Ikenberry 2001: ch. 6).
This institutional bargain between the United States and Europe after
World War II was a rolling process. The United States saw its goals for
Europe expand. It progressively came to realize that the stabilizing and
reorientation of Europe would require active intervention and engineering,
including the creation of a variety of new multilateral institutions that
would bind the United States to Europe. It increasingly valued this European
stabilization and reorientation as tensions with the Soviet Union increased.
In both these ways, American lock-in goals expanded throughout the 1940s.
At the same time, the Europeans drove a hard bargain. They actively sought
American institutional involvement in postwar Europe and their institutional
agreement with the United States was tightly contingent on specific American
commitments and restraints. The order that emerged – the European order,
the Atlantic order, and the wider postwar world order – was the result of a
complex set of rolling institutional agreements that tightly linked the reorgan-
ization of Europe to an expanding American multilateral commitment.
Along the way, the United States only grudgingly gave up increments of
policy autonomy and restraints on its exercise of power but it did so with the
explicit understanding that in doing so it would be buying the institutional
lock-in of Europe.
The most elaborate and consequential institutional bargain was the secur-
ity alliance. Although established to respond to a growing Soviet threat, the
Atlantic pact was also designed to play a wider role in stabilizing relations
and reassuring partners within the alliance. The NATO alliance provided a
mechanism for the rehabilitation and reintegration of western Germany, an
instrument of what has been called “dual containment.” But it also locked in
America’s reluctant security commitment to Europe and tied the European
states together, reinforcing their movement toward regional integration. In
this way, the NATO alliance operated along with other postwar institutions
as a multifaceted instrument of “quadruple containment.”
The most consistent British and French objective during and after the war
was to bind the United States to Europe. The evolution in American policy,
from the goal of a European “third force” to acceptance of an ongoing secur-
ity commitment within NATO, was a story of American reluctance and
European persistence. The European search for an American security tie was
not simply a response to the rise of the Soviet threat. As early as 1943,
Winston Churchill proposed a “Supreme World Council” (composed of the
United States, Britain, Russia, and perhaps China) and regional councils
for Europe, the western hemisphere, and the Pacific. In an attempt to insti-
tutionalize an American link to Europe, Churchill suggested that the United
States would be represented in the European Regional Council, in addition to
its role in its own hemisphere. Reflecting American ambivalence about a
postwar commitment to Europe, one historian notes, “Roosevelt feared
Churchill’s council as a device for tying the United States down in Europe”
(Harper 1996: 96).
During and after the war, Britain and France sought to bind the United
States to Europe in order to make American power more predictable, access-
ible, and useable. The NATO alliance was particularly useful an as institution
that made the exercise of American power more certain and less arbitrary.
Despite the vast differences in the size and military power of the various
alliance partners, NATO enshrined the principles of equality of status, non-
discrimination, and multilateralism (Weber 1993). The United States was the
clear leader of NATO. But the mutual understandings and institutional mech-
anisms of the alliance would reduce the implications of these asymmetries of
power in its actual operation.
The security alliance also served to reduce European fears of resurgent and
unbridled German military power. The strategy of tying Germany to western
Europe was consistently championed by George Kennan:
In the long run there can be only three possibilities for the future of west-
ern and central Europe. One is German domination. Another is Russian
domination. The third is a federated Europe, into which the parts of
Germany are absorbed but in which the influence of the other countries
is sufficient to hold Germany in her place. If there is no real European fed-
eration and if Germany is restored as a strong and independent country,
we must expect another attempt at German domination.4
Two years later, Kennan was again arguing that “without federation there
is no adequate framework within which adequately to handle the German
problem.”5
If NATO bound both West Germany and the United States to Europe, it
also reinforced British and French commitment to an open and united
Europe. The United States not only was intent on the rehabilitation and
reintegration of Germany, but it also wanted to reorientate Europe itself. In
an echo of Wilson’s critique of the “old politics” of Europe after World
War I, American officials after 1945 emphasized the need for reform of
nationalist and imperialist tendencies. It was generally thought that the best
way to do so was to encourage integration. Regional integration would not
only make Germany safe for Europe, it would also make Europe safe for the
world. The Marshall Plan reflected this American thinking, as did Truman
administration support for the Brussels Pact, the European Defence Com-
munity (EDC), and the Schuman Plan. In the negotiations over the NATO
treaty in 1948, American officials made clear to the Europeans that a security
commitment hinged on European movement toward integration. One State
Department official remarked that the United States would not “rebuild a
fire-trap.”6 The American goal was, as Dean Acheson put it in reference to the
EDC, “to reverse incipient divisive nationalist trends on the continent.”7
American congressional support for the Marshall Plan was also premised, at
least in part, on not just transferring American dollars to Europe but also on
encouraging integrative political institutions and habits.
When Marshall Plan aid was provided to Europe, beginning in 1948, the
American government insisted that the Europeans themselves organize to
jointly allocate the funds. This gave rise to the Organization for European
Economic Co-operation (OEEC), which was the institutional forerunner
of the European Community. This body eventually became responsible for
European-wide supervision of economic reconstruction, and it began to
involve the Europeans in discussion of joint economic management. As one
American official recalls, the OEEC “instituted one of the major innovations
of postwar international co-operation, the systematic country review, in
which the responsible national authorities are cross-examined by a group of
their peers together with a high-quality international staff. In those reviews,
questions are raised which in prewar days would have been considered a gross
and unacceptable foreign interference in domestic affairs.”8 The United States
encouraged European integration as a bulwark against intra-European con-
flict even as it somewhat more reluctantly agreed to institutionalize its own
security commitment to Europe.
The various elements of the institutional bargain among the Atlantic coun-
tries fit together. The Marshall Plan and NATO were part of a larger insti-
tutional package. As Lloyd Gardner argues: “Each formed part of a whole.
Together they were designed to “mold the military character” of the Atlantic
nations, prevent the balkanization of European defense systems, create an
internal market large enough to sustain capitalism in Western Europe, and
lock in Germany on the Western side of the Iron Curtain” (Gardner 1984:
81). NATO was a security alliance, but it was also embraced as a device to
lock in political and economic relations within the Atlantic area.
Taken together, American power after the war left the European more
worried about abandonment than domination and they actively sought
American institutionalized commitments to Europe. Multiple layers of multi-
lateral economic, political, and security institutions bound these countries
together, reinforcing the credibility of their mutual commitments. The dra-
matic asymmetries of postwar power were rendered more acceptable as a
result. As the post-1945 period unfolded, American lock-in goals for Europe
expanded. Stabilizing the European economies, solving the German problem,
and reorientating British and French security policies required much more
“engineering” than American officials at first expected. To get these insti-
tutional concessions by Europe also entailed reluctant American willingness
to make an institutionalized security commitment and reduce its policy
autonomy.
Post-Cold War multilateralism

The United States emerged from the end of the Cold War in a newly advan-
taged position, and during the 1990s the world increasingly moved toward
unipolarity. In these circumstances, and across security and economic areas,
the United States sought to build and expand regional and global institu-
tions. NATO expansion and the creation of NAFTA, APEC, and the WTO
were elements of this agenda. This pattern of policy is consistent with the
logic of post-1945 institution building and it is captured in the model of the
institutional bargain. The United States employed institutions as a mechan-
ism to lock in other states to desired policy orientations and it was willing to
exchange some limits on its own autonomy to do so. Other states also seized
upon these institutions as ways to retrain and commit the United States.
In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the Bush administration
pushed forward a variety of regional institutional initiatives. In relations with
Europe, State Department officials articulated a set of institutional steps: the
evolution of NATO to include associate relations with countries to the east,
the creation of more formal institutional relations with the European Com-
munity, and an expanded role for the Conference on Security Co-operation in
Europe (CSCE) (Baker 1995: 172–3). In the western hemisphere, the Bush
administration pushed for NAFTA and closer economic ties with South
America. In east Asia, APEC was a way to create more institutional links to
the region, demonstrating American commitment to the region and insuring
that Asian regionalism moved in a trans-Pacific direction. The idea was to pur-
sue innovative regional strategies that resulted in new institutional frameworks
for post-Cold War relations.
These institutional initiatives, Baker later observed, were the key elements
of the Bush administration’s post-Cold War order-building strategy, and he
likened its efforts to American strategy after 1945: “Men like Truman and
Acheson were above all, though we sometimes forget it, institution builders.
They created NATO and the other security organizations that eventually
won the Cold War. They fostered the economic institutions . . . that brought
unparalleled prosperity . . . At a time of similar opportunity and risk, I
believed we should take a leaf from their book” (Baker 1995: 605–6; emphasis
in original). The idea was to “plant institutional seeds” – to create regional
institutional frameworks that would extend and enhance America’s influence
in these areas and encourage democracy and open markets.9
An institution-building agenda was also articulated by the Clinton adminis-
tration in its strategy of “enlargement.” The idea was to use multilateral
institutions as mechanisms to stabilize and integrate the new and emerging
market democracies into the Western democratic world. In an early statement
of the enlargement doctrine, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake argued
that the strategy was to “strengthen the community of market democracies”
and “foster and consolidate new democracies and market economies where
possible.” The United States would help “democracy and market economies
take root” which would in turn expand and strengthen the wider Western
democratic order.10 The target of this strategy was primarily those parts of the
world that were beginning the process of transition to market democracy:
countries of central and eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Promis-
ing domestic reforms in these countries would be encouraged – and locked in
if possible – through new trade pacts and security partnerships.
NATO expansion embodied this institutional logic. At the July 1997 NATO
summit, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were formally invited to
join the alliance. These invitations followed a decision made at the January
1994 NATO summit in Brussels to enlarge the alliance to include new
members from eastern and central Europe. Led by the United States, the
alliance embarked on the most far reaching and controversial reworking of
institutional architecture in the post-Cold War era.
The Clinton administration offered several basic rationales for NATO
expansion, but it consistently emphasized its importance in consolidating
democratic and market gains in eastern and central Europe and building an
expanded Western democratic community. NATO enlargement would pro-
vide an institutional framework to stabilize and encourage democracy and
market reform in these reforming countries. NATO would help lock in the
domestic transitions under way in eastern and central Europe. The prospect
of membership would itself be an “incentive” for these countries to pursue
domestic reforms in advance of actually joining the alliance. Once they were
admitted to NATO, the process of alliance integration was further assumed
to lock in institutional reforms. Membership entailed a wide array of organ-
izational adaptations, such as standardization of military procedures, steps
toward interoperability with NATO forces, and joint planning and training.
By enmeshing themselves within the wider alliance institutions, the ability of
the new NATO members to revert to old ways was reduced, and ongoing par-
ticipation in alliance operations tended to reinforce the governmental changes
that were made on the way toward membership. As one NATO official
remarked: “We’re enmeshing them in the NATO culture, both politically and
militarily so they begin to think like us and – over time – act like us” (quoted
in Towell 1998: 275). NATO membership rewarded steps toward democratic
and market reform, pushed it forward and locked it in.
NAFTA and APEC initiatives also embodied this logic, though the com-
mitments and lock-in mechanisms were less demanding. The Bush adminis-
tration supported bringing Mexico into the United States–Canada free trade
area for political reasons as well as for the anticipated economic gains. Mexico
was undergoing a democratic revolution and American officials wanted to
lock in these watershed reforms. Mexican officials also championed the trade
accord, for the same reason: it would lock in their successors to policy com-
mitments and economic relations that would thwart political backsliding.
APEC had at least a trace of this same reasoning. A multilateral economic
dialogue was possible within east Asia because of the long-term shift in the
developmental orientation of the emerging economies of the region. Japan
and Australia were the initiators of the APEC process, but the United States
quickly lent its support. At least part of the appeal of APEC within the
region was that it was a counterweight to American unilateral trade ten-
dencies: the multilateral process would help restrain the worst impulses of
American trade policy – symbolized in the “Super-301 Authority,” the trade
authority that Congress gives the executive, under which the United States
can act unilaterally to punish countries for restrictive or subsidized trade. In
return, the United States was able to encourage an open east Asian economic
regionalism and reinforce the market reforms that were unfolding across Asia
and the western hemisphere. The actual ability of APEC to lock in policy
orientations in the region was limited, but the restraints on American policy
autonomy were also more symbolic than real.
This pattern of institution building can be seen as a continuation of the
logic that underlay the Western postwar settlement. Institutional agreements
were pursued in order to reinforce domestic governmental and economic
changes which, in turn, tended to fix into place desired policy orientations. As
a leading State Department official describes the institutional strategy: “Our
intention was to create institutions, habits, and inclinations that would bias
policy in these countries in our direction.”11 The United States was able to
insure political and economic access to these countries and regions, and gain
some confidence that these countries would remain committed to political
and market openness. In exchange, these countries gained some measure of
assurance that American policy would be steady and predictable. The United
States would remain engaged and do so through institutions that would leave
it open to market and political access by these countries.
The Bush administration appears to have made a break with this American
strategy of using institutions to order the international system. The current
administration appears much less willing to make binding institutional com-
mitments. Quite the contrary, across a range of policy areas – arms control,
environment, security alliances, and the UN – the Bush administration has
sought to reduce American exposure to global multilateral entanglements in
a remarkable sequence of rejections of pending international agreements and
treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Rome Statute
of the ICC, the Germ Weapons Convention, and the Programme of Action
on Illicit Trade in Small and Light Arms. It also unilaterally withdrew from
the 1970s ABM treaty, which many experts regard as the cornerstone of
modern arms control agreements. Perhaps most dramatically, spurred by its
war on terrorism and war in Iraq, the Bush administration has advanced new
and provocative ideas about the American unilateral and pre-emptive use of
force.12 The question is: why?
The most straightforward answer is that the Bush administration brought
into office a different set of ideas about making institutional commitment
trade-offs. Indeed, President Bush himself and many of his advisors do have
a distinctly skeptical view of the merits of compromising American policy
autonomy and political sovereignty. Neo-conservative thinkers who have
influenced Bush policy bring with them a deep resistance to liberal insti-
tutional ideas. Some observers see today’s unilateralism as practiced by the
Bush administration as something much more sweeping – not an occasional
ad hoc policy decision but a new strategic orientation. Capturing this view,
one pundit calls it the “new unilateralism”:
After eight years during which foreign policy success was largely measured
by the number of treaties the president could sign and the number of
summits he could attend, we now have an administration willing to assert
American freedom of action and the primacy of American national inter-
ests. Rather than contain power within a vast web of constraining inter-
national agreements, the new unilateralism seeks to strengthen American
power and unashamedly deploy it on behalf of self-defined global ends.13
Indeed, Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the UN has charged
that the Bush administration threatens to make “a radical break with fifty-
five years of a bipartisan tradition that sought international agreements and
regimes of benefit to us.”14
This is surely part of the explanation. But the international context in
which the United States is making decisions about institutional commitments
has also changed. In particular, the rise of unipolarity and the shifting char-
acter of international threats have altered the “values” that go into institu-
tional bargaining calculations by the United States and its postwar partners.
The rise of unipolarity gives the United States a near-monopoly on global
military power. Increased power advantages give the United States more
freedom of action. It is easier for Washington to say no to other countries or
to go it alone. Growing power – military, economic, technological – also gives
the United States more opportunities to control outcomes around the world.
But unipolarity also creates problems of governance. Without bipolar or
multipolar competition, it is not clear what can discipline or render predict-
able American power. Other countries worry more than in the past about
domination, exploitation, and abandonment. They may not be able to organ-
ize a counter-balancing alliance, but they can resist and undermine American
policies. At the very least, they would like to see the unipolar state tied down
through institutional constraints in the manner at the heart of the postwar
institutional bargain.
So unipolarity alters the terms of the institutional bargain. The United
States does not need other countries as much under conditions of unipolarity,
so – everything else being equal – it is less willing to reduce its policy auton-
omy. It would in fact like to use its rising power position to reduce its binding
institutional obligations. Other countries, on the other hand, have growing
worry about American power, and so they in fact would like to see more
restrictions in American policy autonomy.
The second shift in the international environment that alters the insti-
tutional bargain is the shift in security threats. Under the bipolar Cold War,
the United States and its institutional partners were all threatened by the same
external threat – Soviet communism. Indeed, front-line states in Europe and
Asia actually, in some ways, felt the threat more immediately and intensely
than the United States. But the upshot of the security situation was that the
United States had security to offer and other countries wanted the American
provision of security. The end of the Cold War changed this situation. The
rise of terrorist threats compounds this shift. Now it is the United States that
feels threatened – but it does so in a way that other states do not experience.
There is a growing divide in the experience of “insecurity.” The United States
feels insecurity but other states are only secondarily able to be of assistance in
addressing America’s security problem. Other states do not feel the same
threats – and they are less dependent on the United States for the provision of
security. These multiple shifts have the same effect – they reduce incentives on
both sides for an institutional bargain on security (Ikenberry 2005).
In other areas, the rise of unipolarity or new security threats should not
directly impact on the institutional bargain. This is most obviously true in
terms of the world economy. American support for multilateralism is indeed
likely to be sustained – even in the face of resistance and ideological chal-
lenges to multilateralism in the Bush administration – in part because of a
simple logic: as global economic interdependence grows, the need for multi-
lateral co-ordination of policies also grows. The more economically intercon-
nected that states become, the more dependent they are for the realization of
their objectives on the actions of other states. Rising economic interdepend-
ence is one of the great hallmarks of the contemporary international system.
If this remains true in the years ahead, it is easy to predict that the demands
for multilateralism – even and perhaps especially by the United States – will
increase and not decrease.
Conclusion
Several general conclusions can be offered. First, there is a general insti-
tutional logic that combines the instincts of both realist and liberal theory.
Institutional bargains are driven by concerns about policy autonomy, legit-
imacy, the exercise of power, and political certainty. The struggle is to pro-
mote as predictable and favorable international environment in which to
operate. States are self-interested actors who jealously guard their policy
autonomy and sovereign authority, but who also are willing to bargain if
the price is right. Ironically, it is precisely the asymmetry of power that creates
the potential mutually beneficial exchange. The leading state has an incen-
tive to take advantage of its newly dominant position to lock in a favorable
set of international relationships – institutionalizing its pre-eminence. The
subordinate states are willing to lock themselves in – at least up to some point
– if it means that the leading state will be more manageable as a dominant
power.
Second, this model assumes that institutions can play a role in muting
asymmetries in power – thereby allowing the leading state to calculate its
interests over a longer time frame, with institutions serving as a mechanism to
invest in future gains, and allowing the weaker states to be confident that
there can be credible restraints on the arbitrary and indiscriminate exercise of
power. If institutions are unable to play this role, than the calculations and
trade-offs that are highlighted in the model are not likely to be of much
consequence. But American officials themselves have acted in a way that
suggests that at least they think institutions can in fact play such a shaping
and restraining role.
Third, the actual costs and benefits behind the trade-off between policy
autonomy and policy lock-in are difficult to specify in advance. The postwar
crisis in Europe and the multiple engineering tasks that the United States saw
as absolutely critical were real enough and they justified the restraints and
commitments that the United States offered to get these institutionalized
arrangements in Europe. But some of the other lock-in goals – such as eco-
nomic reforms, human rights standards, and war crimes laws – are not easy to
evaluate as goals worthy of X or Y amount of reduced policy autonomy.
Because of this the institutional model is perhaps better at identifying a
dilemma that states face and less effective at specifying in advance how the
trade-offs will be made.
Notes
This chapter is adapted from G.J. Ikenberry (2003) “State Power and the Institutional
Bargain: America’s Ambivalent Economic and Security Multilateralism,” in R. Foot,
S. Neil MacFarlane and M. Mastanduno (eds) US Hegemony and International Organ-
izations: The United States and Multilateral Institutions, New York: Oxford University
Press, pp. 49–70.
1 Institutions are potentially sticky for at least three reasons. First, they can create
difficult and demanding legal or political procedures for altering or discontinuing
the institutional agreement. Second, the institution can itself over time become an
actor, gaining some independence from states and actively promoting institutional
compliance and continuity. Third, growing vested interests – groups with stakes in
the success and continuation of the institution – along with other positive feed-
back effects produce “increasing returns” to institutions that raise the costs of
ending or replacing the institutions. This view of institutions can be contrasted
with two other perspectives. One is a more narrowly drawn rationalist account that
sees institutions as contracts – agreements that remain in force only so long as the
specific interests that gain from the agreement remain in place. It is the interests
and not the institution that are sticky. The other view is a constructivist view that
sees institutions and the institutionalization of inter-state relations as built upon
shared ideas and identities.
2 To the extent that the locking in of institutional commitments and obligations is
mutual – that is, the leading state also locks itself in, at least to some extent – this
makes the asymmetrical relationship more acceptable and legitimate to the weaker
and secondary states. This, in turn, reduces the enforcement costs.
3 On the ways in which NATO multilateralism restrained the American exercise of
power, see Weber (1993).
4 See “Report of the Policy Planning Staff,” 24 February 1948, Foreign Relations of
the United States, 1948, I, Part 2 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing
Office), p. 515.
5 See “Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Policy Planning Staff,” 24 January
1950, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, III (Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office), p. 620.
6 See “Minutes of the Fourth Meeting of the Washington Exploratory Talks on
Security,” 8 July 1948, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, III (Washing-
ton, DC: US Government Printing Office), pp. 163–9.
7 See “The Secretary of State to the Embassy in France,” 19 October 1949, Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1949, IV (Washington, DC: US Government Printing
Office), p. 471.
8 L. Gordon in Ellwood (1989: 48–9).
9 Interview of Robert B. Zoellick (US State Dept), 28 May 1999.
10 See A. Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” Vital Speeches of the Day, 60
(15 October 1993).
11 Interview, Robert B. Zoellick, 28 May 1999.
12 For an overview of this shift in American policy toward institutions under the
Bush administration, see Daalder and Lindsey (2003).
13 See C. Krauthammer, “The New Unilateralism,” Washington Post, 8 June 2001,
p. A29.
14 Quoted in T.S. Purdum, “Embattled, Scrutinized, Powell Soldiers On,” New York
Times, 25 July 2002, p. 1.
2 Unipolar empire and principled
multilateralism as strategies for
international change
Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri
Enthusiasts for international change have put forward two strikingly different
strategies for promoting a more democratic and just international order, one
unilateralist and the other multilateralist. Both are problematic because both
are based on flawed theories of social change.
During the 1990s, the loudest lobbyists for change were principled trans-
national activist groups in league with like-minded officials in international
organizations, idealistic international lawyers, and liberal internationalists in
some powerful democratic governments. Using the multilateralist tools of
transnational civil society networks and international organizations, with
intermittent help from liberal states, they promoted a universalistic agenda of
human rights, democratization, civil society promotion, peacekeeping, peace-
building and juridical accountability. The legacy of their handiwork has
included the liberation of Kosovo from Serbian tyranny, the trial of Slobodan
Milosevic, the extradition of Augusto Pinochet, the creation of the Inter-
national Criminal Court (ICC), and the democratic enlargement of the EU,
but it also includes the passivity of the UN peacekeepers during the Srebrenica
massacre and the Rwanda genocide, as well as internationally mandated vot-
ing that triggered mass violence in Burundi in 1993 and in East Timor in 1999.
After September 2001, the initiative for promoting international change
shifted to the Bush administration, and the neo-conservative ideologists who
articulated its principles. Like the principled multilateralists’ agenda, this
strategy too stressed the goal of promoting democracy and bringing evil-
doers to justice as means to end threats to global peace and security, but its
means were distinctively unilateralist, military, and non-legalistic. The mixed
legacy of its handwork has been the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
disputes over the application of international legal principles to perpetrators
of atrocities and prisoners, and the election in Middle Eastern states of can-
didates favoring terrorism (Hamas in the Palestinian territories), nuclear pro-
liferation (President Ahmadinejad in Iran), sectarianism, and warlordism. In
the wake of a May 2005 surge of terror attacks by Sunni insurgents in Iraq,
the American president belatedly added the too-mild disclaimer that “no
nation in history has made the transition from tyranny to a free society
without setbacks and false starts.”1
44 Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri
These strategies suffer from a willful voluntarism that is inevitably running
up against hard political and social facts. The liberal activists overstated the
efficacy of normative persuasion; the Bush strategy overestimated the efficacy
of military force. Both underestimated the need to ground international
change firmly in a set of facilitative preconditions: an economic basis to
support a liberal political order, a strong political coalition that supports
political reform, and the creation of administrative and judicial institutions
that support the rule of law. In particular, they underestimated the need to
develop a strategy for creating these preconditions in the right sequence,
taking into account the realities of particular political and social contexts.
In this chapter, we want to look at concepts for promoting change in two
areas: democracy promotion and international justice. Our goal will be to
study what happens when weak theories of social change run into the hard
realities of social facts, and then to offer some thoughts on change that have a
better sociological grounding.
Theories of change in a time of change

The pace of change is accelerating in international politics, yet social science
remains a notoriously poor guide to understanding and shaping it. The
waning of sharp military rivalries among the great powers, America’s unpre-
cedented position of material dominance, its struggle against hydra-headed
terrorist networks, and the rise of global advocacy politics together suggest
that the basic shape of the international order is changing. Old conceptions
of international order and the role of violence in it have been overtaken by
events. However, new visions of international order that are prominent in the
academy and in the world of affairs often misunderstand the relationship
between material and normative change. People who act on these mistaken
assumptions may unintentionally hinder the achievement of their goals of
peace and democracy.
According to the realist school of international relations, which dominated
American academic thought for half a century, politics among states is
ordered only in the thin sense that their struggle for security in international
anarchy recurrently produces balance-of-power behaviors, such as the forma-
tion of military alliances against strong, threatening states. Realists portray
this order as timeless, changing only in its details since Thucydides, depend-
ing on the number of great powers and the ebb and flow of their relative
strength (Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 2001).
In today’s unipolar circumstances, where American power cannot be
balanced in the traditional sense, many prominent international relations
scholars still adopt a state-centered power-politics framework as a starting
point, though not necessarily the endpoint, of their analyses. Even Robert
Jervis, whose main contributions have focused on the ways that leaders mis-
perceive the strategic problems they face, argues that “the forceful and uni-
lateral exercise of U.S. power is not simply the by-product of September 11,
Unipolar empire and principled multilateralism 45
the Bush administration, or some shadowy neoconservative cabal – it is the
logical outcome of the current unrivaled U.S. position in the international
system” which permits the US to indulge its nightmarish fears and its
Wilsonian hopes (Jervis 2003: 84, 86).
Realists’ assumptions about international power politics have come under
challenge from diverse quarters in academic and policy circles. Social con-
structivists and principled activists, for example, argue that the familiar game
of international power politics is not based on some inexorable, timeless
logic, but was constructed at a particular moment in time out of the discourse
of state sovereignty and raison d’état. Anarchy, they say, was what states
made of it. Consequently, the norms that constitute international relations
can be remade through campaigns of principled persuasion spearheaded by
transnational activist networks. If more benign ideas and identities are effect-
ively spread throughout the globe by cultural change and normative persua-
sion, then “ought” can be transformed into “is”: support for warlike dictators
can be undermined, perpetrators of war crimes and atrocities can be held
accountable, benign multicultural identities can be fostered, and international
and civil wars will wane (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 916; Risse and Sikkink
1999; Wendt 1999: 141, 377–8; Ruggie 1998: 199).2
Not only human rights activists, legalists, and social constructivists see
international order as a norm-guided project for social change. The highest
officials of the Bush administration argue that power politics must serve the
agenda of democratic idealism. President Bush, in his preface to the Septem-
ber 2002 National Security Strategy Memorandum that laid out the doctrine
of preventive attack that subsequently justified the Iraq war, stated: “the
United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength,” which
creates “a moment of opportunity to extend the benefits of freedom across
the globe. We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development,
free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world” (US President’s
Office 2002: 1–2). The text of the strategy document itself pulls the concept
of the “balance of power” inside-out and conflates it with ideological
expansionism: “Through our willingness to use force in our own defense and
in the defense of others, the United States demonstrates its resolve to main-
tain a balance of power that favors freedom” (US President’s Office 2002:
29). In explaining the new strategy, National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice mused about the theoretical debates of her erstwhile days as a Stanford
international relations professor, remarking that power-political realism and
idealism should not be seen as alternatives.3 Paul Wolfowitz and the neocon-
servative proponents likewise saw the Iraq war as the opening round of a
campaign to overturn prevailing political patterns in the Arab world and
generate momentum towards democracy there (Herrmann 2004: 191–225).
Many activists, legalists, and constructivists share this urge to use coercive
power to bring about change in the international order. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright justified the Kosovo war as, above all, a human rights
necessity. Samantha Power’s prize-winning book on America’s repeated
failures to prevent genocide helped galvanize a generation of idealistic activ-
ists to argue in favor of humanitarian military interventions (Power 2002).
Constructivist international relations scholar John Ruggie worked in support
of the war effort as an advisor to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
In constructivist accounts of international change, the main aim of trans-
national activists’ normative persuasion campaigns is often to convince
powerful states to use their leverage to coerce rights abusers (Keck and Sikkink
1998; Risse and Sikkink 1999).4
Each of these schools of thought gets part of the story right – and part of
it dangerously wrong. The traditionalist realists, most of whom spoke out
against the 2003 attack on Iraq, are right in insisting that any world view and
any policy derived from it must start with a realistic appreciation of the
positional interests of entrenched powers, especially states. However, they are
wrong insofar as they underrate the role of normative convictions in consti-
tuting social orders and in promoting change in them. Liberal activists and
constructivists have made that point well, but their theory of normative
change is too voluntarist and lacks an understanding of the preconditions
needed to sustain change. The Bush administration war hawks were right that
American power was crucial to the fate of normative change in international
relations, but their strategies were likely to be counterproductive in bringing
about the goals they claimed to seek.
What then might be a better-grounded approach to understanding the
potential for change in the international order and the role in it of political
violence?
First, in the period before a hoped-for change, the norms needed to bring
about the change should be understood as aspirations, as standards outlining
what might be achieved after a great deal of hard work and subtle politicking
(Beitz 1979). They should not be understood legalistically, as if they were
unconditional rights in need of immediate and universal enforcement regard-
less of the political consequences.
Second, the potential for normative change should be assessed in light of
the material, political, and institutional preconditions for it. Any normative
aspiration – democracy, human rights, justice – is only as good as the soil
that is available to nurture it. Typically, this requires the existence of favorable
(or at least permissive) material conditions, a powerful coalition of global
and local actors with an interest in bringing it about, and the construction
of institutions with the administrative capacity to give real effect to the
norms. Normative persuasion may help to shore up these preconditions and
consolidate them once they are in place, but it cannot create them out of
whole cloth.
Third, sequence matters in effecting normative change. Generally, the cre-
ation of a powerful reform coalition internationally and locally must be the
first step. It does no good and may even do harm to try to implement aspir-
ational norms if they are supported only by weak institutions and fragile
coalitions. In the short run, aspirational norms may have to be put on hold in
order to pursue the pragmatic political maneuvers that are needed to neutral-
ize potential spoilers and strengthen coalitions for reform (Stedman 1997).
Fourth, the promotion of normative change is a strategic interaction.
Would-be norms exist in a crowded field. They must contend with prevailing
traditional norms, with other new candidate norms, and with powerful, self-
interested actors that seek to evade being bound by any norms other than
ones that are temporarily convenient. New norms may be threatening to
powerful actors, who will respond with their own normative countercam-
paigns and perhaps even with violence. Norms entrepreneurs should make
sure that they can win normative battles – or at least contain the damage from
the possible backlash – before they start the fight.
To show how this general argument might apply to concrete items on the
agenda of international normative change, I will briefly examine the issues of
democracy promotion and justice for perpetrators of atrocities.
Democracy promotion
One of the few points that the Bush administration and the principled activ-
ists agreed upon is that the assertive promotion of democracy is a good idea.5
In particular, both argued that democracy and free speech are pillars of
peace; therefore, to promote peace, you promote democracy. Of course, this is
in principle. In fact, the Bush administration was rightly worried about the
consequences for interethnic relations of holding early elections in Iraq. The
occupation authorities shut down newspapers that spread falsehoods that
inflamed Iraqis to resist the occupation. This is the kind of problem that the
US is likely to face wherever it tries to install democracy in countries that lack
a strong reform coalition and useable institutions for the rule of law.
It is true that no two mature democracies have ever fought a war against
each other. The basic workings of this democratic peace rely on supports in
the material, institutional, and cultural domains. The absence of war between
mature democracies depends on the material motivation of the average mem-
ber of society to avoid needless death and impoverishment (goals widely if
not universally shared across cultures), political institutions that predictably
empower the median voter, and a set of cultural symbols sanctifying civil
rights, free speech, and electoral legitimacy in ways that underpin those
institutions, facilitate peaceful bargaining, and establish a non-threatening,
“in-group” identity among democratic states. The democratic peace works
best when these material, institutional, and cultural elements are all in place
(Russett 1993; Owen 1997).
Moreover, democracy itself has material preconditions. Adam Przeworski
finds that transitions to democracy are almost always successfully consoli-
dated in countries with average annual income above $6,000 per capita in
1985 constant dollars, whereas democratic transitions almost always suffer
reversals below $1,000, with a very few exceptions, such as India (Przeworski
et al. 2000: ch. 2). These economic levels may to some degree be proxies for
closely related factors such as literacy and the development of a middle class.
Between those levels, consolidation seems to depend on a number of insti-
tutional preconditions, such as the strength of the rule of law and the devel-
opment of civil society organizations (Linz and Stepan 1996: 7–15). The fact
that these material and institutional preconditions often arise along with
symbols and ideas supportive of democracy does not mean that democratic
culture can somehow be a substitute for those conditions. Not surprisingly,
Western arguments in favor of free speech, fair elections, and human rights
have borne little fruit in countries that lack these preconditions (Carothers
1999). There is no cultural shortcut to a global democratic peace.
Proponents of democratic transformation are often too direct and non-
strategic in their approach to achieving their objectives. For example, Thomas
Carothers notes that the typical “strategy” of democracy assistance efforts is
to generate a checklist of the attributes of mature democracies, and then
mount parallel programs to try to install each of them in the targeted country
right away. This approach is flawed because it pays insufficient attention to
interaction effects between these efforts, issues of sequencing and precondi-
tions, strategic responses from resistant actors, and other negative feedback
effects.
Demanding a democratic transition and accountability to international
human rights norms can be risky in settings that lack even the rudiments of
the rule of law or the material resources needed to sustain an independent
civil society and media. In such settings, transformative projects may unleash
a populist form of mass politics at an inopportune, premature moment, when
elites threatened by such changes can exploit social turmoil by playing the
ethnic card. Untimely voting demanded by the international community in
such places as Burundi in 1993 and East Timor in 1999 has led directly to
hundreds of thousands of deaths and refugees (Lund et al. 1998). Arguably, it
has also led to the deepening of ethnic and social cleavages and to the tainting
of democratic remedies.
The risk of such backlashes may be increasing. The “third wave” of dem-
ocratization consolidated democratic regimes mainly in the richer countries
of eastern Europe, Latin America, southern Africa, and east Asia (Diamond
1996). A fourth wave would have to take on harder cases: countries that
are poorer, more ethnically divided, and starting from a weaker base of
governmental institutions and citizen skills.
In an era in which troubled, incomplete democratic transitions may engulf
such geopolitically salient locations as the Middle East, this dynamic could
be one of the fundamental determinants of the course of world politics.
Although democratization in the Islamic world might contribute to peace in
the very long run, Islamic public opinion in the short run is, in most places,
hostile to the United States. Although much of the belligerence of the Islamic
public is fueled by resentment of the US-backed authoritarian regimes under
which many of them live, simply renouncing these authoritarians and press-
ing for a quick democratic opening is unlikely to lead to peaceful democratic
consolidations. All of the risk factors are there: the media and civil society
groups are inflammatory, as old elites and rising oppositions try to outbid
each other for the mantle of Islamic or nationalist militancy.6 The rule of
law is weak, and existing corrupt bureaucracies cannot serve a democratic
administration properly. The boundaries of states are mismatched with those
of nations, making any push for national self-determination fraught with
peril. Per capita incomes, literacy rates, and citizen skills in most Muslim
Middle Eastern states are below the levels normally needed to sustain dem-
ocracy (United Nations 2004; Przeworski et al. 2000: 101; Council on Foreign
Relations 2005: 61–2; Donno and Russett 2004). Electoral results in Egypt,
Iraq, Iran, and the Palestinian territories in 2005 bear out the prediction that
inadequately prepared democratic transitions risk political polarization.
This does not necessarily mean that all steps toward democracy in the
Islamic world would lead to disaster. Etel Solingen argues, for example, that
reforms leading toward “democratization from above,” combined with eco-
nomic liberalization, have been consistent with support for peaceful policies
in such Arab states as Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Qatar. “The more
consolidated democratizing regimes become,” she notes, “the less likely they
are to experiment with populism and war” (Solingen 1998: 213). Consistent
with my argument, these modest success cases indicate that the most promis-
ing sequence for democratization in such settings begins with reforms of
the state and the economy, together with limited forms of democratic partici-
pation, rather than a headlong jump into popular elections before the
strengthening of the institutions – such as efficient and even-handed public
administration, the rule of law, professional journalism, and political parties
– that are needed to make a democratic system work.
In facing this challenge, culturally creative activists and thinkers may play
an important role in changing behavior in the international system, but they
must do so within a context that is structured by the system’s material and
institutional possibilities. This is true for both unilateralist and multilateralist
strategies of change.
Justice for perpetrators of atrocities

Advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
have made a historic contribution to the cause of international human rights
by publicizing the need to prevent mass atrocities such as war crimes, geno-
cide, and widespread political killings and torture.7 However, a strategy that
many such groups favor for achieving this goal – the prosecution of perpet-
rators of atrocities by multilateral institutions according to universal stand-
ards – risks causing more atrocities than it would prevent, because it pays
insufficient attention to political consequences.8 Recent international crim-
inal tribunals have failed to deter subsequent abuses in the former Yugoslavia
and central Africa. Because tribunals, including the ICC, have often failed to
gain the active co-operation of powerful actors in the United States and in
countries where abuses occur, it is questionable whether this will succeed as a
long-run strategy for international change unless it is implemented in a more
pragmatic way.
Amnesties, in contrast, have been highly effective in curbing abuses when
implemented in a credible way, even in such hard cases as El Salvador and
Mozambique. Truth commissions, another strategy favored by some advo-
cacy groups, have been effective mainly when linked to amnesties, as in South
Africa. Simply ignoring the question of punishing perpetrators – in effect, a
de facto amnesty – has also succeeded in ending atrocities when combined
with astute political strategies to advance political reforms, as in Namibia.
The shortcomings of the strategies preferred by most advocacy groups
stem from their flawed understanding of the role of norms and law in estab-
lishing a just and stable political order. Like some scholars who write about
the transformative impact of such groups, these advocates believe that rules
of appropriate behavior constitute political order and consequently that the
first step in establishing a peaceful political order is to lobby for the universal
adoption of just rules (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 898; Roth 2001). This
reverses the sequence that is necessary for the strengthening of norms and
laws that will help prevent atrocities.
Justice does not lead; it follows. A norm-governed political order must
be based on a political bargain among contending groups and on the creation
of robust administrative institutions that can predictably enforce the law.
Preventing atrocities and enhancing respect for law will frequently depend
on striking politically expedient bargains that create effective political coali-
tions to contain the power of potential perpetrators of abuses (or so-called
spoilers). Amnesty – or simply ignoring past abuses – may be a necessary tool
in this bargaining. Once such deals are struck, institutions based on the rule
of law become more feasible.9 Attempting to implement universal standards
of criminal justice in the absence of these political and institutional precondi-
tions risks weakening norms of justice by revealing their ineffectiveness and
hindering necessary political bargaining. Although the ultimate goal is to
prevent atrocities by effectively institutionalizing appropriate standards of
criminal justice, the initial steps toward that goal must usually travel down the
path of political expediency.
The social psychologist Tory Higgins posits three different logics whereby a
person may decide on the rightness of a choice of action: whether it follows
right principles, whether it leads to the right outcome, and whether it feels
right given the person’s current emotional state (Higgins 2000; Camacho,
Higgins, and Luger 2003). These correspond to the logics of appropriateness,
consequences, and emotions, which between them reflect the prevailing range
of views on justice for perpetrators of atrocities.
These logics are ideal types. The strategies adopted by real political actors
inevitably include a mix of these elements, as do those advocated by scholars.
For example, human rights “norms entrepreneurs” argue not only that fol-
lowing their prescriptions is morally right; they also claim that these principles
are grounded in a correct empirical theory of the causes of behavior and will
therefore lead to desirable outcomes (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 896–9).
Thus, even arguments based on the logic of appropriateness usually also
make claims about consequences (Schulz 2001).10 Conversely, proponents of
the logic of consequences might argue that bargains based on the expediency
of power and interest are often a necessary precondition for creating coali-
tions and institutions that will strengthen norms in the long run. For
example, in September 2002, the UN administrator for Afghanistan, Lakhdar
Brahimi, resisted calls from out-going Human Rights Commissioner Mary
Robinson to investigate war crimes by key figures in the UN-backed govern-
ment of Hamid Karzai on the grounds that such investigations would under-
cut progress toward peace and stability (Burns 2002). In short, all three logics
are concerned with reducing the chance of future atrocities, and consequently
it is justifiable to compare the validity of their empirical claims (Finnemore
and Sikkink 1998: 910–14).
The logic of appropriateness

Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, leading social-scientific scholars
studying human rights, adopt a social constructivist definition of a norm
as “a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity”
(Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 889). Norms, for them, imply a moral obliga-
tion that distinguishes them from other kinds of rules. In this constructivist
view, norms do more than regulate behavior: they mold the identities of
actors, define social roles, shape actors’ understanding of their interests, con-
fer power on authoritative interpreters of norms, and infuse institutions with
guiding principles (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 913; Wendt 1999). In this
sense, norms – and discourse about what norms ought to be – help to consti-
tute social reality. Powerful states and social networks matter, too, but prin-
cipled ideas and arguments often animate their actions. In that sense, world
society is what its norms make of it.
According to this perspective, norms entrepreneurs attempt to persuade
others to accept and adhere to new norms; targets of persuasion respond
with arguments and strategies of their own (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:
914). Persuasion may work through any of several channels, including logical
arguments about consistency with other norms and beliefs that the target
already adheres to, arguments from legal precedent, and emotional appeals
(Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 912–13). Once persuasion has succeeded in
establishing a norm within a social group, norm entrepreneurs seek to pro-
mote conformity with the norm by “naming and shaming” violators, to use the
terminology of constructivist theorists and human rights activists (Keck and
Sikkink 1998: 16–25).
Finnemore and Sikkink conceive of the process of normative change as a
three-stage “cascade.” First, norms entrepreneurs use their organizational
platforms to call attention to issues by naming, interpreting, and dramatizing
them. Second, once these entrepreneurs achieve widespread success in their
campaign of persuasion, a tipping process pushes the norm toward universal
acceptance as international organizations, states, and transnational networks
jump on the bandwagon. This occurs in part because of these actors’ concern
to safeguard their reputation and legitimacy, and in part because processes of
socialization, institutionalization, and demonstration effects convince people
that the rising norm is a proper one. In the third stage, the logic of appropri-
ateness is so deeply imbued in law, bureaucratic rules, and professional stand-
ards that people and states conform unquestioningly out of conviction and
habit (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 904–5).
Constructivist social scientists have only recently begun to apply the logic
of appropriateness to the study of judicial accountability for war crimes or
genocide (Lutz and Sikkink, 2000: 644; Kim and Sikkink, 2007). Nonethe-
less, NGOs and legalists advocating war crimes tribunals implicitly hold to
the constructivist theory. These activists assume that efforts to change the
prevailing pattern of social behavior should begin with forceful advocacy for
generalized rules embodied in principled institutions, such as courts.
Proponents of war crimes prosecutions have long been prone to exaggerate
the centrality of rule following in ordering world politics. Judith Shklar’s
1964 book discussing the Nuremberg and Japanese war crimes trials charged
some of their proponents with excessive, apolitical legalism, which she
defined as “the ethical attitude that holds that moral conduct is to be a matter
of rule following, and moral relationships to consist of duties and rights
determined by rules” (Shklar 1964: 1). Contemporary activists argue that
handing down indictments and holding trials strengthen legal norms even
when perpetrators are hard to arrest and convict. Many of them favor gener-
alizing norms through such measures as universal jurisdiction for prosecuting
war crimes and crimes against humanity (Roth 2001). They also encourage
setting up judicial institutions that will embody the norm of accountability,
such as the ICC, even when its short-term effect is to reduce the chance that a
powerful, skeptical actor such as the United States will co-operate with the
implementation of the norm.11
In the realm of international criminal justice, the logic of appropriateness
generates several predictions. None of them has been supported by evidence
from recent tribunals.
First, as norms of criminal accountability for war crimes and other viola-
tions of international humanitarian and human rights law begin to cascade,
the notion of individual responsibility should gain international momentum.
Local actors, not just proponents in the advanced liberal democracies, should
increasingly blame atrocities on individuals (e.g., specific Serbian leaders),
not collectivities (e.g., the Serbian ethnic group as a whole). In fact, the
Hague Tribunal’s indictments and trials have sometimes been polarizing in
Serbia and Croatia, and local trials overseen by international authorities in
Kosovo have spurred resentment and violence. The political parties of two
war criminals on trial at The Hague, Slobodan Milosevic and Vojeslav Seselj,
made a strong showing in the December 2003 Serbian parliamentary elec-
tions, unseating the incumbent liberal government by running against the
tribunal’s interference with Serbian sovereign rights. In contrast, trials in
Latin America, which for the most part have not pitted ethnic communities
against each other, have more effectively focused guilt on individuals.
Second, if the vast majority of individuals worldwide accept the basic
principles of the laws of war and prohibitions against genocide and torture,
then prevailing practices should tip in favor of a universal system of inter-
national criminal justice. In this view, changes in behavior follow the adop-
tion of new beliefs about appropriate standards of behavior. In fact, that the
prevailing pattern of political power and institutions shapes behavior in
ways that are difficult to change simply through normative persuasion. For
example, an extensive survey commissioned by the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) shows that large majorities of people in powerful
democracies and in conflict-ridden developing countries agree that it is wrong
to target civilians for attack or to engage in indiscriminate military practices
that result in widespread civilian slaughter (Greenberg Research 1999). How-
ever, the vast majority of those polled were not participating as fighters in the
conflicts. Respondents who said they were participants in the conflict or who
identified with one side expressed significant reservations about the laws of
war. The report finds that “the more conflicts engage and mobilize the popu-
lation,” as in Israel and Palestine, “and the more committed the public is to a
side and its goals, the greater the hatred of the enemy and the greater the
willingness to breach whatever limits there exist in war” (Greenberg Research
1999: 32). Moreover, “weak defenders feel they can suspend the limits in war
in order to do what is necessary to save or protect their communities”
(Greenberg Research 1999: 33). Despite the convergence on abstract prin-
ciples, these data imply that one person’s terrorist is often another’s freedom
fighter.
Third, as the norm is embodied in institutions like the war crimes tribunals
for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the ICC, it should begin to have some
deterrent effect (Kritz 1999). In fact, the indictments and trials initiated by
the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals failed to deter the Srebrenica massacre,
the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, or atrocities involving Hutu and Tutsi in
eastern Congo, let alone subsequent atrocities in other parts of the globe,
such as East Timor, that failed to be impressed by the example of The
Hague’s justice.
Human rights abusers – such as repressive states, extremist factions, and
warlords – stand outside any normative consensus, whether global or local.
They need to be deterred through the predictable application of coercive
force. The problem is, however, that they are often too powerful to deal with
simply as criminals. Indeed, they can sometimes be indispensable allies in
efforts to bring war criminals to justice. For example, the 2001–2 US war
against the terrorist-harboring Taliban would have been infeasible without
the self-interested participation of the Afghan Northern Alliance, whose own
leadership was earlier responsible for horrendous crimes in the Afghan civil
war in the 1990s. Strategies that deal with rights abusers on a political rather
than criminal basis may be indispensable for the advancement of the inter-
national justice project itself, let alone other practical objectives, including
national self-defense.
In such circumstances, legalists need to exercise prosecutorial discretion: A
crime is a crime, but not all crimes must be prosecuted (Roth 2001: 153). Such
choices, however, risk putting judges and lawyers in charge of decisions that
political leaders are better suited to make. For example, the investigations of
the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) have complicated
a peace settlement between the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian
former guerrillas accused of committing atrocities.12 The settlement granted
these rebels an amnesty except for crimes indictable by the international tri-
bunal. The ICTY’s decision to investigate rebel atrocities led the guerrillas
to destroy evidence of mass graves, creating a pretext for hard-line Slavic
Macedonian nationalists to renew fighting in late November 2001 and to
occupy Albanian-held terrain.13
In sum, the logic of appropriateness and the theory of norms cascades
capture the mind-set and strategies of advocates of international criminal
accountability. However, this social constructivist theory of normative change
fundamentally misunderstands how norms gain social force. As a result,
legalist tactics for strengthening human rights norms can backfire when
institutional and social preconditions for the rule of law are lacking. In an
institutional desert, legalism is likely to be either counterproductive or simply
irrelevant.
The logic of consequences

Drawing on the work of James March and Johan Olsen, Finnemore and
Sikkink distinguish between the logic of appropriateness and the logic of
consequences (March and Olsen 1989: ch. 2). Whereas Finnemore and
Sikkink place the former at the center of their analysis, our approach
emphasizes the latter. The logic of consequences assumes that actors try to
achieve their objectives using the full panoply of material, institutional, and
persuasive resources at their disposal. Norms may facilitate or co-ordinate
actors’ strategies, but actors will follow rules and promote new norms only
insofar as they are likely to be effective in achieving substantive ends, such as
a reduction in the incidence of atrocities.
If norms are to shape behavior and outcomes, they must gain the support
of a dominant political coalition in the social milieu in which they are to
be applied. The coalition must establish and sustain the institutions that
will monitor and sanction compliance with the norms. Strategies that under-
rate the logic of consequences – and thus hinder the creation of effective
coalitions and institutions – undermine normative change.
This perspective has important implications for rethinking strategies of
international criminal justice. Sporadic efforts by international actors to pun-
ish violations in turbulent societies are unlikely to prevent further abuses.
Deterrence requires neutralizing potential spoilers, strengthening a coalition
that supports norms of justice in the society, and improving the domestic
administrative and legal institutions that are needed to implement justice
predictably over the long run. Meeting these requirements must take prece-
dence over the objective of retroactive punishment when those goals are in
conflict. Where human rights violators are too weak to derail the strengthen-
ing of the rule of law, they can be put on trial. But where they have the ability
to lash out in renewed violations to try to reinforce their power, the inter-
national community faces a hard choice: either commit the resources to con-
tain the backlash, or else offer the potential spoilers a deal that will leave
them weak but secure. Efforts to prosecute individuals for crimes must also be
sensitive to the impact of these efforts on relations between dominant groups
in a future governing coalition. Where trials threaten to create or perpetuate
intra-coalition antagonisms in a new government, they should be avoided.
According to the logic of consequences, decisions about prosecution
should be weighed in light of their effects on the strengthening of impartial,
law-abiding state institutions. In the immediate aftermath of a state’s transi-
tion to democracy, such institutions may already be capable of bringing
rights abusers to trial, as for example, in Greece following the collapse of the
junta in 1974. However, in transitional countries that are rich in potential
spoilers and poor in institutions, such as contemporary Indonesia, the gov-
ernment may need to gain spoilers’ acquiescence to institutional reforms,
especially the professionalization of police and military bureaucracies and
the development of an impartial legal system. In these cases, decisions to try
members of the former regime should be weighed against the possibly
adverse effects on the strengthening of institutions. Trials may be advanta-
geous if they can be conducted efficiently, strengthen public understanding of
the rule of law, add to the institutional capacities of domestic courts, help to
discredit rights abusers, help to defuse tensions between powerful groups in
society, and produce no backlash from spoilers. Where these conditions are
absent, punishment for the abuses of the former regime may be a dangerous
misstep and should be a low priority.
The main positive effect of truth commissions has probably been to give
political cover to amnesties in transitional countries with strong reform coali-
tions. In South Africa, for example, the truth commission recommended
amnesties for the vast majority of the perpetrators who testified. In El
Salvador, the truth commission helped to discredit the appalling practices
of the former regime, but its release triggered a blanket amnesty for both
government and rebel perpetrators (Hayner 2001: 101–5).
The international criminal justice regime should permit the use of amnes-
ties when spoilers are strong and when the new regime can use an amnesty
to decisively remove them from power. Deciding what approach to adopt in
a particular case requires political judgment. Consequently, decisions to
prosecute should be taken by political authorities, such as the UN Security
Council or the governments of affected states, not by judges who remain
unaccountable to both domestic electorates and international politicians.
Nonetheless, purely pragmatic approaches are inadequate if they do not
address the long-term goal of institutionalizing the rule of law in conflict-
prone societies. Opportunistic “deals with the devil” are at best a first step
toward removing spoilers from positions of power so that institutional trans-
formation can move forward. Institution building must begin with the
strengthening of general state capacity and then move on to regularize the
rule of law more deeply. Both amnesties and trials require effective state
institutions and political coalitions to enforce them. Without those condi-
tions, neither approach is likely to succeed. In cases where legal account-
ability is not barred by the danger of backlash from spoilers, trials should be
carried out through local justice institutions in ways that strengthen their
capacity, credibility, and legitimacy. When international jurists must get
involved, mixed international-domestic tribunals, such as the one in Sierra
Leone, are preferable to strictly international bodies like the ICC.
In short, the logic of consequences generates the following empirical pre-
dictions: When a country’s political institutions are weak, forces of reform
there have not won a decisive victory, and potential spoilers are strong,
attempts to put perpetrators of atrocities on trial are likely to increase the risk
of violent conflict and further abuses, and therefore hinder the institutional-
ization of the rule of law.
The logic of emotions

A third approach to dealing with past atrocities and preventing their recur-
rence reflects the logic of emotions. Scholars and advocates suggest that
eliminating the conditions that breed atrocities depends on achieving an emo-
tional catharsis in the community of victims and an acceptance of blame by
the perpetrators. Without an effort to establish a consensus on the truth
about past abuses, national reconciliation will be impossible, as resentful
groups will continue to use violence to voice their emotions. For these
reasons, proponents of truth commissions stress the importance of encour-
aging perpetrators to admit responsibility for their crimes, sometimes in
exchange for amnesty (Rotberg and Thompson 2000).
Some proponents of the logic of emotions speak in the language of psy-
chotherapy (Pupavac 2001). Others ground their arguments in evolutionary
biology, claiming that the emotional aspects of reconciliation are central to
social cohesion. For example, an important study by William Long and Peter
Brecke contends that successful civil war settlements tend to go through a
trajectory that starts with truth telling and limited justice, culminates in an
emotionally salient call for a new relationship between former enemies, and
sometimes accomplishes a redefinition of social identities (Long and Brecke
2003: 31). One problem with their research design, however, is the difficulty of
knowing whether the emotional theater of reconciliation is causally central
to establishing peace or whether it is mainly window-dressing that makes
political bargaining and amnesties more palatable to the public.
Approaches based on the logic of emotions locate the solution to human
rights abuses at the popular level. Reconciliation, in this view, resolves con-
flict because it reduces tensions between peoples, not between elites. However,
elites, not masses, have instigated many recent ethnic conflicts with high levels
of civilian atrocities. Solutions that mitigate tensions at the mass level need to
be combined with strategies that effectively neutralize elite spoilers and
manipulators (Kaufman 2001).
No one contends that emotion should be entirely removed from an analysis
of the politics of punishing atrocities. Emotion plays some role in both
the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences. Finnemore and
Sikkink, for example, discuss the importance of emotional appeals in pro-
selytizing for new norms. Likewise, in the logic of consequences, the goals of
political action are valued in part for emotional reasons (Elster 1999). Many
people worldwide, including those that have experienced atrocities first hand,
feel that judicial punishment is intrinsically satisfying, even apart from any
effect that trials may have in deterring future abuses (Liberman 2006). None-
theless, few would want to base a global strategy of justice simply on the
emotional satisfactions of retribution. The logic of emotions is useful to
the extent that it can be integrated into a broader approach that has as its
principal aim the prevention of future abuses.
Conclusion: the potential for transforming international politics

The long-run trend of history at the most general level has favored processes
of popular liberation. More societies with a greater share of the world’s
people have come to live under regimes that observe the principles of dem-
ocracy, human rights, and the impartial rule of law. The underlying reasons
for this are best captured by modernization theory: economic development
and related improvements in mass education tend to distribute social power
more widely, go hand-in-hand with the strengthening of the rule of law, give
rise to ideas of universal rights and popular sovereignty, and create a strong
constituency that insists on governmental accountability to the people.
Exactly what causes what in this syndrome of mutually supportive phenom-
ena remains a matter of debate, but this seems to be the general trend – if not
necessarily the end – of history.
Nonetheless, the path of modernization and liberation is hardly smooth or
universally traveled. Some societies still have not taken the path: their GDP
per capita and literacy are low, and they are typically autocracies or anar-
chies. Others have started down the path, but have taken a detour. Some
developed economically without dispersing social power, or their develop-
ment created key powerful constituencies that resisted accountability to the
people. In many, the development of their institutions of accountability
lagged behind the demand for mass political participation (Huntington
1968). In fact, most of the world’s countries took such detours, sometimes
long ones.
All these detours, with the possibly important exception of China, have
turned out to be dead ends. States that sustained development did so by
getting back on the path predicted by modernization theory. This might be
because the theory is right, or it might be because the United States and
Great Britain have been powerful enough to set up rules that forced states
onto that path if they were to succeed.
Understanding the prospects for liberation, the obstacles that stand in its
path, and the strategies that will advance it depends in part on understanding
these background tendencies – both the general processes of modernization
and the specific circumstances that affect the path that it is likely to take in
any given setting. However, these conditions are not only varied, but also
probabilistic and complexly interactive in their effects. A country as poor as
India, a late developer at the periphery of the world economy, has become a
stable democracy, whereas wealthy, worldly Singapore retains its own brand
of authoritarianism. Moreover, the factors that can take a country on a
detour depend not only on the society’s circumstances, but also the choices
that key actors – including liberation movements – make in those circum-
stances. Indeed, choices made at one moment help to create circumstances at
the next.
Among the important causes of detours from the path of liberation are
flaws in the strategy of liberation projects themselves – tactical errors that
galvanize resistance to the project or deformations in the movement that lead
it to subvert its own goals. Those who seek to transform the culture of con-
temporary anarchy need to work within an existing material and institutional
setting that may enable, derail, or pervert efforts to promote change. Efforts
to force the pace of change risk unintended consequences that could wind up
hindering change and increasing its costs.
Normative aspirations can be fulfilled only in the presence of permissive
material conditions, a powerful coalition of global and local actors with an
interest in bringing it about, and the construction of institutions with the
administrative capacity to give real effect to the norms. Moreover, sequence
matters in effecting normative change. Generally, the creation of a powerful
reform coalition internationally and locally must be the first step. This holds
true equally for unilateral and multilateral efforts to promote international
change.
Notes
1 R.W. Stevenson, “Bush Says Patience Is Needed As Nations Build a Democracy,”
New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. A12, reporting his speech to the International
Republican Institute of 18 May.
2 These scholars adhere to the constructivist approach to the study of international
politics, but not all constructivists are so clearly wedded to this transformative
political agenda. For more qualified views, see Katzenstein (1996: 536–7), and
Owen (1997: 232–5).
3 “Dr. Condoleezza Rice Discusses President’s National Security Strategy,” Waldorf
Astoria Hotel, New York, 1 October 2002.
4 Bukovansky (2002) explores changing bases of legitimacy as a power resource.
5 This section draws on Snyder (2002).
6 Berman (2003: 265) draws parallels to belligerent civil society in the flawed dem-
ocracy of Weimar Germany and stresses the “Huntingtonian gap” between high
demand for political participation and ineffective state institutions.
7 For elaboration on the arguments in this section, see Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003/
4). On the advocacy community, see Clark (2001). On international human rights
law, which applies to all people at all times, and international humanitarian law,
which concerns the actions of combatants during military conflict, see Best (1994).
8 On proposals for international tribunals, see Kritz (1996) and Minow (1998), as
well as the numerous publications by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Inter-
national, and the Coalition for International Justice. See also the sources cited in
the balanced critical commentary in Bass (2000: 284–310).
9 On institutionalization of the rule of law as a precondition for successful human
rights promotion, see Putnam (2002) and Ignatieff (2001: 25, 40).
10 Schulz is the executive director of Amnesty International USA. On a philo-
sophical plane, see Nagel (1988: 60).
11 For historical background, see Weschler (2000) and Scheffer (2000).
12 “Macedonia Bolsters Albanian Rights: After Constitutional Change, Amnesty Is
Declared for Former Rebels,” International Herald Tribune, 17–18 November 2001.
13 G. Ash, “Macedonia Is Seeking Control of Land Harboring Ex-Rebels,” New York
Times, 26 November 2001, p. A11.
3 US military commitments
Multilateralism and treaties
Lisa L. Martin
The United States reaches dozens of agreements with other countries on

security issues each year, both multilateral and bilateral. These agreements
typically commit the United States to take particular actions, such as limiting
the development of certain types of arms, or to provide military assistance to
other states and organizations. As such, the credibility of the United States is
of intense interest to its bargaining partners. Will the United States actually
live up to its commitments? How can other states improve their information
about US credibility?
Building on other work on credibility and the form of international agree-
ments, in this chapter I focus on the form of military agreements. I make a
number of arguments. First, I argue that the form that an agreement takes is a
strategic decision of the president. While this may not sound like a contro-
versial statement, it does go against the grain of much legal literature on
international agreements, which sees their form as primarily a matter of pre-
cedent and normative concerns. Second, I argue that the form of an agreement
sends signals to other countries about US reliability, and that the president
takes this signaling process into account when deciding on an agreement’s
form. Again, this may sound obvious, but this claim goes against the substan-
tial body of work on US agreements in the American politics literature, which
considers only domestic incentives facing the president. A signaling model
gives rise to a number of hypotheses about the conditions under which a
president will bear the costs of undergoing the formal (Article II) treaty
procedure. These hypotheses are tested on, and borne out by, a dataset made
up of all US security agreements reached between 1980 and 1999.
The first section of this chapter spells out the theoretical framework. It
summarizes previous research on agreement form, and the legal and domes-
tic arguments. It then specifies my alternative signaling model, taking into
account international strategic motivations. The second section of the chap-
ter then tests predictions about the form that security agreements take, find-
ing support for the signaling model but not the purely domestic or legal
perspectives. The third section turns to contrasting multilateral and bilateral
agreements, asking about the conditions under which we see the United
States reaching more multilateral or bilateral agreements.
US military commitments and treaties 61
Theoretical framework
This chapter builds on previous work arguing that the choice of an inter-
national agreement’s form is a strategic one, which takes into account both
domestic and international considerations. This choice is of interest because
it tells us something about the president’s freedom of maneuver in security
affairs and the factors that constrain his choices. Most literature on US inter-
national agreements has looked only at the domestic considerations that go
into the choice of form. I introduce international strategic considerations and
argue that the major expectation derived from the purely domestic perspec-
tive cannot be sustained in equilibrium. The president does face domestic
constraints, but he must also address the concerns that other governments
have about the president not living up to the terms of an agreement. A presi-
dent attempting to advance his policy agenda needs to consider the interaction
of both sets of constraints.
The choice between executive agreements and treaties lies with the presi-
dent, and induces strategic behavior on his part (Moe and Howell 1999a:
164). As specified in the Constitution, treaties must receive the approval of
two-thirds of voting senators to go into effect. Executive agreements are
not mentioned in the Constitution, and can be approved through a number
of different mechanisms, from a legislative vote to sole executive approval
(Millett 1990).1 Congress has at times attempted to set binding guidelines for
the choice of agreement form, but without success, so this choice remains a
strategic decision by the executive branch (Setear 2002: 12).
A substantial legal literature has emerged asking whether, in fact, the
president is unconstrained in his choice. While some have argued, on legal or
normative grounds, that the president should limit reliance on executive
agreements so that Congress is not bypassed (Tribe 1995), in practice the
“doctrine of full interchangeability” has prevailed (Ackerman and Golove
1995; Yoo 2001: 759).2 This doctrine means that all international agreements
have the same standing in domestic courts, regardless of the ratification pro-
cedure. New thinking by legal scholars has called into question the long-
standing view of their colleagues about the normativity of agreement form,
arguing instead for a strategic perspective that sees agreements as primarily
sources of information (Goldsmith and Posner 2005: 90). My argument is
consistent with this new turn in legal studies.
The political-science literature on executive agreements sees them as a mech-
anism by which the president can evade legislative constraints, and thus as a
way for the president to enhance his dominance over the legislature in foreign
affairs. Since executive agreements create binding commitments to other coun-
tries (they have the same legal standing as treaties), but do not involve the
Senate in its constitutionally-prescribed formal “advise and consent” role,
they could be a potent source of executive power. By the 1990s, the president
was signing hundreds of these agreements each year, while the number of
treaties signed each year is just a couple of dozen (Congressional Research
62 Lisa L. Martin
Service 1993). Nathan and Oliver (1994: 99) summarize the consensus view of
American politics scholars about the use of executive agreements: “Presidents
. . . have developed and employed the executive agreement to circumvent
Senate involvement in international agreements almost altogether.”
Legal scholars have long been concerned about the constitutionality and
legitimacy of unilateral presidential action, and have seen devices such as
executive orders as powerful mechanisms for the president to evade Congress.
For example, Fleishman and Aufses (1976: 38) conclude that “executive orders
allow the President, not only to evade hardened congressional opposition, but
also to preempt potential or growing opposition.” More recently, political
scientists have echoed the same theme and elaborated the political logic behind
these concerns. Moe and Howell (1999b) argue that the president has sub-
stantial powers of unilateral action because the Constitution is an incomplete
contract, that the president has incentives to exploit this incompleteness to
enhance the powers of the office, and that Congress and the courts can do little
to resist. Statistical analysis by Deering and Maltzman (1999) largely supports
this claim, although they also find that a cohesive Congress can sometimes
threaten to overturn executive orders and so constrain the president.
William Howell (2003), in an extended and systematic study of executive
orders, finds that Congress is in fact quite diffident when it comes to overturn-
ing or opposing the use of executive orders. He concludes that such devices
allow the president to exercise power unilaterally, without the need to per-
suade other branches of government to support his efforts. However, his
work really cannot be read to directly support the idea that executive orders
allow the evasion of congressional opposition. For example, he finds that the
president relies more heavily on executive orders during periods of unified
than divided government; we would expect the opposite pattern if executive
orders were merely evasive devices. Mayer (1999: 460) also finds more use of
executive orders under unified government.
The hypothesis that executive agreements allow the president to evade con-
gressional opposition has been labeled the “evasion hypothesis” (Martin
2000). It has at least one implication that can be tested quantitatively: that
when the president expects the most congressional opposition to an agree-
ment, he should be the most likely to choose an executive agreement rather
than a treaty. Thus, we should expect to see a higher percentage of inter-
national agreements taking the form of executive agreements when Congress
(or at least the Senate) is in different partisan hands than the presidency, or
when the president receives low levels of support in general from Congress.
There are many reasons to question the logic of the evasion hypothesis,
as simple and compelling as it may appear initially. One difficulty is that
most executive agreements do in fact require some legislative action, such as
appropriating funds, and thus are not likely to allow the president complete
freedom of maneuver. Few agreements, even formal treaties, are self-executing.
They thus require implementing legislation of some sort. Even agreements
that do not require explicit implementing legislation can be overturned by
congressional action, as legal doctrine provides that the most recent action
takes precedence in the courts. Therefore, executive agreements do not allow
the president the unfettered freedom to make commitments that many assume.
Attempting to evade congressional opposition can backfire, as Congress has
many methods it can use to void or refuse to implement executive agreements.
Perhaps even more telling, the evasion hypothesis completely neglects the
process of negotiation with other countries. Assume that the hypothesis was
correct, and that the president used executive agreements to evade legislative
opposition. Other states would then see these agreements as a sign of lack of
domestic support, and would therefore become more reluctant to sign on to
them. Signing a security agreement that the president then reneges on can be
highly costly for other states, as they may have changed their force structure
or taken other steps that enhance their vulnerability in anticipation of US
compliance with the agreement. Thus governments should follow domestic
debates about agreements closely, and take them as signals about the likeli-
hood that the president will actually live up to the terms of the agreement.
While an agreement’s form likely has a number of consequences, one of the
most important may be its impact on the beliefs of other parties to it. That is,
agreements are signaling devices. The idea that unilateral presidential actions
can send signals to other political actors has been mentioned in the American
politics literature (e.g. Mayer and Price 2002), but this insight has not been
developed.
The proposition that treaties can serve as signals rests on two crucial
assumptions. The first is that there is some uncertainty about whether the
president will live up to the terms of the agreement. Empirically, this seems
a reasonable assumption. The United States does sometimes renege on its
international commitments. Such reneging rarely takes the form of legal
abrogation of a treaty. More often, the president simply does not fully imple-
ment the terms of the agreement, or chooses to “reinterpret” the agreement in
such a manner that the United States does not behave as the other parties
anticipated it would.
There is little doubt that the United States is sometimes unreliable on secu-
rity commitments. A well-known example of unreliability involves the ABM
Treaty with Russia. This treaty constrained the United States and Russia to
build no more than two ABM installations, one to protect the capital city
and one elsewhere. Beginning under Ronald Reagan, and continuing through
recent administrations, these limitations conflicted with the desire to pursue
defensive systems that would shoot down incoming missiles, whether from
Russia or small attacks from rogue states. Rather than simply stating that the
United States was withdrawing from or abrogating the ABM treaty, adminis-
trations have engaged in contorted attempts to “reinterpret” it to allow large-
scale development of these anti-missile systems. While debate has ensued
regarding the legalities of reinterpretation, there is no doubt that develop-
ment of ABM systems is a substantial deviation from the behavior expected
under the terms of the ABM treaty. Thus, other states can reasonably ask
64 Lisa L. Martin
when reaching an agreement with the United States whether the president
will, in practice, live up to the terms of the agreement.
Why renege on international agreements? Typically, the reason lies in
domestic politics. While some domestic groups benefit from the terms of
agreements, others see these commitments as costly and would prefer to
renege. This dynamic is clear, for example, in arms-control agreements. If
actors who believe that these commitments are too costly and constraining
are in positions of decision-making authority, there is an increased chance of
reneging. Thus, the chance that the president will live up to the terms of an
agreement is a direct function of the levels of domestic support for and
opposition to the agreement. A president that has a high probability of being
reliable is one who enjoys high domestic support for the agreement and a low
level of opposition.
Considering the level of domestic opposition to an agreement leads us to
the second crucial assumption of a signaling model: that the signals sent are
costly, and the costs vary for different sorts of actors. Here, we are interpret-
ing treaties as a signal of the reliability of the president. They can only serve
as such a signal if, first, treaties are more costly to conclude than executive
agreements and, second, there is a cost differential so that reliable types bear
lower costs for treaties than do unreliable types. Both aspects of this assump-
tion are highly plausible (see also Goldsmith and Posner 2005: 93). Consider
first whether it is more costly for a president to gain approval of a treaty
than an executive agreement. If the agreement is a sole executive agreement,
the comparison is obvious: treaties require the support of two-thirds of the
Senate, which involves bargaining, arm-twisting, concessions, and sometimes
delays. None of this is necessary for a sole executive agreement.
More serious questions may arise when comparing treaties to executive
agreements that involve some degree of ex ante legislative participation. Is it
always the case that treaties will be more costly? While there may be excep-
tions, I would argue that the assumption that treaties are more costly for the
president is reasonable. Consider what would be the most costly form of a
congressional-executive agreement, one that required majority support from
both the House and Senate.3 Would the president have to pay a higher cost to
get this agreement approved than a treaty? No, unless the distribution of
preferences in the House diverged substantially from that in the Senate. If the
distribution of preferences were similar, then the median voter in the House
would be similar to that in the Senate. Satisfying this median voter would be
less difficult than satisfying the swing voter when two-thirds of the Senate was
required, since this swing voter would be more extreme. There might be occa-
sions when preference outliers in the House were able to hold an agreement
hostage and demand high side-payments or concessions from the president.
However, these occasions should be rare, and the assumption that the presi-
dent bears higher costs to gain approval for treaties than for nearly any
executive agreement is plausible.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the image developed here of treaties as
signaling devices is one held by governments. If other states believe that
treaties signal that the president intends to live up to the terms of an agree-
ment, they should under some conditions demand that an agreement take the
form of a treaty rather than an executive agreement. In fact, such demands
are easy to find. Negotiations between the United States and Russia on
Nuclear Arms Reduction found Russian President Putin working hard to
persuade US President Bush to sign a “full-blown” treaty to provide “cer-
tainty.”4 Bush had preferred a “gentlemen’s agreement” that would avoid high
negotiation costs.5
The SALT II negotiations in 1977–9 showed a similar dynamic, as the Soviet
foreign minister objected that an executive agreement would not require the
approval of two-thirds of the Senate and so would have an “inferior” status.6
At times, US allies demand that long-standing executive agreements be trans-
formed into formal treaties, explicitly stating that such changes would signal
US long-term commitment. This has been the case, for example, in security
agreements with Pakistan7 and aid agreements with Turkey. The Turkish case
is especially interesting, as it was complaints that Washington had not lived
up to the terms of previous executive agreements that led to calls for a treaty.8
In previous work (Martin 2005), I have developed a formal signaling model
of agreement form. The game considers the interaction between the presi-
dent, who determines the form any potential agreement will take in the
United States, and its negotiating partner.9 The first move is by Nature, which
determines whether the United States is reliable or not. A reliable United
States is one that will live up to the terms of the agreement as expected, while
an unreliable United States will renege on the agreement. The president
knows whether the United States is reliable or not, but the negotiating part-
ner has only an estimate of reliability. The president then decides whether to
offer his negotiating partner a treaty or an executive agreement. If he offers a
treaty, he bears an immediate cost, for the reasons discussed above. This cost
is higher for unreliable than reliable types. If the United States is unreliable,
that means there is significant domestic opposition to the agreement, which
will prevent it from being fully implemented. For the president to offer a
treaty in such circumstances means higher political costs than for a reliable
president, one facing little domestic opposition to the agreement.
After observing the US offer, the negotiating partner decides whether or
not to sign the agreement. If no agreement is signed, all get a payoff of zero,
minus the costs of a treaty for the United States, if one was offered. If an
agreement is signed, the United States receives a positive payoff, as does the
negotiating partner if the United States is reliable. However, if the negotiating
partner signs an agreement with an unreliable United States, it receives a
payoff of less than zero.
Under some conditions, the negotiating partner can use its observation of
the form of the agreement offered to update its beliefs about the US type.
This leads to a separating equilibrium, in which reliable and unreliable types
are clearly distinguished from one another, and the negotiating partner will
66 Lisa L. Martin
sign treaties only with reliable types under these circumstances. This separat-
ing equilibrium occurs when the cost of offering a treaty for the United States
is in an intermediate range, where a reliable United States is willing to bear
the cost but an unreliable one is not. Separating equilibria are efficient, in the
sense that no mutually-beneficial agreements are forgone.
Under other conditions, both unreliable and reliable types will behave
in the same manner, and the negotiating partner will not be able to update
its beliefs about the US type. In this case, the partner has to rely on its prior
beliefs about US reliability when deciding whether to sign the agreement. If it
believes that the United States is likely reliable, it will sign; otherwise, it will
not. Such pooling equilibria occur when the potential benefits of an agree-
ment for the United States are quite low, so that no types are willing to bear
the costs of a treaty. They also occur when the potential benefits are very high
and the negotiating partner has a prior belief that the United States is likely
reliable. Under these conditions, an unreliable United States has incentives
to bluff by bearing the costs of a treaty. If benefits of the agreement to the
United States are high, but the negotiating partner believes that the United
States is likely unreliable, a complex semi-separating equilibrium emerges in
which an unreliable United States and its negotiating partner both pursue
a randomized strategy, offering treaties and signing agreements with some
probability between zero and one.
Both pooling and semi-separating equilibria give rise to some inefficiency,
as some agreements that could potentially benefit both sides are not signed.
This occurs because a reliable United States cannot fully distinguish itself
from an unreliable type. In addition, both types of equilibria create the possi-
bility that an agreement will be reached that the United States then reneges
on. This occurs because an unreliable type is sometimes able to bluff its way
into an agreement.
This simple model gives rise to a rich set of hypotheses, based on param-
eters such as the cost the negotiating partner bears if the United States
reneges, and the costs to the two types of offering a treaty. The two param-
eters that I focus on here as promising explanatory variables are the potential
benefits of an agreement for the United States and the negotiating partner’s
prior beliefs that the United States is reliable. The hypotheses I focus on
are those that specify the relative frequency of executive agreements and
treaties relative to all completed agreements. That is, I take into account the
potential for selection bias that has plagued other studies of agreement
form, which have neglected the fact that some potential agreements are never
reached. In the next empirical section, I concentrate on two hypotheses, H1
and H2:
H1. The chance that a completed agreement takes the form of a treaty
increases as the benefits of the agreement for the United States grow.
H2. The chance that a completed agreement takes the form of a treaty
decreases as the reliability of the United States grows.
This prediction is in direct contrast to the predictions of a purely domestic
perspective. Previous studies have argued that it is precisely the inability of
the president to generate approval from the Senate that gives rise to the use of
executive agreements. However, taking signaling considerations into account,
we see that such a move would be interpreted as a sign of unreliability.
Understanding the signals that treaties send to other states leads to new
insights about the form that particular agreements take. In particular, we
should expect the president to be most willing to bear the costs of the treaty
process when the potential benefits of an agreement are particularly high. In
addition we should not see a president who is facing substantial domestic
opposition attempt to evade it by using an executive agreement; such a man-
euver would only confirm his unreliability in the eyes of negotiating partners.
The next section turns to explore these insights with evidence on US security
agreements reached between 1980 and 1999.
Treaties versus executive agreements

To examine these propositions, and see whether the evidence tends to sup-
port the signaling model or the evasion hypothesis, I turn to a dataset of US
international agreements signed between 1980 and 1999 (with a few in 2000).
These data were obtained from Oceana, a firm that collects this information
for the use of lawyers. This is the most comprehensive list of US agreements
available, containing many agreements that do not show up on official State
Department lists or in the UN database.
The full database contains information on all issue areas, and has nearly
5,000 observations. The subset of the data I look at here was coded by
Oceana as being about “defense” or “arms limitation.” This subset includes
798 agreements. Oceana indicates whether the agreement is multilateral; for
bilateral agreements, it indicates what country the agreement is with, and its
title. It also shows a treaty number for those agreements that are formal
treaties. I have supplemented this information with data on domestic politics
in the United States, particularly the party of the president and whether he
faces divided government – a Congress in the hands of the other party. These
data came from Stanley and Niemi (2001).
A first important observation is that the incidence of formal treaties in this
subset of the data is very low. For the full dataset, over 4 per cent of the
agreements are treaties. This itself may seem a low number. But considering
the large number of agreements reached each year, the time necessary to
shepherd a treaty through the Article II process, and the relatively inconse-
quential nature of many of these agreements, the high frequency of executive
agreements should not be surprising. In the subset of agreements dealing
with security issues, only 1.25 per cent of them – 10 out of 798 – were treaties.
This in itself is an interesting observation. Conventional wisdom among legal
scholars is that security agreements, especially arms control agreements, tend
to take the form of treaties. Instead, we find just the opposite, that these
68 Lisa L. Martin
agreements are even more often executive agreements than those in other
issue areas.
The 1980s and 1990s were an active period for US negotiations and agree-
ments on security issues. In the 1990s, especially, the end of the Cold War
created a large number of opportunities and demands for the United States
to reach new security accommodations with other states – including new
states. For example, a large number of the agreements in this dataset aim to
resolve security concerns with former Soviet states, specifying their relation-
ship to the United States and their control of stocks of arms. The transform-
ation of NATO during this period also led to many agreements, including
with potential new members. In addition, in the earlier years of the data-
set, some landmark arms-control agreements were reached with the Soviet
Union. The dataset is filled out with the day-to-day stuff of interaction in the
security realm, amending earlier agreements, specifying military assistance
and arms sales, setting the conditions for US military bases overseas, and
so on.
The hypotheses derived from the signaling model focused on two major
explanatory variables related to the form of an agreement: the potential bene-
fits to the United States and its reliability. In previous work, I have argued
that, on balance, multilateral agreements will be more valuable to the United
States than bilateral agreements. This is not to deny that some bilateral
agreements – including some in this subset of data – are immensely valuable.
However, on average, multilateral agreements, because they are with a number
of states, offer greater potential advantages than bilateral agreements.
As a check on whether the multilateral proxy is a plausible measure of
agreements’ benefits, in previous work I randomly chose 25 multilateral and
75 bilateral agreements. For each, I undertook a search of the New York
Times for the three months surrounding the signing of the agreement, identi-
fying the number of references to the agreement. Within this subset, the
multilateral agreements on average had 4.9 references in the Times, while the
bilateral agreements had only 0.49 references on average. This figure suggests
that the multilateral agreements were, indeed, much more substantial and
consequential than the bilateral agreements. However, the figure on multi-
lateral agreements was heavily influenced by one outlier (the START treaty)
that received 84 references. Excluding this outlier, the mean number of refer-
ences to multilateral agreements drops to 1.6. However, this is still triple the
number of references to the average bilateral agreement, suggesting a signifi-
cant difference and supporting the plausibility of this indicator. Figure 3.1
shows a histogram of the number of references to bilateral and multilateral
agreements, excluding the multilateral outlier.
So, if multilateral agreements are more consequential than bilateral ones,
on average, we should expect them more often to take the form of treaties.
Previous work has shown that this insight holds strongly in the larger dataset.
Does it hold for security agreements, in particular? A skeptic might argue that
multilateral security agreements tend not to be particularly important, that in
Figure 3.1 Number of references in the New York Times to multilateral and bilateral
agreements.
Table 3.1 Incidence of treaties: bilateral versus multilateral agreements
Bilateral Multilateral Total
Executive agreement 724 99.45% 64 91.43% 788 98.75%

Treaty 4 0.55% 6 8.57% 10 1.25%
Total 728 70 798
Chi-square 33.21, p<0.01
this issue area the real work is done in bilateral negotiations. If so, the results
from the more general analysis would not carry over to the security realm.
Table 3.1 shows how bilateral and multilateral agreements are sorted into
executive agreements and treaties. Just 0.55 per cent of bilateral agreements – 4
out of 728 – take the form of treaties. In contrast, 8.57 per cent of multi-
lateral agreements, 6 out of 70, are treaties. This relationship is highly statis-
tically significant, as indicated by the chi-square statistic. Thus, the general
insight that multilateral agreements offer more potential benefits, and thus
are more likely to take the form of treaties, holds for security agreements. The
intuition behind this finding, according to the signaling model, is that the
president will more often be willing to bear the costs of a treaty as a way to
indicate US reliability when the potential benefits of the agreement are high.
The evasion hypothesis predicts that a president facing high domestic
opposition should more often turn to executive agreements as a way to evade
this opposition. In contrast, the signaling model argues that such a maneuver
would send a signal of unreliability to negotiating partners. If anything, higher
domestic opposition should force the president more often to use treaties as
70 Lisa L. Martin
an attempt to signal reliability. Previous work has used divided government as
an indicator of domestic opposition and prior beliefs about reliability.10
While early work suggested that divided government was in fact associated
with greater use of executive agreements, Martin (2000, 2005) has shown that
in properly specified models, the relationship disappears or even reverses, as
the signaling model predicts.
Table 3.2 presents a logit analysis that allows us to test the effect of divided
government on the probability that an agreement will be a treaty, controlling
for whether the agreement is multilateral. Here, I also control for whether the
president is in an election year or in his first year in office. Some have sug-
gested that presidents might more often turn to executive agreements during
election years as a way to establish their own foreign policy agenda. It is also
possible that a new president, who has not yet developed a working relation-
ship with Congress, may be forced to rely more heavily on executive agree-
ments. I also control for the party of the president, allowing for the possibility
that ideological commitments might push presidents of one party to favor
executive agreements that appear to enhance their autonomy from Congress.
As in the simple bivariate correlation, we find a strong positive relationship
between multilateral agreements and treaties. We also find a positive relation-
ship between a Republican president and the use of treaties, although this
relationship is not quite statistically significant. This is interesting, because
in the larger dataset a significant negative relationship appeared between
Republican presidents and the use of treaties. This suggested that Republicans
favored unilateral presidential action more than Democrats, probably con-
sistent with conventional wisdom. However, this relationship does not hold for
security agreements, and even appears to reverse. The circumstances that led
to this pattern, at least for these decades, may be worth further speculation.
Neither of the year dummies has any effect. This suggests that a purely
domestic logic of the president’s relationship with Congress does not have a
consistent effect on the form of agreements, lending support to a signaling
Table 3.2 Treaties versus executive agreements: logit analysis
Dependent variable = treaty Coefficient Estimated standard error z
Multilateral 3.034* 0.6917 4.39

Republican president 0.8623 0.6909 1.25
Divided government −0.4219 0.7042 −0.60
Election year −0.5621 0.8440 −0.67
First year −0.3457 0.8667 −0.40
Constant −5.269* 0.8098 −6.43
Number of observations: 798

Pseudo R-squared: 0.181
* p<0.01
model. Importantly, divided government also has no significant effect on the
probability that an agreement is a treaty, undermining the purely domestic
logic of the evasion hypothesis. A finding that divided government had a
significant positive relationship to the probability that an agreement took
the form of a treaty would be strong support for the signaling model.
Unfortunately, this finding does not materialize. However, we can conclude
that there is no support for the evasion hypothesis, just as work on agreements
in other issue areas has concluded. When it comes to security agreements, the
president is not able to evade congressional opposition by turning to executive
agreements, as this would send a signal of unreliability.
I have interpreted the positive relationship between multilateral agreements
and treaties as supporting the idea that such agreements, on average, have
greater value to the United States than bilateral agreements. However, par-
ticularly in the security realm, one could certainly argue that some bilateral
agreements would be of tremendous value. Thus, a closer look at multilateral
and bilateral treaties seems in order here. First, the multilateral treaties in this
dataset are indeed consequential agreements; they are not just multilateral
agreements that took the form of treaties because of legal precedence or
convenience. Most involve NATO, for example planning for accession of new
members. A multilateral landmine protocol is included, as is a multilateral
agreement on terrorism. Thus, the assumption that many multilateral agree-
ments are important substantive arrangements finds support in these data.
Looking at the bilateral treaties, a very interesting finding emerges. All four
of these treaties are with the same country: the Soviet Union. Three of these
are extensions of earlier treaties on nuclear weapons, and one regards the
elimination of intermediate and short-range missiles. These are agreements
of tremendous importance to the United States, and thus it is entirely con-
sistent with the signaling model that they have taken the form of treaties.
Thus, while multilateral agreements may be a decent proxy for the value of an
agreement, even the cases that do not fit this rule – the bilateral treaties –
support the underlying logic of the argument.
It is also interesting to note that none of the bilateral agreements in this
dataset that are with US allies or with other democracies takes the form
of a treaty. This may argue against some more normative arguments, for
example those that predict that democracies would be more “legalistic” in
their approach to security agreements. There is no evidence here that dem-
ocracies will demand the formality of a treaty any more often than non-
democracies. It may be interesting, in future work, to explore the impact of
levels of military spending or other domestic characteristics of US negotiating
partners to determine whether they have an impact on the form of agreements.
Unfortunately, given the lack of variation in this dataset – all the bilateral
treaties are with the same country – we cannot address these questions.
Research aimed at looking at the impact of other domestic characteristics
would have to extend the time frame to include more observations.
Overall, this analysis of agreement form provides moderately strong support
72 Lisa L. Martin
for a signaling model, while providing no support for a purely domestic or
legalistic model. To the extent that the reliability of the United States can be
captured by examining divided government or other aspects of presidential
relations with Congress, we do not find that lack of reliability can be over-
come by turning to executive agreements. We do not find that the legalistic
treaty form is preferred by democracies. Instead, the only consistent pattern
we observe is that more valuable agreements more often take the form of
treaties, exactly as the signaling model predicts. The next section provides
a brief analysis contrasting bilateral and multilateral agreements with one
another.
Multilateral versus bilateral agreements

In the context of multilateralism and security generally, it would be interest-
ing to see whether there are any regular patterns in the degree to which US
presidents are willing or able to complete multilateral agreements. The data-
set analyzed here allows us to offer some preliminary insights on this ques-
tion. Of course, any conclusions reached here must be treated as only initial
insights. The data cover only twenty years, and there is no guarantee that
each president had opportunities to complete about the same percentage of
multilateral agreements each year. Nevertheless, this period covers extremely
important changes in the US security environment, and offers variation in the
party of the president and whether he faced divided government. Thus, it
does allow us to undertake some analyses that could be of wider interest.
One intriguing question is whether partisan ideology influences the degree
to which presidents complete multilateral versus bilateral agreements. Based
on recent practice, with the George W. Bush administration showing an aver-
sion to multilateral commitments, we might expect that Republican presidents
would be more reluctant to conclude multilateral agreements. Thus, we would
expect a lower ratio of multilateral to bilateral agreements under Republican
presidents. However, a number of other factors would influence this ratio as
well, and it is not obvious that partisan ideology has been consistent on the
value of multilateralism. For example, in the early Cold War years, presidents
of both parties concluded important multilateral security agreements.
Table 3.3 presents an initial simple analysis of the relationship between the
party of the president and the relative frequency of bilateral and multilateral
agreements. We do find the pattern we would expect if Republicans have typic-
ally been more skeptical of the value of multilateralism. Under Democratic
presidents, about 10.8 per cent of agreements completed were multilateral
during this period, while under Republicans only 6.6 per cent were multi-
lateral. Using the chi-square statistic, we can see that this difference is statis-
tically significant at the standard .05 level. Thus, we have suggestive evidence
that Republican ideology does support the negotiation of bilateral rather than
multilateral agreements.
Of course, we cannot draw too many conclusions from this crude analysis.
Table 3.3 Multilateral agreements and the president’s party
Democratic president Republican president Total
Bilateral agreements 372 89.21% 356 93.44% 728 91.23%

Multilateral agreements 45 10.79% 25 6.56% 70 8.77%
Total 417 381 798
Chi-square 4.451, p<0.05
Table 3.4 Multilateral agreements and the president’s party: logit analysis
Dependent variable = Coefficient Estimated standard error z

multilateral agreement
Republican president −0.6733* 0.2643 −2.55

Divided government 1.056* 0.2916 3.62
Constant −2.749* 0.2592 −10.61
Number of observations: 798

Pseudo R-squared: 0.0409
* p<0.01
It does not control for any other factors that might influence a president’s
incentives or ability to conclude multilateral agreements. Although there are a
large number of such potential factors, one that we can easily control here
is the existence of divided government. Perhaps a president facing a Congress
controlled by the other party would find it more difficult to gain support
for complex multilateral agreements that could commit the United States in
ways that would prove inconvenient in the future. Thus, we might expect that
a president facing divided government would conclude fewer multilateral
agreements. On the other hand, the analysis in the previous section of this
paper suggested that divided government was not, in fact, a block to conclud-
ing agreements. While divided government might raise questions in negotiat-
ing partners’ minds about the reliability of the United States, a president
willing to make a costly signal of intent to live up to the terms of an agreement
can overcome this liability.
In order to control for divided government and to assess its effects, Table 3.4
shows the results of a logit analysis using multilateral agreement as the
dependent variable. That is, this table asks about the odds that any particular
agreement will be multilateral rather than bilateral. The two explanatory
variables are the president’s party and divided government. As in Table 3.3,
we find a significant negative relationship between Republican presidents
and multilateral agreements. Thus, this finding does not simply arise because
Republicans faced divided government more often than Democrats. Perhaps
just as interesting, we find a strongly significant positive relationship between
74 Lisa L. Martin
divided government and multilateral agreements. This suggests that divided
government is not an impediment to negotiating multilateral agreements.
However, the positive coefficient on this variable is somewhat surprising and
deserves further exploration. Why might we see more multilateralism in
periods of divided government? Does Congress simply have a preference for
multilateral over bilateral agreements?
One further step we can take with these data is to examine the records of
individual presidents. Perhaps the fact that Republican presidents concluded
fewer multilateral agreements is not due to partisan ideology, but is more
idiosyncratic to specific presidents, or the result of the particular era in which
they were governing. The data here cover only four different presidents:
Carter (1980); Reagan (1981–8); Bush 1 (1989–92); and Clinton (1993–9).
Figure 3.2 presents a bar chart breaking down the data on multilateral and
bilateral agreements by year.
We can see from this figure some clear differences across presidencies. The
one year that we have for Carter, 1980, shows that about 13 per cent of all
agreements were multilateral. During the first Reagan administration, this
fraction plummeted, with no multilateral agreements in 1983 or 1984. How-
ever, in the second Reagan administration, the percentage of agreements that
are multilateral returns about the same level as observed in 1980. In the first
year of the Bush 1 administration we see no multilateral agreements, but the
numbers return to about their usual levels for the next three years.
The first year of the Clinton administration, 1993, also shows a very low
Figure 3.2 Fraction of all agreements that are multilateral, by year.

percentage of agreements as multilateral. However, this fraction grows dra-
matically over the next few years, reaching a maximum of over 30 per cent in
1997. Thus, the finding that Democratic presidents negotiate a higher per-
centage of their agreements as multilateral seems primarily to be a Clinton
effect; while Reagan seemed particularly averse to multilateral agreements, at
least during his first term. We would need to have data that covered a longer
time span in order to see if the patterns found here could be generalized
beyond this small set of presidents.
Figure 3.3 shows the total number of multilateral agreements negotiated
per year, rather than the percentage, to allow us to see if any different patterns
emerge. Overall, we see the same picture, exaggerated in some respects. The
first Reagan administration shows almost no multilateral agreements being
negotiated, but this number grows substantially toward the end of the second
Reagan administration. The high point for negotiating multilateral agree-
ments is in 1995–7, when the number negotiated per year averages about ten,
well over the number for any other years. Given these data, it is not possible
to sort out the precise reasons for this flurry of activity. It could be attributed
to a fondness of Clinton for multilateralism in the security realm. Alter-
natively, it could be part of the post-Cold War aftermath, when opportunities
to negotiate multilateral agreements proliferated.
Figure 3.3 Total multilateral agreements, by year.

76 Lisa L. Martin
Conclusion
When the United States concludes security agreements with other countries,
does the form of the agreement send a signal about the reliability of the
United States? This question engages the extensive literature on the domestic
politics of US agreements, but extends it significantly by considering how the
form of the agreement provides information to other countries about the
likelihood that the United States will actually live up to its terms. Work on
this question from a purely American politics perspective has argued that the
president is able to use executive agreements to evade the congressional con-
straints that a formal treaty would entail. Work by legal scholars has focused
more on precedent and practice, paying little attention to the strategic issues
involved in choosing the form of an agreement.
I have argued that the form of the agreement does, in fact, send signals to
other countries. This means that presidents cannot simply evade congres-
sional opposition by using executive agreements rather than treaties, as this
would send a signal of unreliability. A signaling model of treaties predicts that
agreements on consequential issues should more often take the form of a
treaty, but that indicators of unreliability, such as divided government, should
not reduce the chance that an agreement is a treaty. Analysis of data on nearly
800 US security agreements during the 1980s and 1990s supports the insights
of the signaling model, while not providing evidence in support of the evasion
perspective or a purely legalistic argument. Multilateral agreements, which on
average are more valuable for the United States than bilateral agreements,
more often take the form of treaties. Divided government does not have
a significant negative relationship with the frequency of treaties. The only
bilateral agreements that took the form of treaties were important agreements
with the Soviet Union, again providing support for the signaling model.
In addition, these data allowed an initial exploration of the reliance of
different presidents on bilateral versus multilateral agreements. Conventional
wisdom suggests that Republicans are more skeptical of multilateralism than
Democrats, and that hypothesis is borne out in this dataset. We also see the
somewhat surprising result that periods of divided government give rise to
more multilateral agreements, a finding that deserves further research. Overall,
this study of security agreements suggests that they, like agreements in other
issue areas, are the subject of intense strategizing by presidents, who are
aware of the signals that they send to other countries, while also being swayed
by partisan ideological commitments.
Notes
My thanks go to Olivia Lau for her excellent research assistance and to participants in
the conference on multilateralism in the security realm in Delphi, Greece, in June 2005.
1 The legal literature draws distinctions among sole executive agreements,

congressional-executive agreements, and executive agreements that are subsequent
to previous congressional approval. While this more fine-grained distinction may
prove important, at this stage I examine only the broad difference between treaties
and all forms of executive agreements. This is motivated by data availability (no
data are readily accessible differentiating among types of executive agreements)
and by the presumption, justified below, that treaties impose higher domestic costs
on the president than other forms of agreements.
2 Spiro (2001) disagrees with Ackerman and Golove’s conclusion (1995), arguing
that sole executive agreements are constitutionally unacceptable under some con-
ditions. However, this reasoning has found no support in the courts.
3 I would note that very few executive agreements require this high level of legisla-
tive participation.
4 San Francisco Chronicle, 14 May 2002; New York Times, 12 April 2002.
5 Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 13 May 2002.
6 Washington Post, 11 May 1979.
7 Washington Post, 18 January 1980; The Economist, 26 January 1980.
8 New York Times, 21 March 1986.
9 It is important to note that the agreement need not take the same form in all states
party to it. It is not at all unusual for the same agreement to have to undergo very
different ratification procedures in different countries. So the United States may
choose to treat some agreement as a formal treaty while others treat it as a purely
executive agreement, or vice versa. The model focuses only on the form the agree-
ment takes in the United States.
10 Other indicators of reliability might be variables such as presidential victories on
votes in Congress, or LPPC scores – the legislative potential for policy change. All
such measures perform in the same way as divided government.
Appendix to Chapter 3
Table 3.5 Descriptive statistics and data sources
Variable Mean Std. Dev. Minimum Maximum Source
Treaty .0125 .1113 0 1 Oceana

Multilateral .0877 .2831 0 1 Oceana
Republican president .4774 .4998 0 1 Stanley and
Niemi 2001
Divided government .5614 .4965 0 1 Stanley and
Niemi 2001
4 The crisis of the transatlantic
security community
Thomas Risse
Not long ago, a generation of young Germans who were liberated from the
Nazi regime by American soldiers developed admiration of the political ideals
of a nation that soon became the driving force in founding the United Nations
and in carrying out the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. As a consequence,
classical international law was revolutionized by limiting the sovereignty of
nation-states . . . Should this same nation now brush aside the civilizing
achievement of legally domesticating the state of nature among belligerent
nations?
(Habermas 2002)
Europe’s rejection of power politics, its devaluing of military force as a tool of

international relations, have depended on the presence of American military
forces on European soil. Europe’s new Kantian order could flourish only
under the umbrella of American power exercised according to the rules of
the old Hobbesian order. American power made it possible for Europeans to
believe that power was no longer important.
(Kagan 2002)
Introduction
There is little doubt that the transatlantic relationship is in crisis despite the
patching-up work being done on either side of the Atlantic after the Iraq war.
Therefore, it is time to re-evaluate US–European relations and to take stock
of their current evolution. Such an effort has to take into account, however,
that the history of the transatlantic relationship is a history of crises. Com-
pare the crowds marching against George W. Bush, his rhetoric of the “axis
of evil,” and the Iraq war with the demonstrations against Ronald Reagan,
the talk of “empire of the evil” and the euro-missiles!
If the current conflicts are supposed to be different from the past, we need
convincing analytical arguments pointing to structural changes in world pol-
itics rather than editorial adhocery. Three such changes come to mind: the end
of the Cold War; unprecedented American preponderance; and 11 September
2001, and the rise of transnational terrorism.
Crisis of the transatlantic security community 79
I argue in the following that none of these changes (alone or in combin-
ation) offers sufficient evidence to conclude that structural changes in the
international system are about to spell the end of the transatlantic community
as we have known it over the past fifty years. The transatlantic security com-
munity used to rest on three things: collective identity based on common
values, (economic) interdependence grounded in common material interests,
and common institutions based on norms regulating the relationship. The
current conflicts stem from domestic developments on both sides of the
Atlantic leading to different perceptions of contemporary security threats
including transnational terrorism and, more importantly, different prescrip-
tions on how to handle them. Such differences have existed before and they
have been dealt with through the institutions of the transatlantic community
including European use of domestic access opportunities into the US political
system. Recent evidence suggests that European and US leaders are currently
busy (re-)developing their working relationships to deal with the most urgent
international problems such as Iran’s compliance with the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty. This is the good news.
The bad news is that unilateral and even imperial tendencies in contempor-
ary US foreign policy and particularly its official discourse have violated
constitutive norms on which the transatlantic security community has been
built over the years, namely multilateralism and close consultation with the
allies. The more US foreign policy in general acts unilaterally and the more it
renounces international agreements and institutions that the US itself has
helped to build, the more it touches upon fundamental principles of world
order and the rule of (international) law in dealing with international con-
flicts. The National Security Strategy (US President’s Office 2002) is indeed
partly at odds with some principles of world order which have been part of
the Western consensus in the post-World War II era. Even though unilateral-
ism is currently receding into the background of US foreign policy, the danger
remains that “instrumental multilateralism” remains the preferred course in
Washington. In this sense then, the current disagreements between Europe
and the US go beyond ordinary policy conflicts and touch issues of common
values and the core of the security community. Moreover, the transatlantic
tensions and, most importantly, the thoroughly negative image of the Bush
administration in the rest of the world including Europe, are beginning to
eat away at the “sense of community” or collective identity as a cornerstone of
the transatlantic security community. To put it differently, the most severe
and global legitimacy crisis of US foreign policy in recent decades affects
the transatlantic relationship directly. The pictures of Abu Grahib and Guan-
tanamo Bay are not only destroying what is left of a positive image of the
United States in the Islamic world, but they also challenge the Western com-
munity of values.
In short, the transatlantic community faces a severe crisis. It is no longer
possible to paper over the differences in joint communiqués and nice photo
opportunities. Rather, we need a new transatlantic bargain (Moravcsik
80 Thomas Risse
2003). Fortunately, the EU has been quick to get its foreign policy act
together after the disastrous internal rows over Iraq. For the first time, the
EU has articulated its own Security Strategy adopted by the European
Council in December 2003 (European Council 2003). It substantially differs
from George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy in that it embraces what
has been called “effective multilateralism,” that is, a foreign policy vision of
a “civilian power with teeth.” Moreover, the European foreign policy strat-
egy is already being expressed in practice – from European efforts in conflict
prevention and peacekeeping to European support for the International
Criminal Court (ICC) and multilateral efforts at dealing with global
environmental challenges. Last not least and slowly but surely, Europe is
putting the “teeth” into its concept of a “civilian power.” In sum, an EU
that gets its foreign policy act together is the pre-condition for a new trans-
atlantic bargain.
Yet, a European (counter-)vision of world order is not meant to wreck
the transatlantic security community. The rhetoric of building a counter-
weight to American hyperpower emanating from politicians and intel-
lectuals in parts of “old Europe” is bound to fail, since it will split Europe
further apart in foreign policy. Rather, efforts at a common European for-
eign policy and a European “grand strategy” should revive a serious trans-
atlantic dialogue and (re-)create the transnational alliances across the
Atlantic among like-minded groups that seem to have been silenced after
9/11.
I proceed in three steps. First, I take stock of and discuss the funda-
mentals of the transatlantic security community, including some alternative
accounts. Second, I analyze domestic developments in the US and Europe in
order to account partially for the current crisis. I conclude with some sugges-
tions for the necessary transatlantic dialogue concerning world order
questions.
A crisis of the transatlantic security community?

It is wrong to argue that policy disagreements between Europeans and North
Americans dominate the transatlantic agenda. There is still quite some
variation across policy areas in the extent to which the US and European
governments disagree with each other. In transatlantic economic affairs, for
example, things are fundamentally intact. The two main powers in the world
economy – the US and the EU – still co-operate in managing international
economic relations through multilateral institutions, particularly the World
Trade Organization. Even in security issues, it would be hard to argue that
disagreements prevail. As to the top priority on the current international
security agenda – the fight against transnational terrorism – both sides have
established a rather smooth co-operative relationship concerning trans-
national law enforcement and intelligence sharing. Military and political
security co-operation in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere has not
been affected by the crisis in the transatlantic relationship. Thus, not all is bad
in the transatlantic relationship.
Yet, policy disagreements between the US and Europe extend over a wide
range of issues these days. During the Cold War, such conflicts were rather
normal, but they were mostly confined to specific questions. Today, things
seem to be different. “Regime change” by force, “preventive war,” and other
policies of the Bush administration are not considered legitimate means of
international politics in Europe. And this includes the United Kingdom and
those European countries that have participated in the “coalition of the will-
ing” in the Iraq war. Moreover, European and US foreign policies are at odds
with each other on almost all issues of global governance (except for inter-
national economic affairs). This relates to, among others, nuclear and con-
ventional arms control, international human rights (the fight over the ICC
only constitutes the tip of the iceberg here), and the international environ-
ment (for details see Krell 2003: 22–5). The underlying problematique of
these policy disagreements concerns rather fundamental world order ques-
tions, such as the role of multilateral institutions including the UN in global
governance, understandings of international law, and the like. It has to be
noted here that many of these policy conflicts predate both 11 September
2001, and the Bush administration. The ICC and the European–American
rift on the climate change regime were with us already during the Clinton
administration.
Three claims about the contemporary crisis in US–European relations
The end of the Cold War

Mearsheimer and Waltz were already arguing more than ten years ago that
the end of the Cold War and the resulting end of the bipolar international
system would lead to a decline of the Western alliance (Mearsheimer 1990;
Waltz 1993). The argument was straightforward and came out of the structural
realist theory of international relations: alliances are partnerships of con-
venience and joint interest to balance the power of an adversary. Once the
power of the adversary has collapsed, the forces decrease that bind an alliance
together. NATO and the transatlantic relationship are no exceptions. More
than ten years after the end of the Cold War, it is still unclear whether the
argument is right or wrong. Worse, the neo-realist claim is too indeterminate
to tell us what would count as evidence confirming or falsifying it. As a result,
neo-realists tend to adhocery when it comes to analyzing the transatlantic
relationship. In 1990, for instance, Mearsheimer predicted not only the col-
lapse of NATO, but also of the EU, and he expected Germany to go nuclear.
Even if one concedes that NATO is in a deep crisis, the EU is not in decline
and Germany still has no intention to acquire nuclear weapons.
82 Thomas Risse
US power (and European weakness)
A second argument holds that the end of the Cold War has led to an
unprecedented supremacy of US power in the international system (e.g.
Wohlforth 1999; Brooks and Wohlforth 2002; Huntington 1999). The US
does no longer require allies to pursue its goals and can go it alone. At the
same time, Europe is militarily weak and its military expenditures have
declined sharply since the end of the Cold War. Kagan argued in this context
that the US lives in a Hobbesian “dog-eat-dog” world and sees itself as the
world policeman, while Europeans have made themselves comfortable in a
Kantian world of peace and multilateralism (Kagan 2003).
There are various problems and inherent contradictions with these claims.
First, it is more than questionable whether concepts such as “unipolarity” or
“multipolarity” are still adequate to describe a partially globalized world in
which states are all but one among many sites of power. Second, it is certainly
true that we live in a unipolar world when it comes to military power. Con-
cerning economic power, though, the argument only holds true if the EU is
treated as twenty-seven individual states rather than an economic power with
a single market and a single currency. Concerning various categories of “soft
power” (knowledge, ideas etc.; Nye 1990, 2002), it is rather unclear whether
the US is in a league of its own, since “soft power” seems to be rather diffuse
and more widely spread in the contemporary world system. Moreover, since
legitimacy arguably constitutes a significant ingredient of “soft power,” US
power might actually be in rapid decline in this regard.
Second, as to superpower behavior in a unipolar world, we need to dis-
tinguish clearly between (benign) hegemony and imperialism. Hegemonic
power rests on the willingness of the superpower to sustain an international
order, on its preparedness to commit itself to the rules of that order and on the
smaller states’ acceptance of the order as legitimate. The latter is a function of
the former as a result of which small states gain “voice opportunities” to influ-
ence the hegemon’s behavior, as Ikenberry has convincingly argued (Ikenberry
2000, 2001). Imperial power also rests on the willingness of the superpower to
sustain world order, but the main difference from hegemony is that the super-
power only plays by the rules when it suits its interests. In other words, imperial
power is above the rules of the order (Ikenberry 2002; see also Krell 2003).
Unipolarity as a structural condition of the international system does not
tell us whether we live in a hegemonic or an imperial order. The behavioral
consequences of a unipolar world for US foreign policy are unclear. Yet, for
allies and for the sustainability of the transatlantic alliance it makes all the
difference in the world whether they are faced with a hegemonic or an
imperial power. US hegemony and leadership have been readily accepted by
the European allies throughout the post-World War II period. US imperial-
ism, however, would indeed lead to the end of the transatlantic partnership
and would have to be maintained by the use of US power against its allies in
the long run. The crucial point is that we need to look inside the US itself
in order to explain whether it behaves like a benign hegemon or like a malign
imperialist. In other words, domestic politics and domestic structures become
central to accounting for US foreign policy, even if we accept realist assump-
tions about the (unipolar) structure of the international system.
11 September 2001 and the rise of transnational terrorism

There is a final claim that 9/11 and the reactions to it constitute a watershed
in the transatlantic relationship. If this means that differences in domestic
responses to transnational terrorist threats result in transatlantic conflicts
over the means to handle the threat, there is certainly some truth to it (see
Katzenstein 2002). The securitization of many aspects of US foreign policy
and the re-emergence of the “national security state” in the US cannot be
understood without reference to the rise in the intensity of threat perceptions
in the US following the attacks on the World Trade Center.
If this means, however, that the transatlantic community as such is
endangered because of 9/11, the argument makes no sense. On the contrary,
the transatlantic alliance faces a new threat which endangers the survival of
highly industrialized democracies precisely because transnational terrorist
networks exploit the vulnerabilities of open and liberal societies (Schneck-
ener 2002; Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001; Deibert and Stein 2002). Increased
transatlantic co-operation in intelligence and law enforcement is necessary,
which should strengthen alliance cohesion rather than weakening it.
In sum, neither the end of the Cold War nor US unipolarity as such, nor
the new threats of terrorist networks, constitute changes in world politics that
spell the end of the transatlantic community. These processes have in
common that they are indeterminate with regard to their consequences for
the US–European relationship. Let me now examine the fundamentals of the
transatlantic relationship to determine whether it is still intact.
The transatlantic alliance: still a liberal security community?

Debates about US foreign policy, unipolarity, and the transatlantic relation-
ship mostly overlook the obvious fact that the Western world consists of
liberal and capitalist democracies.1 Enduring liberal democracies rarely fight
each other and, therefore, the security dilemma is almost absent in inter-
actions among them. The literature about the “democratic peace” is enormous
and the proposition does not require further elaboration (see, e.g., Russett
1993; Russett and Oneal 2001; Owen 1997; for reviews see Chan 1997 and
Elman 1999). Recent quantitative studies suggest that economic interdepend-
ence measured in trade dependence of GDP and joint membership in inter-
national organizations (IOs) also add to peaceful relations among states
(Russett and Oneal 2001). Interdependence effects and IO membership are
apparently not as robust as the consequences of joint democracy, but they
add to the absence of war among states.
84 Thomas Risse
Joint democracy, economic interdependence, and highly institutionalized
international relations – these are indicators for what Karl W. Deutsch was
already calling a “pluralistic security community” in 1957, defined as “a
group of people which has become “integrated”. By integration we mean the
attainment, within a territory, of a “sense of community” and of institutions
and practices strong enough and widespread enough to assure, for a “long”
time, dependable expectations of “peaceful change” among its population”
(Deutsch et al. 1957: 5–6, 9). A security community constitutes a particular
social structure of international relations which then generates peaceful
relations among the members (see also Adler and Barnett 1998b).
Inside a stable security community, behavior will not be regarded as threat-
ening which might be perceived as highly dangerous and worth a response if
it came from states outside the community. The US, e.g., has never been
concerned about British and French nuclear weapons of mass destruction
even though “objectively” they could inflict heavy damage on the US main-
land. Europeans and Japanese might strongly disagree with US attempts
to change the ABM Treaty, with the failures to ratify the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, to sign the international treaty banning landmines, or to join the
regime against climate change, and the decision to go to war against Iraq.
They might feel annoyed by American unilateralism. But none of this is seen
as a military security threat to the other democratic powers in the contem-
porary international system giving rise to balancing behavior or to building
counter-alliances.
But what explains the expectations of peaceful change among members of
a security community? Three factors – “three Is” – mutually reinforce each
other and serve to account for the democratic peace in the contemporary
security community of major powers (see also Adler and Barnett 1998a):
1 a common sense of belonging together in terms of a collective identity;

2 strong (economic) interdependence among societies, creating substantial
social interests in each other’s well-being;
3 robust institutions to manage the relationship, creating social order and
enduring norms among the members of the community (see Haftendorn
et al. 1999).
The “three Is” can also be used as indicators for the current state of the
transatlantic security community.
Collective identity
Among the three factors, collective identity is probably the most difficult to
measure without getting into tautological reasoning (members of security
communities do not fight each other; therefore, they must identify with each
other, which explains their peacefulness). To measure the strength of collect-
ive identities, we should distinguish them along two dimensions: the salience
of the “self/other” or “in-group/out-group” distinction, on the one hand, and
the price people are prepared to pay for their sense of loyalty to the group,
on the other. As to the in-group/out-group distinction, democratic security
communities usually score rather high in this regard. Liberal democracies
hold what Giesen and Eisenstadt called a “sacred” identity construction
(Eisenstadt and Giesen 1995). We are the “shining city on the hill” (to quote
from the American collective mythology; similar self-descriptions can easily
be found in French discourses), but others can convert and become part of us,
that is, also become liberal democracies. Liberal security communities engage
in rather strong boundary constructions along the “self/other” divide, which
is a function of a country’s internal order. Once states democratize, they are
eligible as members of the security community. The sharp self/other distinc-
tion explains, for instance, the missionary impulse in American foreign policy.
It also explains why non-democracies are often constructed as “empires of
the evil” and why autocratic leaders are often demonized (cf. the comparisons
of both Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic with Adolf Hitler, as well
as the description of Osama bin Laden as “personified evil”).
Moreover, there are sufficient examples to sustain the argument that the
often-proclaimed “value community” of the Western alliance does not simply
represent sheer rhetoric. After all, the US prepared itself to sacrifice New
York for Berlin during the Cold War. The hot debates about the credibility
of extended deterrence during the Cold War document that this was not
regarded as an empty threat. And in the post-Cold War era, the Western
security community did fight for its principles several times, from the Gulf
war to the war in Kosovo. While there are material-interest-based explan-
ations for the Gulf war, the Kosovo war and the transformation of most of
ex-Yugoslavia into a Western protectorate can hardly be explained on
material grounds. Rather, the liberal identity of the community and its com-
mitment to humanitarian principles accounts to a large extent why Western
powers agreed to spend substantial economic, military, and human resources
in the Balkans.
But do US Americans and Europeans hold a sufficiently large share of
common values? Evidence from the World Value Surveys demonstrates over-
all similarities as well as some differences (Figure 4.1; see also the chapter by
Fuchs and Klingemann in Anderson et al. 2008). Overall, North Americans
and Europeans still occupy the same value space, that is, the north-eastern
corner of both “secular-rational” and “self-expression” values. When it
comes to support for democracy, human rights, and market economy, the
core values of the transatlantic security community, we can discern very few
differences between Europe and the US At least, the variation in support
for these and other “self-expression values” is greater inside Europe than
between Europeans and North Americans. And there is little evidence that
this picture has changed over the past few years. There is a widening gap
across the Atlantic, though, which concerns the “traditional vs secular-
rational values” continuum. There is only one EU member state, Ireland,
86 Thomas Risse
Figure 4.1 The European–American value space.
whose citizens are more supportive of both traditional-religious and so-called

“family” values than US Americans (predominantly Catholic Poland equals
the US on this scale). Northern and western Europeans in general are far
more secular than North Americans (including Canada).2
However, this juxtaposition of a “religious America” versus a “secular
Europe” overlooks the fact that the US is itself a deeply divided country when
it comes to moral values. The eastern and western parts of the US look pretty
much like “secular Europe” in this regard, where religion is considered one’s
private affair that should not interfere with politics. It is no coincidence that
“secular America” pretty much coincides with those states that voted for John
Kerry in the most recent Presidential elections. Among the demographic
markers that impacted upon a person’s vote for the president, religious
engagement and race were the two top factors in 2004 (Pew Research Center
2005: 29). Two thirds of those who regularly attend church voted for President
Bush in 2004 (ibid.: 27; see also Braml 2004). The consequences of this
religious divide for the transatlantic relationship are far from clear – apart
from a fact that the religious right in the US strongly supports a foreign
policy that tends to antagonize even the most pro-American Europeans (but
also the other half of America).3
Let me now move toward issues that are more closely related to political
relations in the transatlantic community than general value orientations. To
begin with, is anti-Americanism on the rise in Europe? We need to distinguish
mass public and elite opinion here. Concerning the former, the main measure-
ment problem is not to confuse support for each other’s foreign policies with
collective identification. All public opinion polls agree that many Europeans
– including British, Italian, Spanish, and central eastern European citizens –
disagree sharply with the Bush administration’s foreign policy.4
Whether rejection of particular US foreign policies translates into “anti-
Americanism” is hard to tell overall. The Iraq crisis and war has certainly led
to a steep decline in European sympathy for the US (for the following, see
the Pew Global Attitudes Project 2003: 19–22). Whereas 75 per cent of the
British, 61 per cent of the Germans, and 63 per cent of the French held
favorable views of the US in summer 2002, these numbers declined to 48 per
cent (British), 25 per cent (German), and 31 per cent (French) in March 2003.
Yet, the pre-Iraq war image of the US in Europe was more negative than the
post-war image. In March 2004, once again 58 per cent of the British, 38 per
cent of the Germans, and 37 per cent of the French held favorable views of the
US (Pew Research Center 2005: 106). Yet, while people might dislike the US,
they still hold “Americans” in very high esteem – 73 per cent of the British, 68
per cent of the Germans, 53 per cent of the French (Pew Research Center
2005: 114). This further indicates that attitudes toward US (foreign) policies
tend to color people’s views of the US in general: 65 per cent of the French, 56
per cent of the Germans, and even 48 per cent of the British agreed that the re-
election of George W. Bush made them feel worse toward the American
people (BBC World Service 2005). In sum, negative feelings toward America
stem from the Bush administration’s policies rather than from some under-
lying resentments toward the US in general (see Table 4.1).
Table 4.1 US image in Germany and France (June 2003)
Favorable views of Americans What’s the problem with the US?
in 2002 in 2003 Mostly Bush America in

general
Germany 70% 67% 74% 21%

France 71% 58% 74% 22%
Source: The Pew Global Attitudes Project (2003: 21–2)

88 Thomas Risse
Moreover, opinion poll data confirm a remarkable degree of transatlantic
consensus with regard to foreign policy, threat perceptions, and support for a
multilateral world order. Threat perceptions in Europe and the US are still
remarkably similar, even though support for the “US-led war on terrorism”
declined in France and Germany (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2003: 28).
Europeans and Americans also agree that religious and ethnic hatred consti-
tutes one of the greatest dangers in the world, while US citizens seem to be
somewhat more concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons than their
European counterparts. Finally and perhaps most significantly in light of the
current transatlantic disputes, it is significant to note that support for multi-
lateral institutions remains equally high in western Europe as in the United
States. In 2005, 66 per cent of Republican voters and 79 per cent of Democratic
voters agreed that the US should work more closely with other countries to
fight terrorism. Similar bipartisan majorities agreed that strengthening the
UN should be an important goal of US foreign policy (Kull 2005: 5, 7).
International organizations in general are still held in very high esteem on
either side of the Atlantic (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2002: 97). These
data have remained stable for a long period of time (Krell 2003: 7; Worldviews
2002; Holsti 1996, 2001).
A deeper look at the structure of foreign policy attitudes on either side of
the Atlantic reveals some important differences between US citizens and
Europeans, though (for the following, see Asmus et al. 2003). Asmus, Everts,
and Isernia have suggested grouping public opinion depending on the answers
to two questions: (a) whether people view economic power as more or less
important than military power, and (b) how people assess the use of military
force (Table 4.2).
Table 4.2 reveals, first, that there are very few “isolationists” on either side
of the Atlantic. It is particularly significant that isolationism has significantly
declined in the US over recent years, which might be a post-9/11 phenom-
enon. Second, it is far too simplistic to state that US citizens are predomin-
antly Martians, while Europeans tend to originate from Venus, as Kagan tried
to argue. Instead, while there are many more hawks in the US than in Europe,
the overwhelming majority of US citizens hold what Asmus et al. call a
Table 4.2 Structure of foreign policy attitudes in the US and Europe
Economic power Military power
US Europe US Europe
War necessary “Pragmatists” “Hawks”

65% 43% 22% 7%
War unnecessary “Doves” “Isolationists”
10% 42% 3% 8%
Source: Asmus, Everts, and Isernia (2003: 3, 5)

“pragmatic” foreign policy outlook. And Europeans are almost equally split
between “doves”, on the one hand, and “pragmatists”, on the other. One can
conclude from these differences that it is much more difficult in Europe than
in the US to build political coalitions in support of using military force – and
indeed, it was this issue that drove Europe and the US apart during the Iraq
war. At the same time, however, there is enough public support on either
side of the Atlantic for pragmatic foreign policies to allow for transatlantic
bridge-building.
In sum, there is no doubt that the collective identity of the transatlantic
security community has taken a beating in recent years. Concerning European
mass public opinion, the Bush Administration’s foreign policy in general and
the Iraq war in particular have led to a steep decline in the image of America
and the US. The pictures of US troops engaged in torture have not helped to
improve the US image. At the same time, however, it is hard to construct a
widening value gap given the deep divisions about moral and religious values
in the US itself. Last not least, foreign policy attitudes remain largely in
sync across the Atlantic. Thus, the picture that emerges is too complex to
come to any firm conclusion. It seems to show a transatlantic community in
motion.
Transnational interdependence
Concerning the second factor contributing to a security community, trans-
national (economic) interdependence, the transatlantic community is alive
and kicking. Combined indicators for trade, foreign investment, and capital
flows show that the transatlantic region is highly integrated economically
and is only surpassed by the EU’s single market itself. In 1999, 45.2 per cent
of all US foreign investment went to Europe, while 60.5 per cent of all Euro-
pean foreign investment went to the US European investments in Texas alone
are higher than all Japanese investments in the US combined. A German firm
– Siemens – is among the largest employers in the US. Moreover, intra-firm
trade constitutes a large portion of transatlantic trade. EU subsidiaries of US
companies import more than one third of all US exports to the EU, while US
subsidiaries of EU companies import more than two fifths of all EU exports
to the US. Six million jobs on each side of the Atlantic depend on trans-
atlantic economic relations (data according to Krell 2003: 10–17).
The transatlantic market is highly integrated and remains so despite the ups
and downs in the political relationship. The US and the EU not only consti-
tute each other’s most important economic partners, but are also the two
leading world economic powers. The current international economic order is
largely guaranteed and stabilized by the transatlantic economic relationship.
What is less clear, though, is the degree to which high economic interdepend-
ence serves to smooth increasing political conflicts. The spill-over effects from
one area to the other are not clear, in either direction. To what extent can
transatlantic economic interdependence substitute for a lack in transatlantic
90 Thomas Risse
identity when it comes to maintaining and nurturing the political relation-
ship? Historical lessons, particularly the decades preceding World War I,
appear to suggest that economic interdependence does not suffice to stabilize
a deteriorating political relationship, as generations of neorealists have
always been quick to point out (e.g. Waltz 1979; see also chapters by van
Scherpenberg and McNamara in Anderson et al. 2008).
Multilateral institutions
The third factor reinforcing a security community pertains to multilateral
institutions managing the relationship. Again and in parallel to the density of
transnational interdependence, Europe and the transatlantic region constitute
the most tightly coupled institutionalized settings within the larger Western
community. This region of the world also hosts the two strongest political,
economic, and security institutions in terms of robustness of norms, rules,
and decision-making procedures, the EU and NATO. The multilateral
institutions of the transatlantic community serve to manage the inevitable
conflicts inside a security community (Risse-Kappen 1995; see also Haften-
dorn et al. 1999). Strong procedural norms of mutual consultation and policy
co-ordination insure that the members of the community have regular input
and influence on each other’s policy-making processes. These procedural
norms and regulations are among the major tools mitigating power asym-
metries among community members.
Of course, these “voice opportunities” (Ikenberry 2001) suffer, the more
US foreign policy pursues a unilateralist course or falls victim to “imperial
ambitions” (Ikenberry 2002). Unilateralism violates norms of multilateral-
ism, which are constitutive for the transatlantic community. If unilateral ten-
dencies, which have always been a temptation in American foreign policy,
become the prevailing practice, the transatlantic security community’s consti-
tutive norms are endangered. The discourse emanating from Washington
over the past few years concerning “coalitions of the willing” – now
enshrined in the foreign policy doctrine of the United States (US President’s
Office 2002) – stands in sharp contrast to the idea of multilateralism on which
the transatlantic alliance has been based over the past fifty years. NATO was
so successful in the past as an instrument of alliance management, precisely
because it served as a clearing house for potential policy disputes before firm
decisions were taken on either side of the Atlantic. The more consultations in
the alliance framework are reduced to merely informing each other about
decisions already taken, the more NATO becomes irrelevant for the future of
the transatlantic relationship.
This is why the North Atlantic alliance has taken such a toll in the past
years, even before 9/11 and certainly before the Iraq crisis. Neither the US nor
Europeans have made good use of NATO in recent years as the primary
institution to manage their security relationship. After 9/11, Article 5 of the
North Atlantic Treaty was invoked for the first time in the history of the
alliance – without any further consequences. During the Iraq crisis and war,
the NATO Council apparently never discussed the transatlantic dispute in
detail (see Pond 2004). Both sides violated norms of consultation that are
fundamental for the transatlantic security relationship. If we are in a funda-
mental crisis of the transatlantic relationship, it primarily concerns the norms
governing it, which have been enshrined in its institutions. As long as the US
continues to build its foreign policy on “coalitions of the willing,” this consti-
tutes unilateralism in disguise and is fundamentally at odds with the norms
of the transatlantic security community. No wonder then, that we have seen
rather hectic attempts on both sides to repair the security relationship after
the Iraq crisis. More recently, the US has indeed resumed regular consulta-
tions with its allies. Whether this constitutes a break from unilateral tempta-
tions remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether NATO is able to
resume its role as the most important institution to manage the transatlantic
security relationship (see below).
In sum, if we use the “three Is” – identity, interdependence, and institutions
– as indicators for the state of the transatlantic security community, we get
a rather precise picture of its current situation. While transatlantic eco-
nomic interdependence remains strong, the collective identification with each
other has taken quite a beating since 2002/3. US post-9/11 foreign policy
has resulted in a strong spill-over from anti-Bushism to anti-Americanism
in Europe, including Great Britain. At the same time, either fundamental
value and foreign policy orientations on either side of the Atlantic remain
rather comparable or else the value differences point to more fundamental
cleavages dividing American society. Moreover, in the wider world com-
munity, European and North American societies have more in common than
any other societies in the world. Current challenges to the community con-
cern its institutions and the constitutive norms on which they are based.
NATO has taken quite a beating, and whether it is beyond repair remains to
be seen.
In short, the Atlantic has indeed become wider in recent years, but we still
lack an explanation. To understand the sources of conflicts, we need to open
up the black box of the states on both sides of the Atlantic and look at
domestic politics.
Domestic sources of the transatlantic disputes
The domestic side of US foreign policy

To some extent, one is reminded of the transatlantic tensions during the first
Reagan administration in the early 1980s (see Kubbig 1988; Risse-Kappen
1988; Talbott 1984). While George W. Bush is widely perceived as a uni-
lateralist president in Europe, Ronald Reagan was seen as abandoning nuclear
arms control in a similar fashion.
These similarities run deeper than perceptions in public opinion. Most
92 Thomas Risse
importantly, US foreign policy has been controlled in recent years by a
domestic coalition whose world views differ substantially from dominant
European foreign policy outlooks. Three competing groups dominate the
Bush administration’s foreign policy and they hold strikingly similar world
views as compared to the prevailing and equally competing domestic coali-
tions during Reagan’s first term (on the latter, see in particular Talbott 1984,
1988; Kubbig 1988). During the early 1980s, a conservative group hating
détente and arms control as well as despising the “wimpish” European allies
was largely in control of the Pentagon. Now and then, this group consisted
of devoted militant internationalists preferring American unilateralism over
entangling alliances. During the early 1980s, unilateralist conservatives were
convinced that arms control had to be abandoned in favor of arms racing in
order to ruin the Soviet economy and, thus, to win the Cold War. Twenty
years later, this group believes in the “unipolar moment” as a unique oppor-
tunity for the US to (re-)create international order following an American
design. Their “imperial ambition” (Ikenberry 2002) is prepared to accept
temporary alliances, but their fundamental beliefs reject stable partnerships
such as the transatlantic community as too entangling to suit US interests. In
other words, this group rejects the principles upon which the security com-
munity between the US and Europa has been built. It is anti-European to the
degree that it considers the transatlantic alliance as largely superfluous and
constraining US foreign policy.
However, we need to distinguish between two versions of conservative
thinking in foreign policy (for a broader analysis of these various strands, see
Mead 2001; Hassner 2002; Nau 2002). They are both unilateral and aggres-
sive internationalists and prepared to use American power offensively when
they see US interests at stake. But they differ in how they view the world and
which values they want to promote. One group – among them Vice President
Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld – see the world in Hobbesian
terms as a “dog-eat-dog” world. They are aggressive realists who believe in the
US role as world policeman to keep order in an anarchic international system
(on offensive realism, see Mearsheimer 2001).
But there is also another group of neoconservative hawks, who are prepared
to use American power to promote liberal values and to construct a world
order based on liberal democracies, universal human rights, and American-
style capitalism. Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense of the first
Bush administration used to be the most prominent representative of this
group, which Hassner has aptly called “Wilsonians in boots,” analogous to
Napoleon’s “revolution in boots” (Hassner 2002: 43; on the historical origins
of Wilsonianism in American foreign policy, see Mead 2001). In their view,
the purpose of American power in the world is to promote democracy and
capitalism. US power is to be used aggressively and unilaterally toward a
liberal world order. This is why they supported regime change in Iraq. The
particular strength of the neo-conservative group during the first Bush
administration results from the fact that they were able to forge a domestic
coalition with the religious right, which constitutes the backbone of the
Republican party (see also Braml 2004).
Yet, the unilateralists of the early Reagan as well as the current Bush
administrations have been balanced domestically and bureaucratically by a
more moderate and traditional conservative group. Officials such as Richard
Burt and Paul Nitze during the early 1980s, Bush senior’s foreign policy team
of the late 1980s, as well as George W. Bush’s two Secretaries of State, Colin
Powell and Condoleezza Rice, see the world in more moderate realist terms.
While they certainly share liberal values, they are not Wilsonians in the sense
of supporting a multilateral liberal world order. But they resent the “imperial
ambition” of the unilateralists and are convinced that the US cannot go it
alone – even in a unipolar system. At the same time, this group is rather
sceptical of the nation-building implications which the neo-conservatives’
liberal visions imply. Today as well as twenty years ago, this group has
remained committed to the transatlantic security community. With a little
help of their European friends, the traditional conservatives succeeded in
gradually moving Ronald Reagan toward the resumption of nuclear arms
control – and in moving George W. Bush to repair relations with the allies,
particularly in Europe, after the Iraq adventure.
From the beginning of the Bush administration, a tug-of-war between the
neo-conservatives and the traditional conservatives – between the “Pentagon
party” supported by the Vice President and the “State Department party” –
characterized the foreign policy decision-making process in Washington. It
became the task for President Bush’s then National Security Advisor and
now Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to find a balance between these
competing views. Rice’s academic credentials, prior to her work for the Bush
administration, seem to suggest that her world views come closer to the
traditional conservative camp.
Then came 11 September 2001, and the attack against the US homeland by
transnational terrorism: 9/11 – and the understandable shock and sense of
vulnerability it generated among Americans – had profound consequences for
the domestic balance of power in US foreign policy (for details, see Woodward
2002, 2004). It created a policy window of opportunity for neo-conservative
policy entrepreneurs. As a result, the domestic balance of power in the US
changed in favor of the neo-conservative group whose liberal unilateralist
vision (“Wilsonianism in boots”) was increasingly shared by the president.
The presidential National Security Strategy of September 2002 as well as
the focus on Iraq constituted expressions of the new domestic balance of
power in Washington. Nevertheless, both examples also show that neo-
conservative unilateralists of the offensive realist and the liberal variety both
had to make concessions to the traditional conservatives and their allies in
Congress and in Europe. As to the much-criticized National Security Strategy
document, for example, it expresses a liberal vision of world politics:
“Finally, the United States will use this moment of opportunity to extend the
benefits of freedom across the globe. We will actively work to bring the hope
94 Thomas Risse
of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of
the world” (US Presidents Office 2002: V). Incorporating the foreign policy
views of the neo-conservatives, the document commits the US to:
• pre-emptive, if not preventive warfare against terrorism and “rogue

states” possessing weapons of mass destruction;
• unilateralism “when our interests and unique responsibilities require”
(US President’s Office 2002: 31);
• military superiority “to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a
military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the
United States” (ibid.: 30).
None of these statements as such is new. However, it is the combination of

a liberal vision with unilateral action “if necessary” (but who decides?) that
represents a shift from previous foreign policy strategies of the US. The
document also contains quite a few paragraphs expressing the standard rep-
ertoire of the traditional conservatives, such as the commitment to NATO,
the EU, and other allies. It also commits the US to active engagement in
regional crises and to a substantial increase in foreign aid. Finally and signifi-
cantly, the US remains supportive of a multilateral and liberal international
economic order. This latter point is often overlooked in Europe, but it is of
utmost importance for the future of world order. In sum, the much criticized
National Security Strategy document represents a policy compromise bet-
ween neo-conservative unilateralists and traditional conservatives in the Bush
administration.
Since the Iraq war, the domestic balance of power inside the second Bush
administration has shifted yet again. The unilateralist neo-conservative group
which has led the US into its worst foreign and security policy disaster in
decades, seems to have lost ground at the expense of the more traditional
conservative group who realize that the US needs stable allies. As a result, the
Bush administration is gradually moving back toward the political center in
the US and toward the mainstream “pragmatism” of the US public (see
above). This, of course, makes life easier for Europeans who have to deal with
the US. At the same time, however, the liberal vision of promoting democracy
and capitalism as primary goals of US foreign policy seems to remain a
centerpiece of the president’s rhetoric, if not practice. In all of this, one
should not overlook the fact that the dominant foreign policy elite coalitions
in Europe differ substantially from their American counterparts – and this
includes the Democrats. Last not least, the damage done by the neo-
conservative group to the international legitimacy of US foreign policy has
lasting consequences.
In sum, if we want to understand the shifting positions of US foreign
policy, it’s domestic politics, stupid! Unipolarity and the structure of the
international system do not tell us much about the oscillation between unilat-
eralism and instrumental multilateralism in the current Bush administration.
Unipolarity only enters the picture insofar as unilateralism is an option for
US foreign policy to begin with. While systemic pressures push almost all
other states in the international system toward more co-operative and multi-
lateral behavior, the US enjoys the luxury of having real choices, at least in
the short run. Systemic pressures and foreign policy crises, such as the one the
administration experiences at the moment, work themselves out through the
domestic policy process. While the various domestic factions in US foreign
policy have been rather stable over time, it is their relative strength and their
balance of domestic power that goes along way to explain American foreign
policy. The same holds true for Europe, at least to some extent.
The domestic side of European foreign policy

While the coalition in charge of US foreign policy during the first Bush
administration was composed of neo-conservatives (liberal as well as realist
unilateralists) and traditional conservatives (realists with a preference for
traditional alliances), the dominant coalitions running the EU’s foreign pol-
icy as well as the foreign policies of the most important member states look
rather different (see Figure 4.2). The diagram depicts the foreign policy elite
coalitions on both sides of the Atlantic in a two-dimensional space. A third
Figure 4.2 Foreign policy coalitions in the USA and Europe.

96 Thomas Risse
dimension that is often used to describe foreign policy attitudes – isolationism
versus internationalism – is omitted here, since the dominant foreign policy
elites in the US and in Europe share a commitment to internationalism.
Rather, the various groups differ from each other in two dimensions:
1 A “realist–liberal” continuum (the y-axis), which depicts whether people

view the world in realist terms and thus security interests dominate their
vision of foreign policy, or whether they are primarily committed to the
promotion of a liberal vision, that is, the spread of human rights, dem-
ocracy, and market economy;
2 A “unilateral/militant – multilateral/cooperative” continuum (the x-axis),
delineating whether foreign policy-makers favor unilateralism and the
use of force to promote foreign policy goals or whether they support
a co-operative foreign policy working with and through multilateral
institutions.
The three factions dominating the Bush administration’s foreign policy are
situated on the left-hand side of Figure 4.2. I have also included the dominant
foreign policy coalition in the Democratic Party which is composed of “trad-
itional conservatives” on the one hand and “liberal internationalists” on the
other. The graph also depicts three European foreign policy groups according
to their views. The first group in the upper right corner of the figure could
be called “liberal internationalists.” It is often overlooked that the European
center-left shares with American “liberal” neo-conservatives a commitment to
the promotion of democracy and human rights as their foreign policy prior-
ities. The same is true for the EU’s foreign policy strategy (see also Börzel and
Risse 2004). In sharp contrast to the US right, however, this group is equally
firmly committed to a co-operative foreign policy and to work with and
through multilateral institutions. This group – which, for example, was in
charge of German foreign policy in the Schröder/Fischer coalition – pursues
the foreign policy of a “civilian power” (Maull 1990; Harnisch and Maull
2001) and thus shares a Kantian vision of world order in the sense of the
“perpetual peace” – that is, building a pacific federation of democratic states
and strengthening the rule of law in international affairs (Kant 1795/1983).
European Kantians are not pacifists; they support the use of military force if
necessary (cf. Chancellor Schröder’s stance on Kosovo and Afghanistan).
Yet, military power has to be embedded in political and diplomatic efforts.
Unilateralism is anathema for the European center-left.
There is a second group among the European foreign policy elites which
holds a more realist view of the world than either the American neo-
conservatives or the European center-left. Since this group thinks primarily in
realist, balance-of-power terms, it is very much concerned about the growth
of US power and promotes a European foreign policy of balancing and
building a counter-weight to US primacy. One could call this group the
“European Gaullists” (see e.g. Bahr 2003; Schöllgen 2003), given that French
presidents from de Gaulle to Chirac shared that world view. Their mantra is
to build a multipolar world in contrast to a unipolar one dominated by US
hyperpower. Interestingly and strangely enough, the Franco-German anti-
Iraq war coalition brought together the European center-left and the Euro-
pean “Gaullists” who joined forces for different reasons. Both were concerned
about American unilateralism. But the center-left primarily opposed the use
force for liberal purposes (“regime change”), while the “Gaullists” opposed
the war because of concern about US “hyperpower.”
The third group among European foreign policy elites can be located in a
similar position as the American traditional conservatives. This group holds
rather moderate world views on either the liberal–realist axis or the militant–
co-operative axis. Above all, however, this group is strongly committed to
preserving the transatlantic partnership, almost no matter what. This group
of “European Atlanticists,” which formed the core of the European “coalition
of the willing” during the Iraq war, is strongly motivated to avoid policy
disagreements with Washington that could weaken the transatlantic com-
munity. British Prime Minister Tony Blair (and his successor Gordon Brown)
as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel belong to this group. Thus,
Germany’s current grand coalition government is composed of European
Atlanticists as well as European liberal internationalists, thus bringing the
country closer to the US.
Two main conclusions follow from this attempt at locating the various
foreign policy groupings on either side of the Atlantic in a two-dimensional
political space:
1 The core of the transatlantic disagreements does not concern value

commitments such as the goals of promoting democracy or human
rights. When it comes to the question whether foreign policy should
primarily promote liberal values rather than serving strategic or economic
interests (the realist view), European elites are as much divided among
themselves as Americans. Despite all the different positions over Iraq,
however, Europeans are overwhelmingly in favor of multilateralism and
co-operative foreign policies, while a strong group in Bush’s foreign pol-
icy coalition is composed of unilateralists. Thus, the main dividing line
between the US and Europe concerns the commitment to multilateral
norms, which have been constitutive to the transatlantic security com-
munity. This is fairly obvious if one compares the national security strat-
egy of President Bush (US President’s Office 2002) with the strategy
document adopted by the European Council (European Council 2003).
For all the talk about “preventive engagement,” the EU security strategy
remains firmly committed to international law and to multilateralism.
2 It is also obvious that the two opposing camps in Europe that emerged
during the Iraq crisis (“new vs old” Europe) constitute anything but
stable foreign policy coalitions. To put it more bluntly: Neither European
Gaullism nor European Atlanticism of the old kind can form the basis of
98 Thomas Risse
a common European foreign policy consensus. I come back to that point
in the conclusions.
To sum up: The crisis in the transatlantic relationship has to be understood

on the basis of differing world views of dominant foreign policy coalitions on
either side of the Atlantic. Domestic forces – rather than structural changes
in the international system – have made the Atlantic a wider ocean. This does
not imply that the crisis is less serious. First, one of the core groups that
dominated US foreign policy of the first Bush administration does not believe
in the values and norms of the security community. This is a new develop-
ment compared to previous US governments. While unilateralists formed
part of the foreign policy coalition during Ronald Reagan’s first term, they
have never been as powerful as during the first Bush administration. Second,
the unilateralist group might have been weakened inside the second Bush
administration as a result of the Iraq disaster. Yet, the damage to the trans-
atlantic relationship, and particular to the social underpinnings of the secur-
ity community, has been done. Of course, European “Gaullists” and their
rhetoric – which was primarily motivated by domestic election concerns in
the case of Chancellor Schröder – have also done their fair share of damage
to the transatlantic community. But this does not make things much better.
Conclusions: how to repair the transatlantic security community

The argument of this paper can be summarized as follows. As to the funda-
mentals of the transatlantic security community, a mixed picture emerges.
One of the three Is – interdependence – appears to be still intact completely.
Sense of community and collective identity have taken a beating, while the
institutional basis (NATO) and the norms governing the community are in
serious crisis. These conflicts stem from domestic developments on both sides
of the Atlantic leading to different perceptions of contemporary security
threats and, more importantly, different prescriptions on how to handle
them. Diverging elite coalitions have been in charge of foreign policies on
either side of the Atlantic. An uneasy coalition of unilateralist conservatives
and more traditional conservatives have been in charge of President Bush’s
foreign policy. The EU’s foreign policy as well as the foreign policies of the
member states are dominated by varying coalitions of European “Gaullists,”
liberal internationalists, and “Atlanticists.” The split between “new Europe”
and “old Europe” during the Iraq war was mainly one between “Gaullists” and
“Atlanticists,” with liberal internationalists trying to balance between the two.
What policy consequences follow from this assessment, particularly for
European responses to America’s “imperial ambitions?” I see three major
conclusions. First, neither balancing nor bandwagoning can be a valid basis
for a European response to American imperial ambitions. Building Europe as
a “counterweight” to US power is neither feasible in practical terms nor can
a European consensus be built around it, which would have to include the
United Kingdom as well as the new EU member states of central eastern
Europe. Bandwagoning is not an option, either, since it would betray core prin-
ciples of European foreign policy when dealing with US unilateralist tenden-
cies. Thus, there is a European paradox: On the one hand, Europe and the
EU need to speak out with one voice in order to be listened to in Washington.
On the other hand, a European common foreign policy will fail and split
Europe further apart if it is constructed as a counter-hegemonic project.
Second, however, there is a way out. I would argue against Kupchan (2003)
that the social structure of the transatlantic relationship and its institutional
basis in particular can be (and indeed should be) repaired. The traditional
European reaction to US unilateralist impulses remains valid even today. In
the past, Europeans have usually responded to transatlantic conflicts by
increased binding, through strengthening the transatlantic institutional ties,
rather than counter-balancing. They have used the open US domestic system
for their purposes by successfully forming transnational and transgovern-
mental coalitions across the Atlantic in order to increase their leverage on
American foreign policy (for evidence, see Risse-Kappen 1995). There is no
compelling reason why this strategy, which worked well during the Reagan
administration with a similar domestic configuration of forces, cannot be
successfully employed today. Now and then, the natural allies of Europeans
inside the administration and in Congress are the moderate conservatives
who care about the transatlantic community. Moreover, as strange as it
sounds, the Iraq disaster provides a “window of opportunity” for European
liberal internationalists to enter a strategic dialogue with neo-conservatives,
particularly in the Washington-based think tanks. There seems to be a grow-
ing awareness and recognition that democracy promotion by force might not
work the way neo-conservatives had envisioned it. There is also a growing
sense that US foreign policy needs some international legitimacy in order to
be effective. Last not least, European foreign policy can exploit the fact that
American public opinion continues to hold views much closer to European
outlooks than to those of the neo-conservatives inside and outside the
administration.
The third conclusion concerns the necessity of a new transatlantic bargain.
While transatlantic collective identities can only be re-constructed through
active policies to a very limited degree, the institutional setup of the trans-
atlantic community is in serious need of repair. As I have argued above,
concepts such as “coalitions of the willing” or “the mission defines the coali-
tion” are inherently inconsistent with the institutional norms of a security
community. Europeans need a firm and explicit commitment from Washing-
ton to an enduring alliance rather than to ad hoc coalitions. And the US
needs to understand that the Europeans are the ones to primarily deliver the
international legitimacy required to make US foreign policy effective. Such a
new transatlantic bargain also entails a re-affirmation of the rule that consul-
tations with allies and partners have to precede policy decisions. There can
always be an “agreement to disagree” and Europeans must not always follow
100 Thomas Risse
US decisions, and vice versa. But we need some serious talk about ground
rules governing the transatlantic relationship if disasters such as Iraq are to
be prevented.
What is less clear is the institutional framework in which a new transatlantic
bargain can be forged. On the one hand, NATO continues to be the most
densely institutionalized transatlantic organization, including its military
integration. It also has more than fifty years of experience in managing the
transatlantic relationship. On the other hand, NATO has thoroughly failed in
this latter regard over the past five years. With its emphasis on military and
defense affairs, it is ill-suited to tackle the political dimensions of the con-
temporary security agenda, such as transnational terrorism, failing states,
and state-building. In this regard, a new transatlantic dialogue must bring in
the EU with its unique capacities and experiences as regards the economic
and political aspects of international security. While US–EU summitry might
not be the right institutional framework for a renewed transatlantic security
dialogue, it is clear that a new transatlantic bargain must include the European
Union as the emerging polity of Europe.
In sum, the transatlantic security community is in need of repair. “Friendly
divorce” as suggested by Kupchan (2003) does not resolve any of the world’s
problems, while transatlantic co-operation might at least make a significant
contribution to it. Re-invigorating the security community, however, requires
sustained efforts on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains to be seen whether
Europeans and Americans are up to the task.
Notes
This is an updated and revised version of a paper presented at the American Institute
for Contemporary German Studies, Washington DC, 24 January, 2003, published as
AICGS Seminar Papers, and at the 2004 Annual Convention of the American Political
Science Association. Various versions have been published as Risse (2003, 2006). I
owe a lot to discussions in the research seminar of the Center for Transnational
Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Freie Universität Berlin. Last not least,
this chapter benefited from discussions in a transatlantic study group which Jeffrey
Anderson, G. John Ikenberry, and I have chaired over the past few years. See Ander-
son, Ikenberry, and Risse 2008. I thank my students as well as Tanja Börzel and Ingo
Peters for their critical comments.
1 This part of the chapter summarizes Risse (2002).

2 For a detailed analysis of religious orientations in Europe showing clear differences
between the old EU, on the one hand, and the accession countries, on the other, see
Gerhards and Hölscher (2005).
3 According to the Pew surveys, the war in Iraq figures as by far the most divisive
issue in the 2004 US elections (Pew Research Center 2005: 12).
4 See e.g. Pew Global Attitudes Project (2002); Pew Research Center for the People &
the Press (2002). In a poll 77 per cent of the Germans, 75 per cent of the French,
and still 64 per cent of the British agreed that the re-election of George W. Bush was
negative for peace and security in the world (BBC World Service 2005).
5 State attributes and system
properties
Security multilateralism in
central Asia, southeast Asia, the
Atlantic and Europe
James Sperling
Why does security multilateralism, particularly its institutionalization,

become a regular feature of interstate interaction in some geopolitical regions
of the world and episodic or absent in others? An answer to this question may
be found in the confluence of state attributes and system properties, which
combine to produce a narrow range of viable security governance outcomes.
The dominant system-level theories of international relations generally treat
state attributes as given and homogeneous. This homogeneity assumption no
longer comports with the contemporary international system, because at least
two categories of states – the Westphalian and post-Westphalian – constitute
the system. System properties fall along a continuum describing, at one end, a
primitive state of nature reacting unvaryingly to changes in relative power
and, at the other, an international civil society governed by a dense and
comprehensive network of norms codified as binding law.
Capturing the precise interaction of system- and unit-level variables – and
the forms of security multilateralism that arise from it – raises three questions:
Can the varieties of security multilateralism in the contemporary international
system be explained by changes in the nature of the state? Are there identifi-
able patterns of internal and external variables that produce a narrow range
of security multilateralism outcomes? What criteria effectively differentiate
between the varieties of security multilateralism? The conceptual nomen-
clature defining the varieties of security multilateralism has become flabby:
different forms are conflated or have acquired different and contradictory
meanings; their essential and distinguishing characteristics have been glossed
over. The substantive purpose of this chapter is to identify and explain the
type of security multilateralism represented by the Shanghai Co-operation
Organization (SCO), ASEAN, NATO, and the EU. In the conclusion, a final
and critical question is addressed: Why do states participate in seemingly
suboptimal forms of security multilateralism even though superior forms
exist?
102 James Sperling
The post-Westphalian hypothesis
There has been a sustained debate about the importance of domestic consti-
tutional orders as the determinant of international order. Phillip Bobbitt
(2002) linked the historical evolution of the European state system to changes
in domestic constitutional form. The democratic peace hypothesis, which
ignited one of the most heated post-Cold War debates, holds that democratic
constitutional orders present the best guarantee of peace and stability (Owen
1994; Lipson 2003). Stochastic analyses generally support the hypothesis, but
the data supporting the hypothesis are largely drawn from the European and
Anglophone worlds (Oneal and Russett 1997: 3; Ward and Gleditsch 1998).1
This particular use of the European state system as the primary benchmark
for testing theories of international politics has become hazardous, particu-
larly when the hypothesis is supported by a circumscribed empirical base and
precludes from consideration the more fundamental change that is taking
place – the rise of the post-Westphalian state. The post-Westphalian state
better explains the emergence of a security community than does reliance
upon a single form of constitutional order, liberal democracy. Conversely, the
persistence of the Westphalian state elsewhere better explains the continuing
force of anarchy and the continued reliance on “primitive” forms of security
governance, regardless of constitutional form.
The post-Westphalian hypothesis challenges the assumption that states are
homogeneous actors. Rather states fall along a continuum bounded by the
Westphalian and post-Westphalian forms: each form seeks alternative forms
of security and practices alternative forms of statecraft – instrumentally and
substantively. Post-Westphalian states are more vulnerable to the influence of
non-state actors – malevolent, benevolent, or benign – in international politics.
Non-state actors fill or exploit the gaps left by the (in)voluntary loss or evap-
oration of sovereignty attending the transformation of the state, while others
are purposeful repositories for sovereignty ceded, lent, pooled or forfeited.
The changing nature of the security agenda, particularly its functional expan-
sion and the changing agency of threat, necessitates a shift from coercive to
persuasive security strategies (Kirchner and Sperling 2007).
Westphalian sovereignty forms a significant barrier to security co-operation
– even in the transatlantic area. John Herz (1957) identified territoriality as
the key characteristic of the Westphalian state and characterized it as the
“hard shell” protecting states and societies from the external environment.
Territoriality is increasingly irrelevant, particularly in Europe. States no longer
enjoy the “wall of defensibility” that leaves them relatively immune to exter-
nal penetration. The changed salience and meaning of territoriality has not
only expanded the number and type of security threat, but shifted attention
from the “hard” to the “soft” manifestations of power. Westphalian states are
preoccupied with protecting autonomy and independence, retaining a gate-
keeping role, and avoiding external interference in domestic constitutional
arrangements. Post-Westphalian states, while not indifferent to territorial
State attributes and system properties 103
integrity, have largely abandoned their gate-keeper role owing to the inter-
dependency of openness, welfare maximization, and democratic political
principles. Autonomy and independence have been devalued as sovereign
imperatives; sovereign prerogatives have been subordinated to the demands
of the welfare state and the preferences of individual agents.
The success of the European project in the post-war period reinforced
Europe’s material, ideational, and cultural interconnectedness (March and
Olsen 1998: 944–7). Geography, technological innovations, the convergence
around the norms of political and economic openness, and a rising dynamic
density have progressively stripped away the prerogatives of sovereignty and
eliminated the autonomy once afforded powerful states by exclusive territorial
jurisdiction. The ease with which domestic disturbances are transmitted
across national boundaries, and the difficulty of deflecting those disturbances,
underline the strength and vulnerability of the post-Westphalian state: the
ever expanding spectrum of interaction provides greater levels of collective
welfare than would otherwise be possible, yet the very transmission belts
facilitating those welfare gains serve as diffusion mechanisms hindering the
state’s ability to inoculate itself against exogenous shocks or malevolent act-
ors. Those actors, in turn, are largely immune to sovereign jurisdiction as well
as strategies of dissuasion, defense, and deterrence. Consequently, broad and
collective milieu goals have been substituted for particularistic, national secu-
rity goals, conventionally conceived. Perforated sovereignty has rendered post-
Westphalian states incapable of meeting their national security requirements
alone.
Stephen Krasner (1999) has challenged the post-Westphalian hypothesis,
referring famously to sovereignty as organized hypocrisy. While his decon-
struction of sovereignty into its constituent components is welcomed, his
rebuke of the hypothesis is contingent on the validity of three claims: “the
principles of territoriality and autonomy” had never been sacrosanct in prac-
tice (Krasner 1995–6: 123); states have never been able “to regulate perfectly
transborder flows”; and the EU (and presumably the states constituting it) is
dismissed as a “neutral mutation” without apparent consequence for the
international system (Krasner 2001: 234, 244). These claims cannot with-
stand superficial scrutiny: first, the violation of the principles of territoriality
and autonomy is distinct from the voluntary acceptance of mutual govern-
ance and loss of autonomy attending it; second, the question is not whether
states have been able to control transborder flows, but the nature and volume
of those flows as well as the barriers to controlling them effectively; and
finally, dismissing the EU as a “neutral mutant” represents at a minimum the
suppression of the inconvenient.
Two “kinds” of states populate the contemporary international system, an
assumption that may pose a barrier to a unified system-level of theory (Powell
1991: 1305). The existence of two distinct categories of state with different
kinds of preference structures and vulnerabilities lacks theoretical elegance,
but many states do approximate the post-Westphalian ideal-type. Introducing
104 James Sperling
the post-Westphalian state better comports with the empirical world. It
better explains the emergence and consolidation of a security community in
Europe as well as the Westphalian embrace of less effective forms of security
multilateralism elsewhere.
A model of security multilateralism

Security multilateralism is either nominal or qualitative. Nominal multi-
lateralism exists where states merely co-ordinate national policies, while
qualitative multilateralism also requires that appropriate conduct be defined
“without regard to the particularistic interests of the parties or the strategic
exigencies that may exist” (Ruggie 1992: 565, 571). Both forms require that
security be indivisible and its provision nonexcludable, that the participants
have a reasonable expectation of diffuse reciprocity, and that states “sacrifice
significant levels of flexibility in decision-making” (Martin, L.L. 1992: 786).
These four criteria are too restrictive (e.g., security interests need only be
overlapping) and are not met in equal measure across the broad spectrum of
multilateral arrangements. While some claim that most forms of security
multilateralism constitute gradations of collective security (Kupchan and
Kupchan 1995), these forms may nonetheless be differentiated with respect to
the security referent, the regulator of conflict, the normative framework, and
the interaction context. The model developed below links specific constella-
tions of state attributes and system characteristics to a range of security
multilateralism outcomes.2
State attributes
Four state attributes – identity, interests, sovereign control, and use of force –
demarcate the range of viable security arrangements in which any given state
will participate. These attributes do not manifest themselves in fixed relation-
ships or individually exert an unvarying explanatory power, although the
range of values assessed for any one attribute is likely to set the boundary
conditions for the others (see Table 5.1).
Identity has emerged as the central causal variable for those seeking to
explain the emergence and persistence of the European and transatlantic
security communities and by inference the persistence of more primitive forms
of multilateralism elsewhere in the world (Wendt 1994; Jepperson, Wendt,
and Katzenstein 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Checkel 1998). Such
analysts emphasize the role of identity in interest formation and claim that
collective identities create shared interests, normatively disciplined patterns
of behavior, and ultimately the stable expectation of non-violent conflict
resolution (Adler and Barnett 1998b). State identities range from the mutual
recognition that states, as states, have the sovereign right of self-preservation
to a fused identity where interstate differentiation is literally nonexistent.
Moreover, identities may be positive or negative: the former indicates an
Table 5.1 State attributes
Westphalian state Post-Westphalian state
Identity National and egotist Denationalized and other-regarding

Force Instrument of first resort; use is Renunciation as policy instrument;
a function of a utilitarian, non-use a function of normative
rather than normative, calculus rather than utilitarian calculus
Sovereign State functions as effective gate- There is a de facto erasure of
Control keeper between internal and sovereign boundaries and
external flows; disinclination to governments are unable to act as
surrender sovereignty to effective gate-keepers between
individual agents domestically internal and external flows; there
or to international institutions exists a sanctioned loss of sovereign
control to individual economic
agents and a willingness to transfer
sovereignty to international
institutions
Interest Interests are calculated on a Interests are constituted by a broad,
Calculus narrow, self-regarding set of other-regarding set of criteria
criteria orientated towards the orientated towards the milieu goals
goals of territorial integrity and of economic and political stability
power maximization
underlying source of affinity that reinforces co-operation along a broad spec-

trum of policy issues; the latter indicates that rivalry is set aside in the presence
of a common, but epiphenomenal threat.
The calculation of interest is best formulated as a question: do states cal-
culate their security interests with respect to a narrow, self-regarding frame
of reference or to a broad, collective, other-regarding frame of reference?
Alliance theorists consider interests to be material, enduring, and particular-
istic (Osgood 1953; Wolfers 1962; Walt 1987); yet, where states do share a
broadly collective identity or act in accordance with a set of intrinsically
valued norms, the material interest is intermediated by the ideational (Risse-
Kappen 1996). The focus of security co-operation, much like the concept of
security itself, has been unduly restricted to considerations of defense and
deterrence. The expanded security agenda and the rise of non-state actors as
antagonists have made the calculation of interest less parochial for all states,
but the subordination of the national interest to the cosmopolitan is not
everywhere evident. Where national interests remain solely self-regarding, so
too do the more primitive forms of security multilateralism.
Sovereign control identifies a government’s de facto capability and desire to
control transborder flows of people, ideas, and commerce. The loss of sover-
eign control may be evaluated positively or negatively. In open societies and
economies, the loss of sovereign control is positive insofar as it provides the
channels whereby domestic welfare is maximized and the rationale for the
external co-operation necessary to sustain it (Hanrieder 1978). This patterned
106 James Sperling
behavior establishes the necessary preconditions for advanced forms of secur-
ity co-operation. In closed societies or failing states, the retention of sovereign
control or efforts to reclaim it erect a considerable barrier to more advanced
forms of security multilateralism: a failing state can only offer implausible
assurances of compliance, while the opacity of closed societies makes potential
security partners uncertain whether the costs of entering into an arrangement
are likely to exceed the benefits of doing so.
A reliance on force is central to realist understandings of foreign policy
(Waltz 1978; Mearsheimer 2001). The use of force does not depend solely
upon the external context of action or level of threat, but also upon the soci-
etal consensus on when force should be used and in what measure. Historical
cases exist where a domestic consensus against the use of force has trumped
the sovereign imperative of national survival,3 while other states appear to be
predisposed to rely reflexively upon it.4 Moreover, even where force is recog-
nized as a legitimate instrument of statecraft, its imputed utility or the nor-
mative aversion to its use varies across states. Independent of the external
context, the domestic consensus delimits the forms of security arrangement
in which a state will participate.
System properties
If an international (sub)system is minimally independent of its parts, then
system properties play an important role in establishing the possible range of
viable security governance outcomes for any group of states. Four system
properties constrain or enable the likely forms of security multilateralism: the
role of power in ordering relations between states, the attachment to the sov-
ereignty principle, the breadth and depth of shared norms, and the legitimacy
of war (see Table 5.2).
Power as a system determinant has the longest pedigree in the study of
international relations (Meinecke 1929; Carr 1938; Dehio 1948; Gilpin 1981;
Mearsheimer 2001). Power is both subjective (is a peer friend or foe?) and
material (where do states fall along the hierarchy of power?). The intersection
of the subjective understanding of power and its material distribution affects
the pattern of interaction between members of the group and those outside
it, as well as the calculation of interest with respect to the source of threat and
how it should be met.
The strength of the sovereignty principle indicates the (un)willingness of
states to abnegate sovereign prerogatives where national interests collide
with group interests, to cede sovereignty to international or supranational
institutions, or to accept that group norms constrain states, particularly when
those norms collide with particularistic national interests. Where the sover-
eignty principle is undiluted, states are unlikely to enter into any form of
security multilateralism beyond contingent and temporary alliances; where
the sovereignty principle is relaxed, an enabling condition for advanced forms
of institutionalized security multilateralism arises.
Table 5.2 System properties
Westphalian system Post-Westphalian system
Power Numeraire of interaction; defined Unimportant in negotiations

in terms of military and economic between individual members of
capabilities; decisive arbiter of the system; interactions based on
conflicts prearranged rules independent of
power distribution and adheres to
democratic governance
Sovereign Sovereignty principle uncontested Sovereignty principle abrogated
recognition
Normative Shallow, narrow and contingent Broad, deep and binding
framework
War Legitimate form of conflict Illegitimate form of conflict
resolution; states prepare for war resolution; expectation that states
as the final arbiter of conflict; will enter into rule-governed
constraint on recourse to war is negotiations to resolve conflicts;
determined by a state’s utility rejection of force is normative
calculation rather than instrumental
Normative frameworks do shape state interests, particularly in late- or

post-Westphalian states. Although the material structure of power is obser-
ver-independent, power and its elements lack exclusively intrinsic (observer-
independent) properties (Searle 1999: 37–8). States operate in normative and
historical contexts that generate proscriptive and prescriptive norms. These
norms may be comprehensive or rudimentary. In primitive forms of security
multilateralism, where the normative framework is rudimentary, norms – if
they exist at all – are at best likely to be shallow and narrow with a contingent
validity for the participants; where the normative framework is deep and
broad, norms are more likely to be substantively valued and intrinsically
valid.
War is the one constant in interstate relations. The utility of war was only
seriously questioned after the industrial slaughter of the Great War, but even
then it did not prevent the European powers from going to war twenty years
later or virtually any other state going to war after 1945. War remains an
available and relied upon instrument of statecraft, owing largely to the self-
help imperative of an anarchical state system. Yet, the probability of war
between specific dyads or sets of states ranges from zero to a near certainty.
Where the probability of war is low – whether it reflects a normative aversion
or the utilitarian calculation that war doesn’t pay – the greater is the likelihood
that an advanced (and institutionalized) form of security multilateralism will
emerge. Where those conditions are lacking, security multilateralism will be
contingent and institutionally primitive or nonexistent.
108 James Sperling
Security multilateralism
Any form of security multilateralism has four components: the referent; the
regulator; the normative framework; and the interaction context. The secur-
ity referent identifies the target of the security arrangement. The system regu-
lator identifies the range of mechanisms relied upon to resolve conflicts. The
normative component assesses the function norms play in the calculation of
states’ interests and behavior. The interaction context, the final component,
identifies the level of intramural amity and enmity as well as the intensity of
the security dilemma. Each component is the product of specific dyads of
state attributes and system properties.
The security referent may be directed inwardly towards the contracting
states (as in a collective security system) or outwardly towards an “other” (as
in an alliance) or the regional milieu (as in a co-operative security). The
referent emerges from the interaction of identity and power: as identity moves
from the egotist to other-regarding, the more likely are states to enter into
security arrangements focusing on the within-group dynamic; as the role
of power wanes in the security system, the transformation of identity will
accelerate and reinforce the within-group orientation. Where the role of power
dominates interstate relations, even among states sharing a common identity,
security arrangements will be outwardly directed towards an “other” or the
regional milieu.
The purpose of security multilateralism is the regulation of conflict. Regu-
latory mechanisms range from the rule of war to the rule of law. The regulator
is the product of the system-wide legitimacy of war and the propensity of
states to rely upon force. As the utility or legitimacy of war or force declines,
states will seek alternative mechanisms for conflict regulation. The opportun-
ities and rationale for constructing institutionalized conflict mechanisms
are retarded where national identities and the sovereignty principle are undis-
turbed; when identities coalesce or merge, then sovereign recognition becomes
less important, providing the space for constructing effective institutional
mechanisms for conflict resolution.
The mere existence of international norms does not reveal whether those
norms are intrinsic or extrinsic to state calculations or how binding those
norms are likely to be. Those two aspects of a normative framework are
determined by the relevance of system-level norms to the national security
calculus, in conjunction with the strength of the sovereignty principle and the
use of force. If sovereignty is jealously guarded, particularly with regard
to the associated principles of non-interference and autonomy, then states
retain the presumptive right to determine domestic behavioral norms and
interests, while a reliance upon force as an instrument of statecraft limits the
cases where states will act in accordance with the “logic of appropriateness”
associated with norm derived behaviors (Hyde-Price 2000; Bulmer, Jeffery
and Paterson 2000). Where system-level norms govern within-group inter-
actions, the sovereignty principle is necessarily discounted and a reliance on
force for the regulation of within-group conflicts is delegitimized. When those
conditions are met, system-level norms become intrinsic to the calculation of
interest, and produce outcomes at a variance with material interests or the
structure of power. When they are not met, narrow national interests will win
out over system norms when they collide.
The interaction context refers to the level of amity and enmity in the
system and the intensity of the security dilemma. Where states have lost
sovereign control and discounted sovereign prerogatives, the states will have
developed a positive affect for one another owing to the positive externalities
associated with openness. Amity is reinforced when the loss of sovereignty
initiates the pooling or ceding of sovereign prerogatives to international or
regional institutions. The security dilemma will be most acute where war
remains a viable option, normatively and instrumentally, and states retain an
“egotist” national interest. Where states share a common set of interests (or
identity) and war becomes normatively proscribed, the security dilemma will
dissipate and create an enabling condition for the advanced forms of security
multilateralism; where those conditions do not hold, the security dilemma is
exacerbated.
Alternative forms of security multilateralism

A primitive state of nature and an international civil society provide the end
points of a continuum along which seven general forms of security multi-
lateralism fall: co-operative security, alliances, concerts, collective defense,
collective security, and two types of security community – the civilianized and
fused. Two categories of security governance, the state of nature and an
international civil society, are easily disposed of since neither exists nor is
likely to exist.5 The state of nature and international civil society nonetheless
serve as useful benchmarks against which the different forms of security
Table 5.3 Constituent elements of security multilateralism
Identifies Range of values
Security Target of security concern Inwardly or outwardly directed

referent (adversarial “other” or regional milieu)
Regulator Mechanism for conflict Warfare to binding arbitration within
resolution well-defined institutional frameworks
Function Role of norms in defining Instrumental and extrinsic (marginal
of norms national or group interests impact on state behavior or interest
formation) to substantive and intrinsic
to the definition of interest (constitutes
state interests and governs behavior)
Interaction Intensity of the security Enmity and intense security dilemma to
context dilemma; the level of amity amity and the absence of a security
and enmity dilemma
110 James Sperling
multilateralism may be measured. In a state of nature, the security referent is
any and all other states, war regulates conflict, norms are absent, and states
face unremitting enmity and an acute security dilemma. In an international
civil society, the security referent is inwardly directed towards the require-
ments of social stability and economic welfare, conflict is regulated by bind-
ing law, compulsory adjudication and centralized enforcement, norms are
institutionalized as a comprehensive legal code, and the interaction context is
one of social solidarity where the security dilemma is bereft of its conceptual
purchase (see Table 5.4).
A co-operative security arrangement presents the most rudimentary form of
security multilateralism. This form is relatively novel: co-operative security
arrangements usually lack specific obligations to undertake or lend military aid
in the event of aggression, primarily reference within group or milieu security
threats, and do not entail a significant loss of independent decision-making.
States enter into co-operative security arrangements owing to structural inter-
dependencies with security implications. This kind of multilateralism targets
threats that originate within the group rather than threats emanating from
outside it (Adler and Barnett 1998: 50, 56). Norms are limited in scope and
revolve around the protection of sovereign prerogatives. Security co-operation
remains contingent on the persistence of interdependencies, but it does have a
salutary effect on the interaction context: enmity and distrust are necessarily
suppressed. Moreover, the security dilemma undergoes a contingent inversion:
the enhancement of one state’s security enhances the security of the others.
A system of impermanent alliances or the balancing of power emerges
where, as Palmerston noted, states have permanent interests, rather than per-
manent allies or adversaries. Alliances, as either formal or informal institu-
tions, contingently bind together two or more sovereign states to balance,
deter, or defeat a common enemy. Alliances rely on deterrence or defense for
regulating disequilibria in the international system. In an alliance system,
norms possess an instrumental role and lack a substantive or intrinsic value.
The interaction context of an alliance system is outward enmity and a classic
security dilemma, but the underlying strategic reason for forming an alliance
determines whether there is inward amity (as in NATO) or muted enmity (the
Allied powers during the Second World War).
The lines demarcating concerts, collective defense, and collective security
arrangements have become unnecessarily blurred (cf: Kupchan and Kupchan
1995; Acharya 1999). Six characteristics define a concert: a set of fixed
rules and behavioral norms that only discipline within-group balancing; the
sovereignty principle is unmolested, particularly formal equality and non-
interference; an (in)formal dispute resolution mechanism exists for brokering
intramural conflicts; the contracting states contingently renounce war with
one another; the states engage in multilateral consultations on issues of
mutual interest; and there is a collective commitment to protect the essential
members of the system (Morgan 1993: 335; Mearsheimer 1994–5: 35–6;
Soutou 2000: 329–33). The security referent of a concert is inwardly directed,
Table 5.4 Characteristics of the varieties of security governance
Security referent Regulator Function of norms Context of interaction
State of Other states in system War None Unrelenting enmity; intense

nature security dilemma
Co-operative Generally within group Negotiation with rudimentary Neither deep nor binding; Security dilemma abated;
security institutional framework; provides a limited basis for distrust persists; enmity
recourse to war remains an co-operation suppressed
option
Impermanent Great power “other” War and balancing of power Limited to rules of war Neither a permanent state of
alliances amity nor enmity towards any
state; classic security dilemma
Concert Great powers Multilateral consultation, Norms support limited co- Conditional amity; mitigated
managed balance of power; operation; defend the status security dilemma
war proscribed but viable quo and existing domestic
regimes; and support the
qualified renunciation of war
Collective Identifiable enemy Balancing, deterrence, defense, Alliance norms are substantive Amity within group; enmity
defense outside the group or war and intrinsic to interests along without; security dilemma
a narrow range of issues intact
Collective Within group Collective, compulsory Norms replace sovereign Amity; security dilemma
security adjudication of conflicts; prerogatives in issues of war resolved
collective enforcement when and peace.
group norms violated Renunciation of war is
intrinsically and substantively
valued
(Continued overlef)
Table 5.4 Continued
Security referent Regulator Function of norms Context of interaction
Civilianized Within group International law, Norms replace sovereign Deep amity derived from a
security institutionalized conflict prerogatives across a wide positive or collective identity; a
community resolution mechanisms range of issues; constitute state common set of norms have
interests; are substantively and been internalized; security
intrinsically valued dilemma atrophied
Fused security Within group International law, institutional Same as in civilianized security Deep amity derived from a
community conflict resolution mechanisms community single identity and total
absence of differentiation
between within-group
members; security dilemma
not a relevant conceptual
category
Civilian Within group Civil contract law in effect; Sovereignty principle no Amity derived from an
international compulsory adjudication; longer defines interactions inviolable social contract
system voluntary compliance or within the group; normative among the group members
effective enforcement framework substantive and
intrinsic
conflict resolution is (in)formally institutionalized although the option of
war remains, a limited number of substantive norms creates a sense of com-
munity and regulates how states interact, and the interaction context is one of
contingent amity and a muted security dilemma.
Since a collective defense arrangement only emerges when one group of
states identifies another state or group of states as a common threat, the
security referent is outwardly directed. Within-group conflicts are mediated
by institutionalized procedures of dispute management and decision-making,
while deterrence and defense mediate conflicts with the adversary. A binding
normative framework is required to offset the required abnegation of sover-
eignty: military forces are likely to be aggregated at some level, defense acqui-
sition and expenditures become a matter of common concern, and strategy is
likely to serve the collective rather than the particularistic interests of its mem-
bers. Yet, each state retains the right to decide whether an act of aggression
has occurred and whether it constitutes a threat. Moreover, when an act of
aggression does occur, the member states have the option, rather than the
obligation, to intervene on behalf of their ally (Wolfers 1962: 182–3; Kelsen
1948: 793–4). A collective defense arrangement emerges in the context of
internal amity and external enmity; the security dilemma gives the arrangement
its raison d’être.
Collective security differs fundamentally from collective defense. In a
collective security arrangement, the security referent is inwardly directed at a
contracting state that initiates an act of aggression. Any party to a collective
security arrangement is contractually and normatively obligated to assist
any other contracting state that is the victim of aggression and to punish
the aggressor. A collective security arrangement makes provision for the
compulsory adjudication of within-group conflicts. Finally, in a collective
security system, the use of force – except in cases warranting immediate self-
help measures – must be wielded and legitimized by a quasi-sovereign entity
(Kelsen: 1948: 784–90; Wolfers 1962: 182–6). States, in effect, are required to
abnegate a core element of sovereignty; viz, the right to decide the where,
when, and why of war. This form of security multilateralism only exists where
there is a strong prohibitionary norm against war and an interaction context
characterized by amity and a moribund security dilemma.
A civilianized security community is the most advanced form of security
multilateralism that has yet emerged in the international system.6 A civilian-
ized security community exists where states have replaced “the military
enforcement of rules (politics based on power) with the internalization of
socially accepted norms (politics based on legitimacy)” (Harnisch and Maull
2001: 4). Five conditions must be met: there are normative constraints on the
use of force and an unwillingness to rely on it for resolving conflicts; inter-
national law serves as the basis for conflict resolution; formal institutional
mechanisms must exist to adjudicate within-group conflict; decision-making
is participatory; and sovereignty plays an instrumental rather than substan-
tive role in the calculation of interest (Harnisch and Maull 2001; Eberwein
114 James Sperling
1995: 350–2). The security referent is predominantly within the group,
conflict is regulated by rule of law, the normative framework is binding
and codified, and an abiding amity complements the absence of a security
dilemma.
A fused security community differs from a civilianized security community
in one critical respect – the nature of the identity shared between the mem-
bers. “Fused” replaces “civilianized” as a modifier where states retain de jure
sovereignty and a nominal notion of nationality, but not where there is a
within-group “other” or the persistence of negative identities. A “fused” secur-
ity community would have two primary characteristics: first, a member state
would not differentiate between a threat to the group and a threat to itself;
second, members would have a single set of security interests derived from an
identical set of norms, values and interests.
Four systems of security multilateralism: SCO, ASEAN,

NATO and the EU
What kind of security multilateralism best describes the SCO, ASEAN,
NATO and the EU? The answer to that question entails a two-step process:
the state attributes and system properties underpinning each system must first
be identified and then the pattern of interaction between these variables,
which define the elements of a security system, traced. Once those steps are
completed, the SCO, ASEAN, NATO and EU can be classified as specific
forms of security multilateralism consistent with the criteria summarized in
Table 5.4.
State attributes: central Asia, southeast Asia, and Euro-Atlantic

The member states of the SCO and ASEAN share the attributes of Westphal-
ian states, while the member states of NATO and the EU approximate the
attributes of late- or post-Westphalian states. The SCO member states –
China, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan – deviate least from the Westphalian ideal-type. Of those states,
only China and Russia exercise something other than nominal sovereign con-
trol over borders and territory. The majority of the ASEAN states – Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, and Vietnam – exercise de facto control over national territory.
NATO states, with the exceptions of Turkey and the new eastern European
members, can be described as late- or post-Westphalian. The EU, prior to its
eastern enlargement, consisted almost entirely of post-Westphalian states;
arguably, conformity with the acquis communautaire will accelerate the
evolution of the new members towards the post-Westphalian form (see
Table 5.5).
Table 5.5 State attributes found in central Asia, southeast Asia, the Atlantic and Europe
Identity Interests Sovereign control Force
Central National National with some overlap No juridical loss, although Yes, particularly within
Asia some territory sovereign-free actors’ own territory
Southeast National, modified by the National with overlapping Largely retained in all areas Yes, but effort to avoid
Asia notion of an “ASEAN Way” interests intramural conflicts
Atlantic National, but underpinned by Common, over-lapping and Largely retained in security Not within area, but out of
a weak notion of community broad affairs, but largely lost in areas area
related to the economy
Europe Community Joint and very broad Largely lost No; reliance upon persuasion
and compromise
116 James Sperling
Central Asia
The SCO states retain a national identity without the underlay of either a
regional or civilizational identity. The Chinese and Russian identities are
national, based on distinct cultures, civilizations, languages and histories; at
the best of times they only share an opposition to an “other” in the form of
the United States or Japan. The other four SCO states, ruled by autocratic
governments deriving their legitimacy from clan loyalties, are all former
republics of the Soviet Union and have weak national identities (Trofimov
2003: 46). Unlike NATO or the EU, there is no mythologized common
culture or civilization that serves as an ideational epoxy providing a rationale
for co-operation. Instead, the SCO states explicitly recognize that they repre-
sent “different civilizations and different cultural traditions” (Shanghai Co-
operation Organization 2001a; Perlo-Freeman and Ståhlenheim 2003: 16).
This cultural barrier to the formation of regional identity is reinforced by
anemic interaction densities: only 2.4 per cent of their total exports, for
example, are intramural (IMF 2004, author’s own calculations).
The SCO emerged from the “Shanghai Process”, the purpose of which was to
settle pre-existing Sino-Soviet border conflicts that involved Tajikistan, Kaza-
khstan, and Kyrgyzstan after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992. The
Sino-Soviet border had been heavily militarized; confidence-building meas-
ures taken in 1990, 1996 and 1997 led to the renunciation of Chinese claims
against Russia (and its successor states) and produced agreements on the
mutual reduction of armed forces (Fravel 2005: 55ff). Compared to the not-so-
distant past, force has become less an issue between states: the Sino-Russian
Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation in July 2001, for example, renounced
“the use or threat of the use of force” in their mutual relations. Force does
remain an issue within states, particularly the combating of Muslim Uighur
and other ethnic separatists. Defense expenditures as a percentage of GDP are
low, but the increases between 1995 and 2004 have been staggering.7 Military
co-operation has been limited: the first joint SCO exercise, which did not
include every member, occurred on Chinese and Kazakh territory in August
2003, Russian troops are stationed along the Tajik-Afghan border, and the
four Central Asian republics are members of the Russian-led Collective Secur-
ity Treaty Rapid Reaction Force (Carlson 2003). This co-operation is leavened
by distrust: Uzbekistan, for example, built new military bases along its border
with Russia and has conducted 22 military exercises with the United States.
All six SCO members have long, porous, and ineffectively policed bor-
ders. Domestic order is threatened by civil conflict between competing, non-
integrated ethnic groups with antagonistic confessions. Governments do not
exercise control over ill-defined and “soft frontiers” (Bailes 2003: 2). Despite
the inability to exert full sovereign control over borders and territory, these
states have not chosen to pool their sovereign prerogatives in formal multi-
lateral institutions – the SCO has only a small secretariat in Beijing and a
recently established regional anti-terrorism center in Tashkent.
Interests remain nationally rather than collectively defined. National
calculations of interest shape Sino-Russian bilateral co-operation as well as
their support for the SCO. Both Russia and China desire the withdrawal of
American troops stationed in central Asia, a region that is arguably a natural
sphere of influence for either. The SCO states share an overlapping interest in
preserving their own territorial integrity and regime stability, both of which
are threatened by militant Islam and ethnic rivalries. The Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan, for example, is active in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and sup-
ports Uighur separatists in China’s Xinjiang province (Yom 2002; Dongfeng
2004). The 2001 SCO Charter and the 2004 Tashkent Declaration commit
each member to “assign priority to regional security” and seek the “joint
definitions of interests . . . on the basis of respect of their individuality and
sovereign rights,” respectively. Those interests are defined as threats to inter-
nal security posed by the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extrem-
ism. Yet, as the Astana Summit declaration made clear, the member states
retained the right to determine when and how those forces represent a national
security threat (Guang 2005).
Southeast Asia
Identity formation within ASEAN was initially “negative” insofar as it rested
upon a shared “anti-communism” without a reinforcing “positive” identity
derived from a common culture or constitutional form (Acharya 1991: 175;
Gallant and Stubbs 1997: 216). These states are culturally, religiously and
ethnically heterogeneous, their economies fall along the entire development
spectrum, their relations are marked by telling asymmetries of power and
influence, and they have social compacts that strike different balances between
social stability and individual liberty.8 Regional heterogeneity is perhaps
best captured by religious confessions anchored in different civilizations –
European Roman Catholicism in the Philippines, Arabic Islam in Indonesia,
and indigenous Buddhism in Indochina. Diverse European imperialisms in
the region – the British in Malaysia and Burma, the French in Indochina, the
Dutch in the East Indies, the Americans in the Philippines – left behind
different legacies: weak or nonexistent political infrastructures, poorly drawn
borders that created ethnic and linguistic conflicts where none had previously
existed, and economies servicing imperial rather than local requirements.
Collective identity formation is also impeded by historical animosities pre-
ceding the age of European imperialism and gross disparities in economic
wealth – GDP per capita ranges from a low of $104 in Myanmar to a high of
$20,515 in Singapore. The modestly interdependent ASEAN economies –
only 23 per cent of total exports are intramural (ASEAN 2003b: 74, table V.12)
– and their mutual vulnerability to financial panics provides some foundation
for collective identity formation, positive and negative.9 The ASEAN com-
munity is imagined in Benedict Anderson’s (1991) sense that governing elites
purposively created a sense of community based on appeals to the “ASEAN
118 James Sperling
way”. It is also imagined in the narrower sense that it doesn’t exist because
the raw materials for community are absent (Hemmer and Katzenstein
2002: 599).
The ASEAN states exercise greater control over their territory and borders
than do the SCO states, but nonetheless face a transborder security complex
arising from borders made porous by geography and regional economic
interdependencies (Dosch 2003: 490). ASEAN governments can and do con-
trol the flow of individuals, goods and even ideas across national borders,
unencumbered as they are by the legal inhibitions on individual liberty found
in Western democracies.
Even though the ASEAN states have encouraged economic interdepend-
ence as a strategy of growth and regional autonomy, they cling to relatively
narrow definitions of self-interest even at the expense of protecting regional
autonomy (Khoo 2004; Narine 1998). Some point to the Bali II Concord
declaration on comprehensive security as evidence that a common culture
and identity are emerging in the region (Dosch 2003: 485). The intervention
in East Timor belies that claim. Each ASEAN state participating in the
peacekeeping mission did so for narrow national purposes, rather than for
the community interest. Some participated out of the fear that a successful
revolt in East Timor would stoke their own separatist movements and others
wanted to rein in Thailand’s eagerness to stake a leadership claim within
ASEAN. The ASEAN states did share an immediate interest in thwarting the
Australian effort to lead the expedition and claim a regional leadership role,
an interest not inconsistent with the longer-term concern with protecting
against Chinese or American encroachments on regional autonomy (Nabers
2003: 127).
One hallmark of the “ASEAN way” is the rejection of force (Khoo 2004; Ba
2005). That normative injunction, however, has not banished force from the
diplomatic toolbox. Disputes have been militarized, including but not limited
to the 1999 Philippines–Malaysia dispute over reefs in the South China Sea
and the 2001 border clashes between Thailand and Myanmar. While the
militarized incidents in the region have been few in number and can be plaus-
ibly be described as “minor military incidents” (Haacke 2003), it also remains
the case that ASEAN defense expenditures have risen from $11.7 bn in 1994
to $28.8 bn in 2002, an increase of 246 per cent. Even though regional special-
ists insist that those expenditures do not constitute an arms race (Simon 1996:
338; Narine 1998: 203), it would not be unreasonable to infer that military
power remains a highly valued commodity.
Euro-Atlantic
Over the course of the post-war period, positive identity formation between
the states of North America and Europe, as well as within Europe itself,
was facilitated by democratic governments and a shared civilization, both of
which were reinforced by the legitimizing rhetoric of NATO and the EU. The
common identity shared within the Atlantic was initially “negative” insofar as
the glue holding NATO together was the common Soviet military threat and
the fear that national communist political parties would enjoy success at the
polls in Western Europe. Europe’s common identity was also initially nega-
tive; it consisted not only of the external threat posed by the Soviet Union
and internal threat posed by national communist parties, but also a fear of
a renascent Germany. While the Europeans and Americans have shared a
commitment to liberal democracy, elites manufactured a common European
and American identity, where arguably only a contingent one exists: the United
States has a “culture” while the Europeans have a “civilization”; Americans are
ostentatiously religious, while Europeans are generally secular; Americans
favor a Darwinian market economy alien to European social democracy; the
American identity remains pristinely national, whereas the EU states possess
in different measure a muddied identity that is both national and European.
These differences have consequences: they partially account for the mutual
suspicion and acrimony that creep periodically into European–American
relations, particularly on security issues.10
The most conspicuous characteristic these states share is the loss of sover-
eign control. Economic and political interdependence were postwar American
and European foreign policy objectives. The European states have ceded con-
trol over most aspects of economic management to the EU, individual eco-
nomic agents, and most recently the European Central Bank (ECB). The real
and financial sectors of the EU economies are fully integrated, a process
begun in earnest with the Single European Act (1986). The euro has replaced
national currencies in the EU (with a few exceptions) and the ECB rather
than national central banks sets monetary policy. The integration of the
North American and European economies is likewise broad and deep. Trade
in manufactured goods is free from high tariffs, capital markets are inte-
grated, the euro and dollar are the world’s two major transaction and invest-
ment currencies, and prior to 11 September 2001 personal travel faced few
administrative hindrances. Philosophical design and technological default
reinforce these interdependencies: the privileging of the individual vis-à-vis
the state and the ubiquity of cyberspace and other forms of electronic
communication constrain further the state’s inability to monitor or control
individual actions.
The interest calculus reveals the largest divergence within the Euro-Atlantic
region. The European states have opted to create or at least strive for a
common foreign and security policy, a European security and defense policy,
and an entire range of common policies along their periphery and beyond.
The United States retains an almost exclusively national calculus for arriving
at its definition of interest, a tendency evident during the Clinton administra-
tion and a hallmark of the Bush administration (Carter and Perry 1999;
Carter 1999–2000; US President’s Office 2002, 2006). The current administra-
tion’s rhetoric and definition of interest have slipped into the solipsism that a
threat only exists if it threatens America. Europeans, however, have largely
120 James Sperling
denationalized the definition of interest within specific spheres of activity,
particularly the promotion of democracy and market economies in their
“neighborhood”. Traditional security concerns remain national at some fun-
damental level, but even here the EU’s solidarity principle represents an
important step towards replacing discrete national interests with a single
European interest (European Union Council 2004).
The transatlantic area is free from the intramural use of force. European
defense expenditures have declined markedly since the end of the Cold War.11
Only the United Kingdom and France actively seek a power projection cap-
ability; the other EU states are content to rely on “civilian” instruments of
statecraft, which in their view are not only normatively preferable, but are
also the more effective means for ameliorating the security threats Europe
faces. American defense expenditures (in constant dollars) declined over
much of the 1990s, but rose from $290.48 bn in 1999 to $417.36 bn prior to the
invasion of Iraq. As important, American expenditures on the non-military
requirements of security have not been negligible, notably the billions spent
on the co-operative threat-reduction program. It remains true that the secur-
ity challenges facing Europe generally resist military solution, while the
global challenges facing the United States are not always militarized out of
choice, but sometimes of necessity.
System characteristics: central Asia, southeast Asia,

and Euro-Atlantic
Muted great power competition and interaction overshadows the central and
southeast Asian subsystems. This singular characteristic constitutes a high
barrier to more advanced and institutionalized forms of security multilateral-
ism. As compared to central Asia, southeast Asia presents a more favorable
climate for advanced forms of security multilateralism given the moderate
level of economic integration, a common desire to protect regional auton-
omy, and the American security umbrella providing the necessary reassur-
ance for broadened multilateral commitments. The Euro-Atlantic region is
free from intraregional great power competition, although outside the trans-
atlantic area competition between Europe and the United States occasionally
flares into open conflict. Those disputes, however, have not yet torn the under-
lying fabric that supports the advanced forms of security multilateralism
found in the transatlantic area (see Table 5.6).
Central Asia
Power relationships dominate the dynamic of the central Asian subsystem:
China and Russia both seek regional dominance and both are wary of
American troops stationed in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan; the
Indian and Pakistani acquisition of nuclear weapons has not only made more
acute the regional security dilemma facing China and Russia, but threatens
Table 5.6 Regional system properties of central Asia, southeast Asia, the Atlantic and
Europe
Power Sovereign recognition Normative framework War
Central Coin of Retained; central Narrow range of norms Yes

Asia realm principle of that lack binding
interaction; no de jure character
abnegation
Southeast Continues Retained; central Broad range of Possible
Asia to play a principle of proscriptive and
role interaction prescriptive norms that
is highly developed in
economic affairs and
underdeveloped in
security affairs
Atlantic Residual Compromised and Very deep in defense, but No
role shared within NATO on a narrow range of
integrated military issues and dependent
structure upon voluntary
compliance
EU No role Pooled; compromised Very deep, broad, No
binding; adjudication of
conflicts with
expectation of voluntary
compliance
the nuclear-free status of the central Asian republics; and the United States,
China and Japan seek control over or assured access to central Asian energy
resources (Yom 2002; Guang 2005: 506; Dongfeng 2004: 13; Choo 2003).
The protection of sovereign prerogatives, the organizing principle of the
SCO, is codified in the Declaration on Creating the Shanghai Co-operation
Organization [hereafter the Declaration] (SCO 2001a: para 5), the Charter of
the Shanghai Co-operation Organization [hereafter the Charter] (SCO 2001b:
Article 1 and 2), and the Tashkent Declaration (SCO 2004). The SCO mutu-
ally guarantees the member states’ independence, sovereign equality, non-
interference in domestic affairs, and recognition of each state’s territorial
integrity. The preoccupation with preserving de jure sovereignty reflects the
insecurities of nominally sovereign states (Dawisha and Parrott 1997; Jonson
1998), China’s unwillingness to accept any constraints on its freedom of action
(Dongfeng 2004: 5), and a mutual desire to avoid outside meddling in internal
affairs (SCO 2001b: Article 1). Even where China and Russia have a direct
interest in the withdrawal of American troops based in the region, the SCO
Astana Declaration in 2005 left the terms and timetable of those withdrawals
to bilateral negotiations (Guang 2005: 503).
The normative framework governing intra-SCO interactions is rudimen-
tary, but consistent with the unwillingness of the SCO states to surrender
122 James Sperling
sovereignty to an institution or one another. The Shanghai Communiqué
(SCO 2001c) and the Declaration (SCO 2001a: para 5) put forward the basic
ground rules for behavior: the non-use of force; the renunciation of unilateral
military superiority in “contiguous” areas; non-alignment and rejection of
military alliances; and the peaceful resolution of disputes. These behavioral
norms do not deviate significantly from the principles underpinning the law
of nations in eighteenth-century Europe.
War as a means of conflict resolution remains a normatively and instru-
mentally sanctioned option. There is an explicit preference to resolve conflicts
peacefully, but China has not yet demonstrated any greater willingness to
forgo military force possibly leading to war than has the United States when
its interests are threatened. Civil wars and separatist movements are endemic
to the region (Eriksson and Wallensteen 2004: 132 ff). Although the 4,600-
mile Sino-Russian border has been demilitarized, a financially stretched
Uzbekistan nonetheless devoted scarce resources to constructing a military
base along its common border with Russia. Finally, the SCO Charter lacks a
mutual defense or collective security clause; it only provides an obligation to
resolve disputes peacefully which in the not-so-distant past were militarized.
Southeast Asia
Considerations of power bind ASEAN states together and lend ASEAN an
important part of its raison d’être. The region lies at an intersection of the
three great Pacific powers – the United States, China, Japan – with divergent
interests and objectives in the region (Narine 1998: 211; Acharya 1999: 84).
ASEAN increasingly functions as a mechanism for assuring regional auton-
omy and forestalling great power competition between an already established
United States and a presumably aspiring hegemonic China (Dosch 2003:
488). Yet, ASEAN elites recognize that regional autonomy remains depend-
ent upon the United States providing the region with the “oxygen of security”
(Segal 1996: 135; cf. Dibb 1995; Leifer 1996; Acharya and Tan 2006). Power
relationships also shaped ASEAN: elites purposely designed ASEAN so that
it would mitigate the power asymmetry between Indonesia and the others,
thereby diminishing the prospects of either an unrestricted arms race or
Indonesian dominance.
Sovereign recognition is ASEAN’s “main feature” and “highest principle”
(Emmerson 2005: 176). The 2003 Bali II Declaration restated ASEAN’s
two cardinal principles: non-interference in domestic affairs and sovereign
equality (ASEAN 2003a). Sovereign equality is manifest in the formal com-
mitment to reach decisions on the basis of consensus. Non-interference places
criticism of domestic political arrangements out of bounds and precludes a
positive obligation to intervene, even in the case of gross violations of human
rights. Thailand, in response to domestic developments in Myanmar, pro-
posed a modification of the non-intervention principle to allow “enhanced
interaction” or “flexible engagement”. This proposal would have created a
principled basis for the intramural monitoring of domestic political devel-
opments, but the proposal violated the sovereignty principle, did not gain
traction, and was subsequently withdrawn.
The normative framework governing intra-ASEAN relations is shallow,
but relatively broad in scope. A set of treaties, conventions and declarations
spell out a set of internally consistent regulatory norms, including the 1995
Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (the Bangkok
Treaty), the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia (TAC),
and the 2003 Declaration of ASEAN Concord II (Bali Concord II). The
TAC, which has served as the touchstone for subsequent ASEAN agree-
ments, codified the renunciation of the threat or use of force, the peaceful
settlement of disputes, and non-interference in bilateral disputes between
ASEAN members (Emmerson 2005: 176; Haacke 2003: 59). Other governing
norms include decision-making by consensus, the rejection of military pacts
and European-style multilateral security institutions, and regional nuclear
non-proliferation (Ba 2005: 257; Khoo 2004: 40).12 These normative injunc-
tions are the constituent elements of the so-called “ASEAN way,” defined
somewhat ambitiously as a “process of identity building which relies upon
conventional modern principles of interstate relations as well as traditional
and culture-specific modes of socialization and decision-making” (Acharya
2001: 28). The 2003 ASEAN Security Community (ASC) declaration, hailed
as a signal departure for ASEAN, failed to expand mutual obligations or
deepen the normative framework governing regional security co-operation.
The ASC simply expresses the signatories’ intention to protect the region’s
status as a nuclear-free zone and to deepen co-operation in the fight against
terrorism. Moreover, the ASC declaration explicitly declared that it was not
the basis for a military alliance, a defense pact or a joint foreign policy
(ASEAN 2003a). Sovereign prerogatives were left unmolested.
A key feature of ASEAN security co-operation is the proscription of war
as an instrument of statecraft. Although the last major regional conflict
ended in 1998 with the Sino-Vietnamese war, war remains a practical option
although normatively proscribed in treaty. That war should remain viable
should not come as a surprise, but the absence of war and the low number of
militarized conflicts in the region probably should. The absence of war within
ASEAN, however, does not exclude the possibility of it erupting in the future;
there is little empirical evidence supporting the proposition that the aversion
to war is normative rather than instrumental.
Euro-Atlantic
Despite the economic and military power wielded by individual EU states,
power asymmetries do not determine outcomes in EU policy debates. While
little of significance has happened in the EU without a prior Franco-German
agreement, the converse has not been not true: their bargain does not inexor-
ably become Europe’s. Institutional arrangements have also muted power
124 James Sperling
asymmetries: the smaller EU states wield influence disproportional to their
size owing to the assessment of voting weights; qualified majority voting
precludes a unit veto; and the double majority rule has aligned population
size with voting strength, which does not always favor the most economically
or militarily powerful. In the transatlantic area, the United States acts in
accordance with the prerogatives that its power confers upon it. NATO’s
integrated military command has placed a mild constraint on the American
exercise of power, but a significant one on the European. Moreover, there has
been – and there is – little that the NATO allies can do if the United States
acts unilaterally. Thus, within the transatlantic context two contrary dynam-
ics exist: a growing reliance upon democratic decision-making in the EU
tenuously linked to power traditionally measured; and intra-alliance relations
still mediated by the sometimes raw exercise of American power.
The three pillars of the EU – the European Communities, the Common
Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) – have
progressively encroached on sovereign prerogatives. The two institutional
manifestations best illustrating this development are the European Court of
Justice (ECJ) and the ECB. The ECJ adjudicates conflicts within the EU, and
member states treat those decisions, in principle, as binding.13 The ECB man-
ages euro-zone monetary policy, regulates aspects of the European financial
system, and monitors member-state budgetary policies. The ECB and ECJ
are politically unaccountable and possess sovereign prerogatives historically
reserved to states. Unlike its European allies, the United States has resisted
the sacrifice of significant sovereign prerogatives to international institutions,
particularly in the formulation and execution of security policy. The United
States is the signatory to any number of international treaties and agreements
– and the author of many – but successive administrations have ignored
the provisions of international agreements when they have come into conflict
with material national interests. Moreover, successive American administra-
tions have acted as if NATO’s integrated command functioned primarily to
keep America’s European allies on a short leash.
Norms in the European political space have become institutionalized as
hard law (Abbott et al. 2000: 405; Alter 2000: 492). As the scope and domain
of EU law have expanded, the member states are increasingly “pushed toward
outcomes other than those predicted by power and the pursuit of national
interest” (Ann-Marie Slaughter, quoted in Beyers 1999: 17). Alec Stone Sweet
and Thomas Brunell (1998: 65) detect a “vertically integrated legal regime”
that is transforming the EU into “a multi-tiered system of governance founded
on higher law constitutionalism” (cf. Caldeira and Gibson 1995: 358; Mattli
and Slaughter 1995). The institutionalization of norms as hard law is ongoing
in Pillar I, although the norms and principles governing EU security pol-
icy under the aegis of Pillars II and III are not yet binding (Kirchner and
Sperling 2007). In JHA, the EU has made progress in crafting a common
strategy towards transborder crime and terrorism. It has, for example, estab-
lished common minimum maximum penalties for specific categories of crime
and a common definition of terrorism, agreed on a common list of terrorist
groups, created common standards governing the collection of evidence, and
instituted a common European arrest warrant. It would be very difficult to
argue that international norms have recently constrained American behavior
or defined its interests with regard to security matters – the questionable legal-
ity of the Iraq war and the clear violation of the Geneva Convention provi-
sions on the treatment of prisoners of war are only two of the most egregious
examples. Norms play very different roles on either side of the Atlantic.
Arguably, norms constitute European interests across a broad spectrum of
policy issues; norms, albeit central to American rhetoric, are valued instru-
mentally and remain peripheral to the definition of American interests.
The role of war in the Euro-Atlantic region may be summarily dismissed.
Unlike other regions of the world, war plays no role in resolving intramural
disputes. Ole Wæver (1998: 104) has correctly characterized the EU as a
“non-war community”; there is no conceivable set of circumstances that
could serve as a casus belli between Europe and the United States.
Forms of security multilateralism: SCO, ASEAN, NATO, and EU

There is considerable debate over the precise form of security multilateralism
found in the SCO, ASEAN, NATO and EU. The SCO has been categorized
as an alliance balancing the United States in central Asia (Kay 2003; Allison
2004) and as a collective security arrangement (Gleason and Shaihutdinov
2005). ASEAN has been defined as a “thin” (Emmerson 2005) and “thick”
security community (Acharya 1991, 1999, 2004; Wanandi 2005), a defense
community (Simon 1998), a concert (Kang 2003; Shambaugh 2004/05), and
as a co-operative security arrangement (Acharya and Tan 2006). NATO has
been categorized as a security community (Risse-Kappen 1996), as a collect-
ive defense organization (Osgood 1953), and as a collective security arrange-
ment (Kupchan and Kupchan 1995). The EU has been classified as a security
community (Wæver 1998), but many are skeptical that it even plays an impor-
tant security role (Gordon 1998; Smith, M. 1996). Yet, it is highly unlikely
that the SCO, ASEAN, NATO and the EU suffer from the institutional
equivalent of a multiple personality disorder; each represents a single, specific
form of security multilateralism (see Table 5.7 on page 126).
SCO
The SCO, and the “Shanghai Process” that preceded it, originally arose out of
Sino-Soviet efforts to resolve outstanding border disputes and to demilitarize
their common border. Shared concerns over the transborder threats posed by
terrorism, separatism, and organized crime have slowly eclipsed in import-
ance the demilitarization process and implementation of confidence-building
measures (Gill 2004: 213–16). These shared security interests have not pro-
duced collective or positive identities and Sino-Russian strategic interests
define the regional dynamic. Thus, the SCO security referent is outwardly
Table 5.7 The varieties of security multilateralism
Security referent Regulator Function of norms Context Type of multilateralism
Central Internal and regional Balance of power Instrumental and extrinsic to Enmity; intense Co-operative security
Asia interests; serve to bolster security dilemma
internal repression and
territorial integrity
Southeast Internal and regional Consensus and force Norms defining “ASEAN Muted enmity; security Concert towards co-
Asia way” have substantive value, dilemma managed operative security
but are not intrinsic to
interest calculation
Atlantic External and global Force outside group Norms are substantively and Strained amity, security Collective defense
intrinsically valued over a dilemma weak towards concert
narrow range of security
issues; there has been a
weakening of those norms
after 11 September
EU Internal and Law and institutions Norms are substantively and Amity; security Civilianized security
neighborhood intrinsically valued across a dilemma not a relevant community
broad range of issues category of analysis
spanning the entire spectrum
of internal and external
governance policies
directed to the regional milieu (managing the “three threats”) and inwardly
directed at the management of within-group conflicts.
Intramural conflict is regulated by traditional statecraft, particularly the
reliance upon informal mechanisms for policy co-ordination. War and force
remain viable instruments. Although the renunciation of force is a central
norm of the “Shanghai process”, it remains contingent and instrumental rather
than intrinsic and substantive. China has embarked upon an ambitious mili-
tary modernization program, Russia only exercises influence in the region
owing to its military preponderance, and the other SCO states extended the
United States basing rights, arguably defense expenditure and deterrence by
proxy. The persistence of the sovereignty principle and a particularistic defin-
ition of interest together provide a formidable barrier to the deeper insti-
tutionalization of the SCO process and a greater reliance upon multilateral
mechanisms for resolving conflict.14
The function that norms play in defining national interests is contingent on
whether system-level norms are substantive or instrumental and intrinsic or
extrinsic to national values. The strength of the normative framework is con-
tingent upon the overlapping of norms and interests. The strength of the
sovereignty principle and continuing importance of relative power in intra-
regional relations retard the emergence of a robust normative framework con-
stituting a part of the national security calculus. SCO framework documents
enumerate a consistent set of norms, but those norms only legitimize repres-
sive political regimes, leave unmolested sovereign prerogatives, and reinforce
the primacy of national interests. No SCO state is obligated to carry out an
SCO policy if it conflicts with the national interest; there is no expectation of
sovereign abnegation to further a collective goal (SCO 2001b: Article 7; SCO
2001a: para. 10). Thus, SCO norms are weakly regulative rather than consti-
tutive, contingent rather than binding. As such they have had little impact on
either identity formation or the definition of interest.
The strength of the sovereignty principle, in conjunction with the sovereign
control the member states exercise and seek to exercise over their territory
and citizenry, sustain an interaction context of enmity and bilateral security
dilemmas. The Chinese and Russian governments retain a high degree of
sovereign control over closed political systems, exploit political cultures priv-
ileging the state over society, and highly discount civil and political liberties.
Despite “soft borders” repressive governments in the four remaining SCO
states act as gate-keepers over those aspects of society most likely to touch
upon national security. The sovereignty principle reinforces the “national”
in the national interest and the preoccupation with territorial and political
integrity. Correspondingly, the development of a positive or collective iden-
tity, which would build trust and mitigate the bilateral security dilemmas,
is blocked by a constellation of factors, particularly the militarized intra-
mural conflicts of the not-too-distant past, the unabated great power com-
petition between China and Russia for regional dominance, and the absence
of a civilizational or threat-based foundation for constructing either a “we”
128 James Sperling
independent of the external environment or a common “other” against which
the members are jointly opposed.
The SCO does not meet the criteria of an outwardly directed impermanent
alliance. It would be difficult to demonstrate that the organization’s origin,
continuing rationale, and cohesion (such as it is) can be attributed to a com-
mon interest in “balancing” the United States or the “bandwagoning” calcula-
tions of the smaller central Asian states. The basing of American troops in
three of the SCO states also suggests that an alternative classification is
in order. The SCO fails to meet any of the criteria for the more demanding
forms of security multilateralism that require even a partial abnegation of
sovereignty. Instead, the attributes of the central Asian states and the char-
acteristics of the regional subsystem have produced a weak form of co-
operative security: these states jointly seek an overlapping set of milieu goals
that serve narrowly defined national interests. The multilateralism that does
take place is severely constrained by the external dynamic of anarchy and the
internal dynamic of repression.
ASEAN
The ASEAN states have rejected as undesirable both collective security and
collective defense arrangements. The structure of power continues to play an
important, but not dominant, role in defining relations within ASEAN and
southeast Asia more broadly. ASEAN states seek regional autonomy, a goal
that can only be achieved in opposition to the presumed hegemonic ambi-
tions of China and insulated from the Sino-American competition for Asia-
Pacific dominance. The American security guarantees, which pose a signifi-
cant barrier to Chinese suzerainty or hegemony, permit ASEAN states to
discount intramural considerations of power. The external threats posed to
ASEAN – initially communism and now China – have created a common
identity between the member states, but that identity remains largely negative.
Nonetheless, that negative identity serves as a foundation for the joint defin-
ition of interests and policy co-ordination in a circumscribed set of policy
areas, including security. The ASEAN security referent is both internal
(within group co-operation on jointly defined security threats) and external
(maintaining regional autonomy and mitigating great power conflicts).
The regulator is decentralized and weakly institutionalized by design.
Decentralization represents the confluence of the ASEAN states’ willingness
and preparedness to use force and the episodic eruption of militarized con-
flict within and between them. As the defense budgets of the ASEAN states
attest, the military option remains in place despite the prohibitionary norms
against force found in the TAC and Bali II Concord. The continuing rele-
vance of power and force is moderated by the relatively high levels of eco-
nomic interaction among the more powerful ASEAN states – Thailand,
Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines – and a common interest in
expanding commercial and financial ties with China, Japan and the United
States. While the structure of trade could contribute steadily to the creation
of a positive identity, if not a sense of “we-ness,” it will remain counterbal-
anced by the continuing resilience of southeast Asian nationalisms, lingering
historical enmities, and domestic political systems ranging from the demo-
cratic to the despotic. These factors work against surrendering significant
sovereign prerogatives to a regional institution for the purposes of regulating
intramural conflict or securing regional milieu goals.
A series of treaties enumerate the norms governing intra-ASEAN relations.
Those norms, which proscribe and prescribe intramural behavior, have taken
on a substantive value for the members, but are not yet intrinsic to the calcula-
tion of national interests (Emmerson 2005). Successful appeals to the “ASEAN
way” have managed intramural disputes and shaped the broader dynamic of
the Asia-Pacific. At a minimum, the ASEAN norms have created the basis
for positive identity formation. The sovereignty principle inhibits progress
towards a more fully formed collective identity or the transition of norms from
the instrumental to the substantive, from the extrinsic to the intrinsic. As
a consequence, the more demanding forms of security multilateralism are
unavailable, albeit the ASEAN states have explicitly rejected Western-style
multilateral frameworks as alien to the region (ASEAN 2004). The southeast
Asian interaction context combines muted enmity between dyads of states
(such as Thailand and Myanmar; Singapore and Malaysia; Vietnam and Laos)
with fully unresolved within-group security dilemmas overlain by a collective
security dilemma vis-à-vis China. The region suffers from a set of unpropitious
circumstances for co-operation – border and territorial disputes persist, sover-
eign prerogatives remain inviolable, and distrust remains high. The persistence
of narrowly defined national interests and the role of power in shaping the
regional context hinder the development of a more fully formed positive iden-
tity and preclude the emergence of a collective one. The ASEAN states’ eco-
nomic success and acknowledged interdependencies, both economic and
strategic, offset these negative factors and contribute to the muted enmity and
the absence of an acute within-group security dilemma.
What kind of security multilateralism does ASEAN represent? ASEAN
shares some of the characteristics found in co-operative security arrangements,
but closely approximates a concert. As a concert, ASEAN has been enabled
to facilitate weakly institutionalized balances of power within ASEAN + 3
(China, Japan and South Korea) or the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the
pan-Pacific security institution. ASEAN + 3 directs its energies towards con-
taining a Sino-Japanese competition in Asia; ARF pursues the balancing of
the major Pacific powers (China, Japan, and the United States). Both aux-
iliary institutions seek general milieu goals of political and strategic stability
in the Asia-Pacific that serve the long-term ASEAN interest in regional
autonomy. It is overly broad and misleading to claim that the Asia-Pacific
exists “somewhere between a balance of power and a community-based
security order” (Ikenberry and Tsuchiyama 2002), particularly since “some-
where” includes virtually every conceivable form of security multilateralism.
130 James Sperling
Security multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific is relatively weak, but ASEAN
represents a regional concert striving to manage intramural conflicts, protect
regime integrity, and create a favorable regional milieu.
NATO
The classification of NATO as a collective defense arrangement ought to be
relatively uncomplicated and uncontested, particularly given the provisions
of the North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 5. Alas, this is not the case. NATO’s
precise character is muddied by those seeking to press NATO into the pigeon
hole of a “security community” based on the confluence of democratic
government, a shared civilization, and the expectation that conflicts will be
resolved non-violently. A second barrier to the simple classification of NATO
is the fundamental geopolitical change occasioned by the end of the Cold War;
viz, NATO was transformed virtually overnight from a compulsory alliance
that derived its cohesive power from a common Soviet threat to a voluntary
alliance with no specific adversary or obvious purpose. Thus the evolution of
the Atlantic area initiated the transformation of the NATO security referent
from a specific, adversarial “other” into a non-specific set of milieu goals. That
change has eroded the negative identity that the Soviet threat gave the alli-
ance. In the absence of an equally cohesive alternative “other”, power has been
reintroduced into NATO’s internal dynamic, particularly with respect to the
defining of common milieu goals and the appropriate geographic reach for
NATO. Paradoxically, the absence of the Soviet Union has placed into ques-
tion the causal relationship between democracy, collective identity, and inter-
est formation. NATO remains outwardly orientated, but the target of the
alliance is uncertain and internal cohesion has weakened.
The regulator of conflict within the alliance is highly institutionalized within
the North Atlantic Council and more importantly within the integrated
command structure. Deterring war and relying upon force to address “com-
mon” security problems was the core function of NATO, but in the changed
environment that consensus has weakened. During the Cold War, Western
Europeans and Americans alike relied upon military force to deter a Soviet
attack and actively prepared for war within the North Atlantic area; conflicts
of interest over how those goals would be best met were resolved within the
NATO unified command or between the member governments within the
institutionalized forum provided by the North Atlantic Council. The sover-
eignty principle was asymmetrically compromised within that framework; the
Europeans by and large yielded to American preferences out of necessity
rather than conviction, particularly on the use of nuclear weapons and deter-
rence strategy. While some argue that the Alliance shared a common identity,
which would imply an undifferentiated understanding of threat and response,
there was in fact a highly differentiated concept of interest outside the general
interest of deterring the Soviet Union. Simply put, the Europeans hoped that
if deterrence failed the subsequent nuclear exchange would take place over
their heads, while the United States was determined that a nuclear exchange
would first occur on European soil. That conflict was resolved largely in the
American favor owing to its preponderance of power; after the Cold War
similar fissures within the alliance over strategy are not so easily contained, as
the division over Iraq proved.
The norms embodied in the North Atlantic Treaty are intrinsic and sub-
stantive to the calculation of interest on both sides of the Atlantic over a
narrow range of issues. Norms have been endowed with these characteristics
despite the relative strength of the sovereignty principle within the treaty
itself (sovereign equality) and the American tendency to identify its interests
according to a national rather than collective referent (Carter and Perry 1999;
US President’s Office 2002, 2006). The absence of force as an instrument for
resolving intramural disputes, albeit somewhat offset by the American willing-
ness to exploit the asymmetry of power between itself and its European allies,
created an environment that allowed the transformation of instrumental
norms created in the early 1950s into substantive norms intrinsic to national
calculations of interest. Even the existential threat posed to the United States
on 11 September 2001 and the plausible insularity of the European allies
from a similar attack did not deter them from invoking Article 5 for the first
time in the Alliance’s history and participating in the pacification and occu-
pation of post-Taliban Afghanistan. This chain of events demonstrates that
the collective defense obligation in the North Atlantic Treaty is indeed an
intrinsic norm.15
Amity interrupted by occasional fits of pique defines the NATO inter-
action context. There is no security dilemma within the alliance; controversy
does exist, however, on what constitutes a threat, the sources of those threats,
the best means of addressing those threats, and the geographic reach of the
Alliance. These kinds of controversies existed during the Cold War, but
multiplied after 1992. Russia and Ukraine are unlikely to emerge as a geostra-
tegic “other” reintroducing a renewed source of negative identity to hold the
alliance together. But the Russian failure to evolve into a robust democracy
could reintroduce at a minimum regional enmity.
The durability of NATO as a collective defense organization may be
attributed to the postwar confluence of common interests, common values,
and a manufactured common identity, even though positive and negative
identities coexisted (Hampton and Sperling 2002: 281–302). NATO falls
short of meeting fully the requirements of a security community or a collect-
ive security organization. While it may have appeared to have been more than
a collective defense arrangement during the postwar period, developments
within NATO since 2001 in particular have revealed schisms that are deep
and probably enduring. The NATO states are democracies and there is no
conceivable circumstance under which they would resort to war with one
another. But the selective participation of NATO allies in different peace-
keeping missions and, most tellingly, the invasion of Iraq also suggest that
NATO may be developing a dual personality: an inwardly directed collective
132 James Sperling
defense organization without a specific or likely enemy and an outwardly
directed concert pursuing a disputed set of milieu goals.
EU
The EU has been both a foreign policy objective of its member states as well
as a foreign policy actor. As in the case of NATO, the EU referent is both
inwardly and outwardly directed, although there is no adversarial “other”.
The inward orientation of the EU focuses on the non-traditional aspects of
security that arise from the post-Westphalian character of the member states;
the outward orientation is directed towards a broad and consistent set of
regional milieu goals along its eastern and southern peripheries. The EU
members share a collective identity reinforced by supranational institutions
that have muted asymmetries of power. Power does not play a significant role
in EU relations with its neighboring states. A benign external environment in
combination with the absence of differentiation between member state inter-
ests across a broad spectrum of security issues explains the character of the
EU security referent.
The EU states have pooled or ceded considerable sovereignty to supra-
national institutions (the Commission, ECJ, and ECB) and have constructed
a collective identity over the course of the postwar period. While a European
identity has not superseded the national identities of its members, there none-
theless exists a denationalized understanding of threats common to Europe
and the expectation that those threats will be met jointly. War between the EU
states has become unthinkable; no other state or group of states constitutes a
military threat. The willingness to rely on force remains, but the resort to
force is limited by treaty to the Petersberg Tasks of peace-keeping, humani-
tarian intervention, rescue tasks, crisis-management and conflict prevention.
These permissive internal factors in combination with a settled external
environment have enabled the EU to institutionalize conflict resolution to a
degree only exceeded within states: intramural conflicts are resolved within
the Council of Ministers and European Council, the European Commission
drafts policies meeting common needs, and the ECJ adjudicates conflicts and
the plaintiffs expect voluntary compliance with the court’s decisions.
The norms governing the EU states are substantive and intrinsic to the
calculation of interest. National interests are themselves subject to the soli-
darity principle, which has established the expectation that national security
policies will serve not only the particularistic interests of the member state,
but the collective interests of the Union (EU 2004). The erosion of the sover-
eignty principle, the absence of force in mediating intramural conflicts, and a
broad and deep normative framework progressively institutionalized as hard
law create a context where EU norms constitute the definition of interest.
Amity and the absence of a security dilemma characterize the EU inter-
action context. The within-group dynamic has created and sustained amity:
the states have progressively sacrificed ever greater levels of sovereignty to
supranational institutions, while the purposeful loss of sovereign control has
required that transfer of sovereignty. While the rationale for the European
project may have been initially instrumental (Milward 1992), it could only
persist and broaden if accompanied by intramural trust and amity. This same
dynamic altered the calculus of interest from the particular to the collective, a
process unhindered by the prospect of war (a function of the American secur-
ity guarantee and occupation of Germany in the early postwar years). By the
time that the EU acquired a security writ in the late 1980s, the fear of a
renascent Germany and the corresponding security dilemma perceived by its
neighbors (the original motivation for the Brussels Treaty Organization) had
evaporated.
The EU is positioned to adopt the defining characteristic of a collective
security system: Article V of the Western European Union treaty provides for
the positive obligation to intervene on behalf of a signatory state in the event
of aggression.16 The EU does represent a civilianized security community. This
conclusion should not come as a surprise since the concept was developed to
account for the EU as a system of governance. Classifying the EU is not as
important as understanding why the EU developed into a security community,
since the answer to that question has policy implications for those wishing to
reproduce the number of security communities across the globe. What dis-
tinguishes the EU from the other regions is the post-Westphalian character of
the member states and the systemic dynamic of post-Westphalianism that
pushes states towards security co-operation (Falk 2002).
Conclusion
Security multilateralism is about effective governance of the international sys-
tem, particularly the supply of order and the regulation of conflict. The pri-
mary task set in this chapter was to understand how the interaction of state
attributes and system properties produced specific forms of security multi-
lateralism and to establish the limits of security governance in disparate parts
of the world. Secondary objectives included crafting a set of criteria that differ-
entiate between the different forms of security multilateralism and classifying
the SCO, ASEAN, NATO and the EU as systems of security multilateralism.
The assessments of the four regional systems of security multilateralism are
relatively conservative. Contrary to much of the existing literature, the SCO,
ASEAN, and NATO can not be described as a form of collective security
or security community if those concepts are to retain any explanatory or
descriptive power. Neither the SCO nor ASEAN represents a very ambitious
form of security multilateralism. NATO’s qualified classification as a collect-
ive defense arrangement – despite the provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty
– and its devolution towards an amiable concert reflects a change in systemic
conditions conjoined to the asynchronous evolution of the United States and
its European allies towards a post-Westphalian identity. The EU states are
post-Westphalian states and operate in a permissive systemic milieu. These
134 James Sperling
findings provide, at a minimum, preliminary support for the post-Westphalian
hypothesis: the post-Westphalian state is a necessary condition for the most
advanced forms of security governance, but an insufficient one. The sys-
tem continues to function as a significant barrier between the possible and
desirable forms of security multilateralism.
Notes
Thanks are owed to Aris Alexopoulos, Dimitris Bourantonis, Kostas Ifantis, Oliver
Richmond, Keery Walker and Michael Westmoreland for comments made on a much
earlier draft of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.
1 The inclusion of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European and North

American democracies in these data sets should be troubling. Any form of dis-
enfranchisement would disqualify a state from qualifying as democratic today. Yet
a majority of Britons was disenfranchised until the early twentieth century; in the
United States, a significant portion of the population were held as slaves, women
were disenfranchised until the early twentieth century, and Americans of African
descent were systematically excluded from the political process well into middle
of the twentieth century. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder (1995, 2002) also
demonstrate that states in the early stages of democratization are as likely to be
war-prone as not. Kal Holsti (1995) rejects the emphasis on democratic consti-
tutional orders and suggests that the absence of domestic legitimacy, regardless of
constitutional form, is the better indicator of bellicosity.
2 As John Gerard Ruggie (1992: 592) notes, the assessment of multilateral arrange-
ments is “not entirely independent of the attributes of states making the calcula-
tions.” This model shifts the emphasis of the analysis: multilateral arrangements
are not entirely independent of systemic conditions.
3 Denmark was unwilling to wage war against Germany at the outset of World War
II, while the vastly outnumbered and outgunned Finns, for example, chose instead
to wage war against Russia and subsequently Germany.
4 The postwar American experiences in Indochina and more recently in Mesopota-
mia are cases in point.
5 The state of nature would require a complete breakdown of the contemporary
international system, while an international civil society would eradicate the
“stateness” of states.
6 The civilianized security community is similar to a pluralistic security community
(Deutsch et al. 1957) as well as a loosely coupled security community (Adler and
Barnett 1998), although the latter is so broadly defined that it accommodates
concerts and collective defense arrangements.
7 Between 1995 and 2004, expenditures increased 352 per cent for Tajikistan,
241 per cent for Kyrgyzstan, 163 per cent for China, 123 per cent for Kazakhstan
and 54 per cent for Russia (IISS 2004: author’s own calculations).
8 The ASEAN states range from reasonably well-functioning democracies (such as
the Philippines) to some of the least democratic in the world (Myanmar and
Vietnam) (WorldAudit.org).
9 The impact of the Asian financial crisis on identity formation is contested. Nabers
(2003: 121) claims that the financial crisis created the notion that ASEAN was a
community of fate; Acharya and Tan (2006: 52) detect instead a loss of cohesion
reinforced by an expanded membership and intramural territorial disputes.
10 On the schism that developed between “old” Europe and the United States over
Iraq, see Merkl (2005).
11 EU member-state defense expenditures increased by 12.8 per cent between 1995
and 2004, while the comparable US figure is 32 per cent. German defense expend-
itures remained essentially flat, while Italy, Britain, and France experienced
increases of 38 per cent, 28 per cent and 12 per cent respectively (Scons, Stålen-
heim, Omitoogun, Perdomo 2005: table 8A.3, 356–61). British and French defense
expenditures have been devoted to enhancing force projection capabilities out of
area in addition to the costs attending peacekeeping in southeastern Europe and
Africa as well as war-fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
12 The provisions of the TAC inform the secondary institutional elaborations of
ASEAN, particularly ASEAN + 3 and even the ARF (Khoo 2004: 40).
13 The supremacy of EU law to national law is increasingly cited as evidence of a
common identity and the subsequent reshaping of national interest calculations.
See Stone Sweet and Brunell (1998), Caldeira and Gibson (1995), and Alter
(2000). For a skeptical view, see Huelshoff, Sperling and Hess (2005).
14 The SCO can only intervene in a conflict between its members if two conditions
are met: the two states concerned initiate the request for SCO intermediation and
the other foreign ministers agree to honor the request (SCO 2001b: Article 7).
15 Article 5 does not provide a binding obligation to come to the defense of a NATO
member under attack; a card of condolence would satisfy the letter of the Treaty.
16 Not all EU member states were signatories to the WEU, and Article 5 remains
outside the EU legal framework.
6 Is multilateralism bad for
humanitarianism?
Michael Barnett
Developments since the end of the Cold War have encouraged multilateral
security organizations and humanitarian organizations to orientate their
activities in the same direction. Although the formal structures of multi-
lateral security organizations have not appreciably altered, their purpose has.
During the Cold War most multilateral security organizations operated with
a statist concept of security, restricted their activities to the defense of states,
and viewed security in strictly military terms. Yet over the past fifteen years
many of these same organizations have introduced a humanitarian dimension
into their strategic doctrines and stated purpose. Reflective of the member
states that define their activities, many regional and international organiza-
tions increasingly view as legitimate the idea of humanitarian intervention,
believe that human rights are an important part of security, and occasionally
fancy themselves as humanitarian actors. As they have warmed to the idea
and importance of humanitarian action, many major powers and regional
organizations not only see humanitarian action as an important supplement
to their goals, they also imagine that states and humanitarian organizations
are crime-fighting partners. As former Secretary of State Colin Powell told
a gathering of NGOs in 1991, “just as surely as our diplomats and military,
American NGOs are out there [in Afghanistan] serving and sacrificing on the
frontlines of freedom. NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an
important part of our combat team.”1
The meaning and practice of humanitarian action also have expanded over
the last fifteen years. Humanitarian agencies have traditionally defined them-
selves in opposition to “politics” (Nyers 1999: 21).2 Certainly they recognized
that humanitarianism was the offspring of politics, that their activities have
political consequences, and that they are inextricably part of the political
world. Yet the widely accepted definition of humanitarianism – the impartial,
independent, and neutral provision of relief to those who are in avoidable
danger of harm – emerged in opposition to a particular meaning of politics
and helped to depoliticize relief-orientated activities.3
The foundational purpose of humanitarian action, the provision of assist-
ance to those at immediate risk, removed it from politics. Many activities
might alleviate suffering and improve life circumstances, including human
Is multilateralism bad for humanitarianism? 137
rights and development; but these are political because they aspire to
restructure underlying social relations. Humanitarianism provides relief: it
offers to save individuals, but not to eliminate the underlying causes that
placed them at risk.
Humanitarian’s original principles also were a reaction to politics and
designed to obstruct this “moral pollutant.” The principle of humanity com-
mands attention to all humankind and inspires a cosmopolitanism. The
principle of impartiality demands that assistance be based on need and not
discriminate on the basis of nationality, race, religious belief, gender, political
opinions, or other considerations (Pictet 1979). The principles of neutrality
and independence also help to inoculate humanitarianism from politics.
Relief agencies are best able to perform their life-saving activities if, and only
if, they are untouched by state interests and partisan agendas.4 Neutrality
involves refraining from taking part in hostilities or from any action that
either benefits or disadvantages the parties to the conflict. Neutrality is both
an end and a means to an end, because it helps relief agencies gain access
to populations at risk. Independence demands that assistance should not
be connected to any of the parties directly involved in the conflict or who have
a stake in the outcome. Accordingly, many agencies have either refused or
limited their reliance on government funding if the donors have a stake in
the outcome. The principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and
independence have served to depoliticize humanitarian action and create a
“humanitarian space” – a space insulated from politics.
Yet over the last decade humanitarian action has expanded significantly
beyond its “apolitical” confines and now shares space with “politics” as it works
to promote development, human rights, democracy, and peacebuilding. Push
and pull factors were responsible for this expansion, and while some agencies
resisted the flow, others went with it. For many agencies this transgression
into politics produced considerable anxiety because of the fear that the frat-
ernization of politics and humanitarianism would corrupt this sacred idea
and undermine the ability to provide relief. Not only might they lose their
impartiality as they became attached to broader political projects, but they
also would sacrifice their independence as they associated with states.5 For
other agencies, especially those championing human rights and development,
this was a welcome expansion because it deepened their solidarity with the
weak and vulnerable, extended the assistance activities that might be pro-
vided to them, and enabled them to work toward the elimination of the root
causes of conflict. Although there remain important divisions in the humani-
tarian community, “fundamentalists” have lost ground to the “new” humani-
tarians who accept a politicized humanitarianism (Weiss 1999; Minear 2002;
Chandler 2002; Stoddard 2002).
This chapter examines how the emergence of a humanized multilateralism
and a politicized humanitarianism can compromise the provision of relief
and protection of civilians. The first section explores the various factors that
contributed simultaneously to the humanization of multilateralism and the
138 Michael Barnett
politicization of humanitarianism. To better understand how these changes
shaped the meaning and practices of humanitarian action, the second section
looks at external control and examines three branches of organizational the-
ory. The first two, principal–agent analysis and sociological institutionalism,
highlight how the different dimensions of the environment can lead to greater
control over humanitarian organizations. Principal–agent analysis highlights
how states that are increasingly prone to see humanitarian action as an
important feature of their foreign policy might now be encouraged to intro-
duce new control mechanisms on agencies, mechanisms that might threaten
agencies’ independence, impartiality, and neutrality. Sociological institution-
alism focuses on how the desire by organizations for external legitimacy –
legitimacy that can bring resources and status – can encourage agencies to
expand their activities and associate with states.
The legitimation of international human rights norms was a powerful
magnet for relief agencies. Yet organizations were not only forced into new
areas, they also were drawn because of internal dispositions. Although organ-
izational interests played a part, also present was an organizational culture
that compelled staff to try to resolve the tensions they confronted between
their aspirational mandates to help the suffering and the demanding situations
on the ground. Relief can be a temporary salve in the face of ongoing threats
against civilians and the concern that relief does not address the root causes
that make populations vulnerable. To try to reduce suffering, humanitarian
organizations reached into new areas and toward states.
The third section of this chapter explores these issues in the case of
NATO’s “humanitarian war” in Kosovo. Although the willingness of states to
use force in the defense of civilian populations can be interpreted as a victory
for principled action, in this case principled action also represented a poten-
tial threat to humanitarianism. Indeed, the humanitarian sector sponsored
over two dozen evaluations of Kosovo, something of a record for the time
and indicative of the desire to assess not only their technical prowess (or lack
thereof ) but also the larger political implications of this event.6 At issue was
why so many agencies felt so comfortable associating so closely with a com-
batant and suspending their sacrosanct principles of impartiality, independ-
ence, and neutrality, whether that association had harmed their ability to
provide relief and protection, and what this event meant for the future of
humanitarian action. I conclude by reflecting on how different versions of
institutionalism help us understand the different kinds of control mechan-
isms exerted by the environment over humanitarian organizations, the need
for an interpretive perspective to understand why humanitarian organiza-
tions might view this principled development – a humanized multilateralism –
as a threat to their principles, and humanitarianism’s relationship to world
order.
Humanizing multilateralism and politicizing humanitarianism
A defining feature of the post-Cold War period was the foregrounding of the
“civilian” as an object of concern.7 The meaning of security underwent a
perceptible change, expanding from an emphasis on state security to include
elements of human security. Reflective of this change, many states, regional
organizations, and international organizations redefined the military’s activ-
ities to include peacekeeping, civilian policing, political stabilization, and
even nation-building, and to consider the legitimacy of humanitarian inter-
vention. Although many security organizations resisted this expansion on the
grounds that it was outside – and would dilute – their core mandate, the
secular trend was toward a humanized multilateralism. The factors that led to
a humanized multilateralism also had a second-order effect on humanitarian
action. Certainly humanitarian organizations did not have to be convinced of
the importance of organizing their activities around the principle of human-
ity, but they did require a more permissive environment that would allow
them to expand into new areas that would enable them to protect populations
at risk. Once states and their regional organizations became more open to the
idea of humanitarian action, humanitarian organizations quickly discovered
that the constraints on their activities decreased and the opportunity struc-
ture increased. Although many humanitarian organizations worried that this
engagement with politics might injure humanitarian action, the secular trend
was toward a politicized humanitarianism.
Humanized multilateralism
A widely accepted definition of multilateralism is that it “coordinates behavior
among three or more states on the basis of generalized principles of conduct”
(Ruggie 1993b: 14). This definition points us to the formal organizational
structure and its organizing principles. However, I am less concerned with
the formal structure than I am with the purpose. Many of the multilateral
security institutions that were established during the Cold War years were
organized around interstate security. Yet with the end of the Cold War
there was an important shift in the purpose of many multilateral arrange-
ments as they broadened their definition of what counts as a threat to inter-
national peace and security and incorporated the civilian as an object of
concern.
Various factors produced the general trend toward the inclusion of
humanitarian emergencies and human rights into the meaning and practice
of international security. Geopolitical shifts associated with the end of the
Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union increased the demand for
humanitarian action in several ways (de Waal 1997: 133–4). There appeared
to be more humanitarian crises than ever before.8 Although there is consider-
able debate regarding whether, in fact, there were more crises or whether
Great Powers were now willing to recognize populations at risk because their
140 Michael Barnett
policies were no longer the immediate cause, the emergencies now were on the
international agenda (Slim 2004b: 155–6).
As states paid more attention to them, they linked these populations at risk
to an expanding discourse of security. One reason for their visibility was
because they now were viewed as a security issue. During the Cold War, the
UNSC defined threats to peace and security as disputes between states that
might (or had) become militarized, conflicts involving the Great Powers, and
general threats to global stability (White 1993: 34–8; Howard 1993: 69–70).
After the Cold War, and in reaction to the growing perception that domestic
conflict and civil wars were leaving hundreds of thousands of populations at
risk, creating mass flight, and destabilizing entire regions, the UNSC author-
ized interventions on the grounds that they challenged regional and inter-
national security. Operation Provide Comfort, the international intervention
to help the Kurdish refugees, reflected not simply a concern with the non-
traditional security threats but a recognition also that they could destabilize
the more traditional kind. As an unfortunate and tragic consequence of the
Gulf War, the Iraqi Kurdish population was fleeing Saddam Hussein’s mili-
tary to the Turkish border, but Turkish authorities, in violation of inter-
national refugee law, refused to give them temporary refuge. In response, the
UNSC established safe havens for the Kurdish refugees and justified this act
in the name of international peace and security. Subsequent events reinforced
the broadening of international security to include humanitarian dimensions.
Somalia barely qualified as an international threat to peace and security but
shocked the conscience of the international community. Responding to both
the post-Cold War humanitarian emergencies and the growing prominence
of the UNSC in this domain, the General Assembly passed a watershed
resolution that coronated the UN as the new co-ordinating body for governing
the response to humanitarian action.9
Relatedly, states warmed to the idea of humanitarian action as they began
to see it as an important instrument of their strategic and foreign policy
goals. Immediate evidence of their support was their growing financial gener-
osity (see below). Even more impressive was their growing willingness to
support operations whose stated function was to protect civilians at risk, and
even to consider the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. Although it
remains a matter of fierce legal and political debate whether and when human
rights should be a factor in determining the legitimacy of intervention, as an
empirical matter the international community became increasingly willing to
avail themselves of international bodies to intervene in internal conflicts
when there are threats to human rights.10
States also discovered that humanitarian action was functional for avoid-
ing more costly interventions. For instance, the major powers authorized
UNHCR to deliver humanitarian relief in Bosnia in part because they wanted
to relieve the growing pressure for military intervention. Sometimes states
will label their activities humanitarian because they want to do something;
sometimes it is because they do not. Regardless of whether or not states had
the right motives, they were including humanitarianism and human rights in
the international peace and security discourse.11
The expansion of the meaning and object of security imprinted the post-
Cold War reform of various security institutions. As already suggested, the
UN was one of the first international organizations to reform its understand-
ing of security. Reflective and causative of the changes that occurred at the
Security Council, the Secretariat pushed for reform. UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s The Agenda for Peace was an ambitious, forward-
looking document that represented a meditation on the changing nature of
security and called for member states to recognize the salience of non-
traditional security threats and to consider different forms of violence that
directly harm the individual. The UN was doing more than talking; it was
also acting. Between 1989 and 1994 the UNSC authorized 26 operations
across the globe, doubling in five years the number of operations authorized
by the council in the previous forty, and expanding the number of soldiers
seven-fold. While some of these post-1989 operations resembled the “clas-
sical” prototype, most now were situated in much more unstable environ-
ments, where a ceasefire was barely in place, if at all, where government
institutions were frayed and in need of repair, where there were rag-tag armies
that were not parties to the agreement, and where the UN was charged with
multidimensional and complex tasks that were designed to repair deeply-
divided societies, divided in part because of their legacy of violence against
civilians.
A humanized multilateralism also was evident in the reform of regional
security institutions, including NATO. With the demise of the Cold War and
the Soviet Union, NATO’s very raison d’être appeared to vanish. Moreover,
its conceptual and operational definition of security seemed inappropriate
given the rise of non-traditional security threats and the growing emphasis on
the need to contain and prevent domestic instability. In response to charges
that it was built for bygone times and inappropriate for the new security
challenges, NATO underwent a major debate regarding how to reorganize
itself for the new security environment. One important result was its 1999
Strategic Concept, which emphasized: a broad concept of security that rec-
ognized the presence of non-traditional security threats and how domestic
instability can produce regional instability; and a willingness to confront
humanitarian emergencies within its geographical zone and near abroad for
principled and strategic reasons.12 In reference to this proposed “deepening”
of NATO, US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said that if NATO is
to remain relevant it must take into account the “more diversified threats . . .
Disputes over ethnicity, religion or territory, can, as we’ve already seen trigger
armed conflict, which in turn can generate cross-border political instability,
refugee flows and humanitarian crises that endanger European security”
(Simma 1999: 14). In general, post-Cold War developments, including new
ideas about security and the idea of protecting the civilian, left its mark on
various security organizations and created a humanized multilateralism.
142 Michael Barnett
Politicized humanitarianism
Four global processes helped to propel the expansion and politicization of
the purpose of humanitarianism.13 One was the already discussed changes in
meaning and practice of international security, which obviously increased the
centrality and importance of humanitarian action. A related development
was the emergence of the category of “complex humanitarian emergencies.” A
complex humanitarian emergency is a “conflict-related humanitarian disaster
involving a high degree of breakdown and social dislocation and, reflecting
this condition, requiring a system-wide aid response from the international
community” (Duffield, M. 2001: 12).14 These emergencies are characterized by
a combustible mixture of state failure, refugee flight, militias, warrior refu-
gees, and populations at risk from violence, disease, and hunger, and they
seem to be proliferating across the world. These emergencies have had several
effects. They created a demand for new sorts of interventions and conflict
management tools. Relief agencies were attempting to distribute food, water,
and medicine in war zones, frequently being forced to bargain with militias,
warlords, and hoodlums for access to populations in need. In situations of
extreme violence and lawlessness the relief agencies frequently lobbied for-
eign governments and the UN to consider authorizing a protection force that
could double as bodyguard and relief distributor. These emergencies also
attracted a range of NGOs to become more involved in the same space (Kelly
1998: 174–5). Relief agencies that were delivering emergency assistance,
human rights organizations aspiring to protect human rights and create a rule
of law, and development organizations keen to sponsor sustainable growth
began to interact and to take responsibility for the same populations. The
growing interaction between different fields in turn encouraged them to
articulate a relief–rights–development linkage within a humanitarian dis-
course that became tied to the construction of modern, legitimate, democratic
states (Duffield, M. 2001). As various international actors began to think
about the causes of and solutions to these humanitarian emergencies, they
situated their arguments under a humanitarian rubric that became tied to a
wider range of practices and goals.
A second factor was a change in the normative and legal environment,
which created new opportunities for humanitarian action that coaxed
humanitarianism into the political world. There was a shift from negative to
positive sovereignty (Jackson 1990). Whereas once state sovereignty was
sacrosanct, now it was conditional on states honoring a “responsibility to
protect” their societies (International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty 2001) Whereas once their legitimacy appeared to have nearly
divine origins, now it was dependent on them possessing certain character-
istics, such as the rule of law, markets, and democratic principles. These
developments created a normative space for external intervention and
encouraged a growing range of actors to expand their assistance activities; in
some cases they were intended to provide immediate relief during conflict
situations, in others to eliminate the root causes of conflict and create legit-
imate states. Regardless of the pretext, the new normative environment
greased the tracks for more wide-ranging interventions (Macrae 1999: 6–7).
There also was the related rise of an international human rights discourse.
Although I will soon discuss how the logics of relief and rights differ, for the
moment I want to highlight elements of overlap: they place front and center
the human citizen and humanity; they contain the language of empowerment
as they attempt to help the victims, the weak, and the powerless; and they
favor a human-centered approach that rejects power (Chandler 2002: ch. 1).
The fast-growing human rights agenda pulled humanitarianism from the
margins toward the center of the international policy agenda, and many relief
agencies, increasingly adopting the language of rights, were glad to ride its
coat-tails (Chandler 2002: 21). Bosnia mixed humanitarian action and human
rights in complicated but inextricable ways, as there was a general desire for
humanitarian action to provide relief, but also the fear that such relief was
unintentionally prolonging the suffering because it allowed Western states an
exit. Then Rwanda caused “the great majority of humanitarian agencies [to]
welcome the international community’s recent introduction of the use of
force more explicitly as a key part of international policy to protect human
rights” (Slim 2002c: 2). Human rights ideas shaped the thinking of many
humanitarian organizations, and many human rights organizations began
to champion coercive humanitarianism as the best way to protect civilian
populations and enforce human rights norms.
A fourth development was a growing cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism
concerns the central idea that each person is of equal moral worth and a
subject of moral concern, and that in the “justification of choices one’s
choices one must take the prospects of everyone affected equally into
account” (Beitz 1994: 124).15 Cosmopolitanism underpins humanitarianism.
The very principle of impartiality presumes that all those at risk, regardless
of their identity, deserve equal attention and consideration. The desire to help
those who are suffering regardless of place means that borders do not define
the limits of obligations. This commitment to cosmopolitanism and the very
desire to reduce suffering, however, creates a tension within humanitarianism
(Calhoun 2004). One branch restricts it to the provision of assistance to
victims of conflict; this is the version that emerged in the mid-nineteenth
century and is most closely associated with the International Committee of
the Red Cross. Another branch extends assistance to all those at risk and
imagines eliminating the conditions that are hypothesized to render popula-
tions vulnerable. As one aid worker wrote, “in terms of the destruction of
human life, what difference is there between the wartime bombing of a civil-
ian population and the distribution of ineffective medicines during a pan-
demic that is killing millions of people?” (Bradol 2004: 9). If individuals are
at risk because of authoritarian and repressive policies, then humanitarian
organizations must be prepared to fight for human rights and democratic
reforms. If individuals are at risk because of poverty and deprivation, then
144 Michael Barnett
humanitarian organizations must be prepared to promote development. If
regional and domestic conflicts are the source of violence against individuals,
then humanitarian organizations must try their hand at conflict resolution
and attempt to eliminate the underlying causes of conflict.
These developments expanded the meaning and practice of humanitarian-
ism. Table 6.1 captures the significance of this shift and the principled claims
that account for the divisions between different branches of humanitarian-
ism. There is widespread agreement that humanitarian action has drift from
a “classical” to a “solidarist” position, best represented by the displacement of
traditional relief-based agenda with a rights-based agenda. However, this
trend has been produced not only by human rights organizations but also by
development organizations, which frequently come from a solidarity tradition
and are concerned with long-term structural change.
This trend in humanitarianism has generated serious rifts within the sector,
particularly pronounced in the clash between relief and rights organizations.
Specifically, the logics of relief and rights differ in critical respects. The relief
community will nearly always privilege survival over freedom, while the rights
community is willing, at times, to use relief as an instrument of rights. Rights-
orientated agencies are willing to make relief conditional on the observance
of human rights and thus weaken the very notion of universality, a move many
relief agencies view as nearly incomprehensible.16 Relief agencies hold that
neutrality and impartiality are essential for giving them access to populations,
while many others in the sector believe that neutrality is a false guide in
situations such as crimes against humanity, and that state involvement is
a necessary solution.17 In short, in many situations of conflict and threats
to civilians, relief organizations will think long and hard before loosening
their hold on long-standing principles, while solidarists and rights-based
organizations will do so with ease.
Table 6.1 Humanitarianism: classical and solidarist
Classicists Minimalists Maximalists Solidarists
Engagement Eschew political Advocate

with political confrontations controversial
authorities public policy
Neutrality Avoid taking sides Selectively take
sides
Impartiality Deliver aid using Skew balance of
proportionality resource
and non- allocation
discrimination
Consent Pursue as sine qua Over-ride
non sovereignty as
necessary
Source: Weiss (1999: 4)

In general, the 1990s witnessed the emergence of a humanized multilateral-
ism and a politicized humanitarianism. The meaning of security expanded,
altering the purpose and practices of various multilateral security organiza-
tions. The meaning of humanitarianism expanded, altering the purpose and
practices of any humanitarian organizations. These changes were not without
controversy for either multilateral security organizations or humanitarian
organizations. Many security organizations resisted this expansion into
humanitarian issues on the grounds that it would potentially dilute their core
competencies. So, too, did many humanitarian organizations resist this expan-
sion into politics on the grounds that it would reduce their autonomy and
potentially corrupt their soul. Although politics might not be the black widow
portrayed by some critics, the growing connections between humanitarian
organizations and their environment did leave their mark.
The external control of humanitarianism

The politicization and expansion of humanitarianism was made possible by
environmental opportunities, but these developments also meant that environ-
mental attributes gained control over humanitarianism. Environmental con-
trol had two dimensions. Prominent actors were now in a greater position to
control what humanitarian actors do, features captured by principal–agent
models. Now that states were taking a greater interest in humanitarian action,
they had a desire to ensure that humanitarian organizations acted as their
agents. The environment not only controlled what humanitarian actors do,
but also what they are, features captured by sociological institutionalism. An
environment in which states were taking a greater interest in humanitarian
affairs, in which human rights were increasingly an important legitimation
principle, slowly but consequently shaped the commitments of humanitarian
organizations. Yet humanitarian organizations moved in this direction not
only because of external forces, but also because of their attempt to better
protect populations at risk. This daunting challenge is made nearly impos-
sible in situations of conflict. In their desire to better accomplish their man-
date and try and remove the root causes that leave populations vulnerable,
humanitarian organizations will feel drawn to expand if they represent poten-
tial solutions to the tension between their broad aspirational mandates and
their narrow capacities.
Principal–agent models
Principal–agent approaches examine why principals delegate various tasks to
agents, the conditions under which such delegation is likely to happen, and
the control mechanisms that principals might develop to minimize agency
loss.18 Importantly, principal–agent models recognize that all agents have
some autonomy. Indeed, this can be by design. If one reason why principals
such as states establish agents such as international organizations is to benefit
146 Michael Barnett
from their expertise, then it makes good sense to give them the discretion to
adapt their policies in response to new information, challenges, and circum-
stances. The problem, though, is that agents can use their discretion either to
venture into areas that are unrelated to their mandate (shirk) or to undermine
agent interests (slack). If the agent bumps up against or crosses the line, then
the expectation is that the principal will sanction the agent or rewrite the
contract.
Principal–agent approaches capture why states have imposed more control
mechanisms on humanitarian organizations since the early 1990s. Prior to
the 1990s states funded NGOs with almost no questions asked. They were a
minor part of the budget, governments viewed them as more flexible and
more efficient relative to international organizations, and they had a near
monopoly on providing front-line relief. Beginning in the 1990s, however,
states began introducing various control mechanisms. Humanitarian organ-
izations were now consuming more of the foreign aid budget and states
wanted to ensure that they were getting their money’s worth. States increas-
ingly saw humanitarian organizations as carrying out their foreign policy
objectives. Moreover, the trust between donors and humanitarian organiza-
tions began to erode (Minear and Smilie 2004: ch. 9). Humanitarian organ-
izations were now in the spotlight, and their foibles and failures began to
attract as much publicity as their heroics. For these and other reasons, states
wanted to assert more control over humanitarian organizations.
Four control mechanisms deserve attention because they had a significant
impact on the discretion available to humanitarian organizations. First, and
perhaps most important, was the bilateralization of aid and the earmarking
of funds. Multilateral aid is technically defined as aid that is given to multi-
lateral organizations and is not earmarked; these organizations, therefore,
have complete discretion over how the money is spent. Bilateral aid can mean
the state dictates either to the multilateral organization how the money is
spent or gives the money to a non-multilateral organization such as an NGO.
Earmarking is when the donor dictates where and how the assistance will be
used, frequently identifying regions, countries, operations, or even projects;
this is especially useful if governments have geopolitical interests or pet pro-
jects. Since the 1980s there has been a dramatic shift away from multilateral
aid and toward bilateral aid and earmarking. In 1988 states directed roughly
45 per cent of humanitarian assistance to UN agencies in the form of multi-
lateral assistance. After 1994, however, the average dropped to 25 per cent,
and even lower in 1999 because of Kosovo (Randel and German 2002: 21).
States, moreover, are increasingly earmarking their aid, a trend partly
driven by growing concerns over the performance of UN agencies and multi-
lateral organizations. An important consequence of earmarking is that state
interests, rather than the humanitarian principle of relief based on need,
drive funding decisions. For instance, of the top 50 recipients of bilateral
assistance between 1996 and 1999, the states of the former Yugoslavia, Israel/
Palestine, and Iraq received 50 per cent of the available assistance (Randel
and German 2002: 27). In 2002 nearly half of all funds given by donor
governments to the UN’s 25 appeals for assistance went to Afghanistan
(Minear and Smilie 2004: 145). If funding decisions were based solely on
need, then places like Sudan, Congo, northern Uganda, and Angola would
leapfrog toward the top of the list rather than remain neglected at the
bottom. In general, while there was more aid than ever before, it is controlled
by fewer donors who are more inclined to impose conditions and direct
aid toward their priorities. It is now a several-tiered system, with the least
fortunate getting the least attention.19
States also began applying “new public management” principles to the
humanitarian sector. These principles originated with the neo-liberal ortho-
doxy of the 1980s. One of neoliberalism’s goals was to reduce the state’s role
in the delivery of public services and, instead, rely on commercial and volun-
tary organizations that were viewed as more efficient. Because government
agencies justified the shift from the public to the private and voluntary sectors
on the grounds that the latter were more efficient, they introduced monitoring
mechanisms to reduce the possibility of either slack or shirking (Macrae et al.
2002: 18–21). Humanitarian organizations largely escaped this public man-
agement ideology before the 1990s. Because humanitarian assistance was a
minor part of the foreign aid budget, states did not view humanitarianism as
central to their foreign policy goals, and states trusted that humanitarian
agencies were efficient and effective, so there was little reason to absorb the
monitoring costs. However, once humanitarian funding increased, humani-
tarianism became more central to security goals, and states began to question
the effectiveness of humanitarian organizations, they were willing to spend
money on monitoring (de Waal 1997: 78–9).
A third development was the growing interest by states in seeing for them-
selves what was occurring in the field. Toward that end, they began sending
representatives directly into the field to provide first-hand accounts of assist-
ance activities, and began developing the capacity for independent needs
assessments and strategic analyses. An immediate consequence was that
humanitarian organizations no longer benefited from having privileged and
highly authoritative information. Said otherwise, whereas once humanitarian
organizations possessed private information and were the experts because of
their first-hand knowledge and practical experience, the growing presence
of state officials meant that humanitarian organizations lost that monopoly
position, their informational advantages, and their discretion.
Fourth, as states and regional organizations became more involved in
war zones and delivering relief to populations in need, they became more
interested in co-ordinating the actions of humanitarian organizations. Co-
ordination can appear to be a technical exercise whose sole function is to
improve the division of labor, increase specialization, and heighten efficien-
cies. Yet this co-ordination, like all governance activities, is a highly political
exercise that is defined by power (Minear 2002: ch. 2). The power behind co-
ordination has not been lost on humanitarian organizations, especially when
148 Michael Barnett
the donors are either parties to the conflict or have a vested interest in the
outcome (Macrae et al. 2002: ch. 3).
The growing interest and involvement by states in humanitarian action had
the consequence of giving them greater control over the behavior of humani-
tarian organizations. Some of these control mechanisms operated through
subtle and indirect means. After all, when states earmark they are not always
intentionally attempting to redirect the behavior, that is, the exercise of power
in its most visible and fundamental form, but rather acting in ways that give
incentives for aid agencies to shift their activities. States are not always subtle,
though, and sometimes they can use control mechanisms to compel agencies
to change their behavior or suffer the consequences. Western states have
flexed their political and financial muscle to compel humanitarian organiza-
tions to act in ways that are consistent with state interests. In Afghanistan
and Iraq, the United States unveiled these threats and communicated to
NGOs that they expected humanitarian organizations to perform in ways
that would help the United States with its hearts and minds campaigns and
sell the war back home. One NGO official captured the US’s message in the
following terms: “play the tune or they’ll take you out of the band” (quoted
in Minear and Smilie 2004: 143).
These control mechanisms were doing more than simply reducing the
autonomy available to humanitarian organizations – they also were poten-
tially undermining the existing principles of humanitarian action. Certainly
any organization, humanitarian or otherwise, will object to a reduction in its
autonomy and discretion, but also at stake were their principles. This possi-
bility is underscored by the very nature of principal–agent contract. States see
themselves as principals that are providing a temporary transfer of authority
to their agents, humanitarian organizations. Yet humanitarian organizations
do not see themselves as agents of states or operating with delegated author-
ity; instead they see themselves as agents of humanity and operating with
moral authority. The very association with states and its presumption of
delegated authority, then, potentially undermined the moral authority cher-
ished by most humanitarian organization. Moreover, humanitarian organiza-
tions fear that any sort of association with states might compromise their
independence, impartiality, and neutrality. Indeed, if states are funding
humanitarian organizations in order to further their foreign policy goals,
then humanitarian organizations are not unjustifiably paranoid. The very
move by states to try and monitor and regulate humanitarian organizations
almost, by definition, compromises these principles.
Sociological institutionalism
Organizations are embedded in an environment that can control, constrain,
and constitute their practices. Two, related, features of the external environ-
ment are critical. One concerns the broad normative environment. Socio-
logical institutionalism emphasizes the “socially constructed normative
worlds in which organizations exist and how the social rules, standards of
appropriateness, and models of legitimacy will constitute the organization”
(Orru et al. 1991: 361).20 The environment in which an organization is
embedded is defined by a culture that contains acceptable models, standards
of action, goals, and logics of appropriateness. Organizations are constituted
by, and will be compelled to adopt, this culture for a variety of reasons. In the
domestic context there are regulatory agencies, laws, professions, and broad
public opinion that will shape organizations and their activities (H. Alford
2000: 49; DiMaggio and Powell 1991). In the international context this
includes regulatory structures associated with international law and organiza-
tions, states demands, transnational actors and epistemic communities, and
international public opinion.21
The second is their resource dependence.22 Organizations depend on others
for the resources they require to do their work. The willingness of others to
fund their activities is contingent, in part, on their perceived legitimacy and
whether they are viewed as acting according to the community’s values. If
they are out of sync with their environment, then they are likely to have their
legitimacy questioned, which, in turn, will threaten their resource base. As
Scott and Meyer summarize, this normative environment contains the “rules
and requirements to which individual organizations must conform if they
are to receive support and legitimacy from the environment” (1993: 140).
Because organizations are rewarded for conforming to rules and legitimation
principles, and punished if they do not, they will tend to model themselves
after their environment.
The international normative environment and resource competition
encouraged humanitarian organizations to expand in new directions. The
growth of the international human rights discourse and the desire to “save
failed states” created incentives for existing organizations to legitimate their
activities along these lines. They were frequently rewarded by states for doing
so.23 For instance, by becoming the lead humanitarian agency and by framing
its activities as instrumental for the pursuit of international peace and secur-
ity, UNHCR was in a position not only to expand its responsibilities but also
to demonstrate its relevance to the very states who paid the bills (Loescher
2001). Development agencies that were suffering something of an ideological
crisis by the end of the 1980s found themselves relegitimated and rejuvenated
by the possibility of claiming that development was now part of humanitar-
ian action (Duffield, M. 2001). Although there was more money than ever
before for humanitarian action, there also were more organizations compet-
ing for these funds. This produced something of a “NGO scramble,” as various
agencies not only competed with each other for these funds but frequently
moved into new activities, outside their central areas of competence, in order
to go where the money was (Cooley and Ron 2002).
150 Michael Barnett
Organizational culture
Principal–agent analysis and sociological institutionalism highlight the
external drivers of control over humanitarian organizations, but there also can
be internal dynamics that lead humanitarian organizations to introduce
changes in their rules and activities that also can leave them more vulnerable to
external control. The organizational culture can be understood as “the solu-
tions that are produced by groups of people to meet specific problems they
face in common. These solutions become institutionalized, remembered and
passed on as the rules, rituals, and values of the group” (Vaughan 1996: 64).24
Although there are various features of this culture that might encourage
expansion into new areas, I want to highlight one in particular: how to work
out various tensions that existed between their moral commitments and their
organizational mandates in new circumstances.25 Organizations may feel the
need to expand in order to resolve the contradiction between their broad
aspirational goals and the more narrowly circumscribed rules that limit
organizational action (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: ch. 6). Humanitarian
organizations are empowered by moral or aspirational claims that can be
much broader than their specific mandates or capacities. After all, while they
act in the name of humanity and attempt to reduce suffering, their mandates
may not necessarily extend to cover all that are at risk. Over time, the former
can exert pressure on the latter: limited organizational structures make it
impossible to fulfill broad mandates, creating reasons for organizational
expansion into new areas. If the goal is to relieve suffering, then it is difficult
to feel gratified by providing temporary relief; instead, they will desire to
eliminate the very conditions that produce a demand for their services.26
Many humanitarian agencies more fully embraced a human rights agenda
and the need to work alongside states as they confronted violent situations
where they were unable to provide relief or protection. In Somalia various aid
organizations, most (in)famously Care International, intensively lobbied for
military intervention to protect the relief lines and aid workers. Rwanda made
clear that there were no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems,
and various aid agencies lobbied (unsuccessfully) for outside military inter-
vention, first to halt the genocide and then to evict the genocidaires from the
camps. Playing out alongside Rwanda was the continuing tragedy of Bosnia,
where many relief agencies became convinced that humanitarian action was
nothing more than a “fig leaf ” for anemic Western states who were unwilling to
apply the proper political and military muscle to stop the killing. Under such
circumstances, they increasingly feared that their primary contribution was to
help assist ethnic cleansing and make it easier for Western states and the UN
to avoid military action. One lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda was that there
was no substitute for military action during humanitarian emergencies, and
that humanitarian agencies could and should work with states under certain
conditions. Although aid agencies hotly debated the implications of the
militarization of relief and working alongside states, there was a general
willingness to suspend such concerns in the face of gross violations of human
rights.
In general, while both principal–agent and sociological institutionalist
approaches focus on the relationship between the environment and the organ-
ization, they highlight different mechanisms of control that have different
kinds of effects. Principal–agent analyses highlight how states politicize
humanitarianism to the extent that they establish more control mechanisms
that directly alter what organizations can do. Sociological institutionalism
recognizes this possibility but also adds how the environment might change
not only what humanitarian organizations do, but also what they are. Major
states, principal donors, and others that control resources can potentially use
this leverage to control the behavior and activities of humanitarian organiza-
tions. Yet humanitarian organizations might also act in ways that are consist-
ent with the external environment not only because of direct external pressure
but also because of changes in legitimation principles and resource depend-
ence. Not all change is externally-driven, though, for humanitarian organiza-
tions also contained cultural rules that encouraged them to expand outward
as a solution to pressing problems on the ground. There were many roads to a
politicized humanitarianism.
Kosovo
The events that led to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo can be briefly told.
Kosovo had been an autonomous province of the Yugoslavian Republic until
1990, when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic formally abolished its
autonomy.27 From here on out Belgrade steadily took control of Kosovo’s
political, economic, and cultural affairs, and the Albanian population, which
formed the vast majority of Kosovo’s population, began to see their lives
diminished. In response, Ibrahim Rugova, a well-known Albanian writer,
advised passive resistance and established the Democratic League of Kosovo;
soon thereafter, in September 1991 an underground plebiscite overwhelmingly
voted for independence.
The situation in Kosovo remained fairly stable during the Yugoslavian
wars, but once they ended it deteriorated. In response to continuing repres-
sion by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA), a previously unknown organization, carried out a series of
attacks in April 1996. International involvement increased beginning in late
1997 and in response to a deteriorating and violent situation. In March 1998
the UNSC adopted Resolution 1160, which called on the KLA and Belgrade
to negotiate a political settlement, imposed an arms embargo on both
parties, and warned of the “consideration of additional measures” in the
absence of progress toward a peaceful solution.28 In response to further vio-
lence, including numerous civilian deaths and the displacement of hundreds
of thousands of individuals, in April the Contact Group for the Former
Yugoslavia (minus Russia) agreed to impose new sanctions on Belgrade. In
152 Michael Barnett
June, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan informed NATO that there might
be need for a Security Council authorization for future military action in
Kosovo. In September the Security Council adopted Resolution 1199, declar-
ing that Kosovo was a “threat to peace and security in the region.”29
Although Russia permitted this resolution, it served notice that it would
oppose any authorization of military force by the Security Council.
Because of the Russian impediment, the Western states shifted their atten-
tion to NATO. Citing “humanitarian intervention” as the legal justification
for any possible use of force, on 9 October 1998 NATO Secretary-General
Javier Solana warned of future military action if Belgrade did not comply with
international demands.30 Apparently because of this warning, on 25 October
Belgrade agreed to a ceasefire that would be monitored by NATO from the
air and by unarmed OSCE peace monitors on the ground.31 The humanitarian
and security situation improved, but only temporarily; in the absence of a
political agreement, the KLA and the Serbian authorities continued to man-
euver for war. A particularly grisly incident in January 1999, in which 45
civilians were killed by Serbian troops in the city of Racak, led NATO to
threaten air strikes. Indeed, at this point NATO became more fully committed
to coercive diplomacy to force Belgrade to accept various principles regarding
Kosovo’s future status, including the restoration of its autonomy and inter-
national protection by NATO (Simma 1999: 8). Against the backdrop of the
threat of force if there was no negotiated settlement, beginning on 6 February
1999 the combatants and outside parties held a series of talks at Rambouillet,
France. The talks collapsed on 19 March.
Following through on its threat, NATO launched air strikes on 24 March,
its first active military encounter in its 50-year history. A statement by US
President Bill Clinton captured the reasons for this unprecedented action: to
prevent a humanitarian emergency, preserve European stability, and main-
tain NATO’s credibility.32 Given the Bosnian precedent and Serbian viola-
tions of the basic human rights of Kosovar Albanians, Western officials had
good reason to fear the worst either in the immediate or the medium-term
future. As Michael Riesman observed: “The facts were alarming. As always,
information was imperfect, but enough was available to indicate that bad
things were happening, things chillingly reminiscent of some earlier as well
as, lamentably, more recent events in this century; and it was reasonable to
assume (and, to some, irresponsibly naive not to assume) that, given the
people involved, worse things were in store” (Riesman 1999: 860). And, after
having been criticized for their anemic and half-hearted response to Bosnia
and Rwanda, their shadow cast a sense of shame (Roberts 1999). Con-
sequently, NATO proclaimed Kosovo to be a “humanitarian war” that would
protect the Kosovar Albanians.33 There also were security considerations. The
Bosnian conflict always threatened to expand beyond the Yugoslavian bor-
ders, and while the violence was quarantined the political and security effects
were not. Kosovo’s implosion might invite intervention by Greece, Italy,
Turkey, and other European countries. Finally, NATO was concerned about
its own future. As NATO was debating its response to Kosovo, many were
using the occasion of NATO’s upcoming fiftieth anniversary to debate
NATO’s relevance and future. Coming on the heels of reactions to the wars
of the former Yugoslavia that had led directly to the Strategic Concept, Kosovo
potentially gave NATO an opportunity to answer its critics and demonstrate
its continued relevance.
NATO’s bombing, however, seemed to trigger the very humanitarian
emergency it was designed to prevent. Milosevic responded to NATO’s air
campaign by unleashing the dogs of ethnic cleansing, causing hundreds of
thousands of Kosovar Albanians to flee. Within two weeks, a half-million
Kosovars had crossed into Albania and gathered at the Macedonian border,
producing the largest refugee flight in Europe since World War II. This
spectacle – mass displacement caused by a humanitarian war – was quickly
becoming a major public relations disaster for an organization that had ini-
tially seen this humanitarian war as a public relations savior. Although few
charged NATO with being directly responsible for this turn of events, it was
heavily criticized for its failure to anticipate Milosevic’s move. But NATO
was not the only organization overwhelmed by the flood of refugees. So, too,
were UNHCR, the lead humanitarian agency, and most relief agencies. In
any event, it was NATO that was accused of creating the situation and it was
NATO that was expected to do something about it. Given all of this, NATO
decided that relief was too important to be left to the relief agencies (Suhrke
et al. 2000; Orbinski 1999: 2). It began holding immediate discussions with
UNHCR.
On 3 April UNHCR High Commissioner Sadako Ogata requested NATO’s
assistance. This was an unprecedented and highly controversial decision
because never before had UNHCR approached a combatant for direct assist-
ance.34 Many at UNHCR objected on the grounds that whatever temporary
benefit UNHCR might receive from NATO’s assistance would be outweighed
by the cost to its independence and ability to work in the field.35 Ogata over-
ruled these objections on the grounds that UNHCR needed NATO to help
overcome Macedonia’s unwillingness to permit entry of refugees (the gov-
ernment feared destabilizing the ethnic balance) and logistical problems in
Albania (Morris, N. 1999; Ogata 2005: 144–8). NATO stepped in and acted as
a “surge protector” (Minear et al. 2000: 76).
NATO made a critical contribution at the outset of the refugee crisis, but
then transformed what was supposed to be a temporary and supporting role
into a permanent and commandeering role throughout the war and long after
its assistance ceased to be needed.36 The agreement between NATO and
UNHCR, as one evaluator observed, was a “Trojan Horse that allowed
NATO to effectively take over the humanitarian operation from the inside”
(Porter 2000: 5).37 NATO became a “full-service” relief agency, helping to
build camps, distribute relief, ensure security, co-ordinate the actions of relief
agencies – and set the agenda (Rieff 2002: 204). Its decision to outstay its
welcome and extend its activities into unauthorized areas had relatively little
154 Michael Barnett
to do with the needs of the refugees and everything to do with NATO’s need
to maintain support for the air campaign (Porter 2000: 5). By continuing to
play a co-ordinating role, NATO was able to cast its actions as humanitarian
and thus continue to legitimate the war. For instance, the leaders of AFOR,
NATO’s Albanian force that was dedicated to relief, commanded that
“all activities undertaken by AFOR should contribute to the enhancement
of NATO’s public image and the undermining of critics of the NATO air
campaign.”38
Although most agencies resented the reduction in autonomy, the surprise
was that there was little outrage or outright rebellion. After all, the same
agencies that had strenuously guarded their humanitarian space – their
independence, impartiality, and neutrality – in places like the Congo and
Sudan were now working alongside, getting assistance, from, and being
directed by a combatant – and doing so with relative ease (Vaux 2001: 16–67;
Roggo 2000; Porter 2000; Apthorpe 2001: 25). MSF was one of the few
organizations that refused to participate on the grounds that doing so violated
basic principles of humanitarian action and placed refugees at risk (Roggo
2000). In general, while some NGOs attempted to distinguish themselves
from governments, “most were happy to go along with these arrangements”
(Porter 2000: 5).39
What explains this development? Certainly some relief workers and organ-
izations believed that they had little choice. MSF’s financial independence
might allow it to walk away, but many agencies did not believe they had the
luxury because of their dependence on Western governments for funding. To
overtly criticize NATO’s heavy-handed presence in the humanitarian oper-
ation or to refuse to work in camps run by their own governments would have
run against their short- and long-term interests (Porter 2000: 5). However, it
was not only that protest was futile or highly discouraged. Many agencies
were happy to go along because they were being rewarded handsomely by
Western states that were showering funds on the relief effort. And, Kosovo
was not some forgotten emergency in the middle of Africa; instead, it was a
heavily-covered crisis in Europe. Therefore, it provided a spotlight for many
agencies to demonstrate to the world and their donors what they could do. In
general, their material interests tilted toward compliance and away from
resistance.
Yet their willingness to ally themselves with NATO owed to more than the
correspondence between their material interests and NATO’s political inter-
ests. It also owed to their perception that they were on the same side. Human
rights organizations and relief agencies that had integrated a rights discourse
into their operations were more open to the idea of coercive humanitarian-
ism. And, like NATO, many aid agencies read Kosovo with Bosnia-colored
glasses.40 In the months leading up to the war, many agencies had continuously
reminded Western powers of what their impotence had wrought in Bosnia
and how the end game required the threat and use of military force, and then
directed the West to apply these lessons learned to Kosovo. Interaction, the
association of American NGOs, wrote to the US National Security Council
as early as June 1998 to encourage a military intervention to protect Kosovar
Albanians (Minear et al. 2000: 63). As the violence continued with no polit-
ical settlement in sight, more agencies made more urgent appeals for a more
forceful response. Accordingly, once the diplomatic talks collapsed and the
bombing began, they saw themselves as allied with NATO and part of a
humanitarian operation designed to protect civilians.41
NATO’s commandeering of the relief effort, the alliance between aid agen-
cies and NATO, and the general politicization of humanitarianism had vari-
ous consequences for the provision of relief and protection of civilians. To
begin, it contributed to a bilateralization of the relief effort. Once NATO
took charge of the relief effort, it quickly delegated different zones to differ-
ent governments and their militaries. This had several implications. Now that
NATO was a humanitarian actor, it had less need for multilateral humanitar-
ian organization such as UNHCR, even though that was still formally the
lead agency. NATO and other troop-contributing countries funded directly
their “national” camps and their national NGOs to work in their camps
(Morris, N. 1999: 19; Porter 1999: 22; Houghton and Robertson, 2001; Minear
et al. 2000: 34–45). Although NATO justified this move on the grounds that it
enhanced the efficiency of the relief effort, it also was consistent with their
desire to control the relief effort and get credit (Roggo 2000: 3; Porter 1999:
19, 21). As one aid worker reflected, “NGOs from particular countries were
often selected to work in particular camps where “their” army was in control –
not necessarily because that NGO was the most competent.” And, while
NGOs were flush with funds, UNHCR was enduring a well-publicized
shortfall (Porter 1999: 21).
More problematic, the bilateralization of relief by NATO did not necessar-
ily benefit the refugees. Notwithstanding NATO’s boast that it was more
efficient that NGOs, its lack of experience showed as it made various mis-
takes, including choosing sites that had been previously rejected by NGOs
because of their unsuitability (Porter 1999: 21). Bilateralism also led to vary-
ing standards, inequalities across camps, the failure of specific militaries to
meet the basic needs of the populations, and the attempt by beneficiaries
to play one national authority off against another in order to get the best aid
package (Ogata 2005: 149–50).42
Now that humanitarian agencies and NATO were on the same side, many
agencies felt the need to self-censor their views regarding its conduct of the
war. They had lobbied NATO to use force, if needed, and thus implicitly or
explicitly viewed the start of hostilities as an unfortunate but necessary devel-
opment. Consequently, once the war began they did not feel as if they could
protest when NATO’s wartime conduct potentially increased civilian casual-
ties or violated international humanitarian law (Wiles 2001: 12).43 NATO’s
decision to avoid ground troops and to fight the war from the air made
it easier for Milosevic to execute ethnic cleansing; that is, how NATO fought
this war in the name of protection actually led to a protection crisis.
156 Michael Barnett
Although Oxfam and other such organizations were aware that the onset of
war would hinder civilian protection, Oxfam muted its concerns in order not
to distract from the case for force. Accordingly, when the consequences
unfolded, it felt itself poorly positioned to criticize NATO for delivering
exactly what it wanted (Vaux 2001: 20, 22). Aid agencies also were remark-
ably quiet when NATO was rumored to be using cluster bombs; Human
Rights Watch was one of the few rights-based agencies to vocally object to
this purported development. Although some agencies protested NATO’s
bombing of Belgrade and targeting of non-military facilities, again, the deci-
bel level was noticeably low. Oxfam, for one, did not vocalize its concerns
because it wanted to avoid confronting Western governments at a critical
moment during the war (Vaux 2001: 23).
This politicized humanitarianism also shattered the sacrosanct principle
of impartiality (Porter 2000: 4). The readiness of aid agencies to so quickly
suspend their principles raised troubling issues regarding how primordial this
principle truly is. Indeed, it revealed the extent to which these principles
rested on a functionalist and interest-based logic. Relief agencies developed
and defended these principles because they facilitated their access to popula-
tions at risk, gave them a measure of security and operational freedom,
enhanced their legitimacy and funding, and enabled them to work virtually
anywhere in the world (Leader 2000: 2). Yet in Kosovo impartiality served
no immediate purpose because these goals were already assured. Indeed, in
Kosovo the traditional incentives for impartiality reversed course. “There
were neither security concerns nor difficulties negotiating access to the refu-
gee populations with parties to the conflict. There were no donors insisting
on strategies to minimize the incorporation of aid into the dynamics of the
conflict. On the contrary, working in the camps actually required agencies to
set aside impartiality. That they were prepared to do so with such dispatch
creates the strong suspicion that the value of humanitarian principles for
many agencies is a means more than an end” (Stockton 1998).
The willingness to forgo impartiality, however, was not without costs. From
Serbia’s perspective, NATO’s humanitarian and military activities were one
and the same (Curtis 2001: 10). Indeed, because NATO had militarized the
camps, they became a legitimate target in Serbia’s eyes. And, because relief
agencies were allied with NATO, they also could be treated as a combatant
(Krahenbuhl 2000: 4). There also was relatively little attention to the humani-
tarian situation in Serbia. Serbia had been hosting a very large refugee com-
munity, many of whom had fled the Croatian province of Krajina in the last
act of ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian war. It then experienced civilian casu-
alties as a result of the NATO bombing. In response to these perceived
humanitarian needs, in May a UN Inter-Agency Needs Assessment Mission
called for more assistance to Serbia, but none came. Although impartiality-
guided aid agencies should have shown up on both sides of the border and
attempted to treat all those in need according to the same allocation prin-
ciples, “political considerations seem to have given rise both to humanitarian
excesses on one side of the conflict, and an equally dramatic shortfall on the
other” (Porter 2000: 6).44
Parenthetically, impartiality also means that relief is given based on need
and not based on political, geographic, religious, ethnic, or other consider-
ations. Using these criteria, the response toward Kosovo was hardly impartial.
Western states and organizations demonstrated a nearly unprecedented gen-
erosity. The camps, by refugee standards, were lavish and subsequently became
part of humanitarian mythology. Hot showers, video rooms, good lighting,
state-of-the-art medical facilities. Such generosity, though, only highlighted
the West’s lack of concern for other areas in greater need. In Kosovo there
was $207 for every person in need, in Sierra Leone $16 and in Congo $8. The
European Community Humanitarian Office spent more money on Kosovo
than the rest of world combined (Wiles 2001: 13). The US Army’s expend-
itures at Camp Hope, Albania, which housed only 3,000 people for two
months, equaled the UN’s entire outlay for Angola. Although such inequities
might have been tolerated had they been applied efficiently and where neces-
sary to cover the basic needs of the refugees, there was gross duplication of
services and inefficiencies.45
Kosovo represented a stark moment when a humanized multilateralism
met a politicized humanitarianism. For a mixture of motives, NATO launched
a humanitarian war, a military intervention that was designed to protect
human rights. When that humanitarian war contributed to a humanitarian
emergency, it quickly took control of the relief effort in order to maintain
public support for the war. Most aid agencies accepted this development as
the price of doing business with an organization that was acting in a way that
was consistent with their principles and their interests. They were now firmly
committed to human rights and willing to accept that in some cases it would
be necessary to work with states. Yet the willingness to do so was not without
costs to their long-standing principles and their ability to work effectively
for populations in need. As many evaluations concluded, the problems
confronted by aid agencies in Kosovo were only partly technical. They were
profoundly political.
Conclusions
Those in the humanitarian sector continue to debate Kosovo and other
episodes in humanized multilateralism because these events force them to re-
examine what are the meanings and practices of humanitarianism. This
debate raises three issues that deserve greater attention: how the humanitar-
ian actors have been changed by the world they are attempting to change;
the need to supplement organizational theory with interpretive analysis in
order to understand the creation, fixing, and contestation of norms; and the
relationship between humanitarian and world order.
Humanitarianism has been shaped and reshaped by the world in which it is
embedded. So far, what little attention international relations scholars have
158 Michael Barnett
given to principled actors has focused on how they have changed the nature
of world politics (Risse et al. 1999; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Finnemore and
Sikkink 1998). Yet we need to reverse the causal arrow and also examine how
the world has changed these principled actors. Consider modern humanitari-
anism’s very origins. By the mid-nineteenth century changes in military tech-
nology were making war more brutal, there was no tradition of medical relief,
and the emerging profession of war reporting was transmitting gruesome
pictures and accounts of soldiers left to languish and die on the battlefield.
Publics were beginning to rebel at these sights and to express pacifist senti-
ments. In response, state and military elites coopted Henry Dunant’s plat-
form, removed its more radical proposals, accepted new rules governing how
to tend to wounded soldiers on the battlefield, and thus demonstrated to their
publics their commitment to humanize war. The International Committee of
the Red Cross developed its principles in part to differentiate it from the
world of politics and thus to help it gain access to populations in need. But,
while its principal contribution was to rescue soldiers on the battlefield, it also
helped to legitimate modern war. Although humanitarianism has continued
to develop over the decades, such developments have been profoundly influ-
enced, defined, and limited by global forces. I employed principal–agent and
sociological institutionalist analysis to better understand how these environ-
mental forces have shaped what humanitarian organizations do and what
they are. To that extent, they do provide some of the theoretical tools neces-
sary for conceptualizing why and how different elements of the international
environment contain different control mechanisms that have had different
kinds of effects on these actors.
Yet organizational and institutionalist theory devoid of interpretive analy-
sis might very well overlook exactly how and why these features of the
international environment might prove so controversial to humanitarian
organizations. These should be humanitarianism’s golden years. It has never
been better funded, better supported, or more acclaimed. Such impressions
are reinforced by international relations theory. For neo-liberal institution-
alists, humanitarianism’s causal importance is evident because states are
using humanitarian norms to guide their behavior, and are now co-ordinating
their humanitarian activities in and through an impressive number of inter-
national and regional institutions (Keohane and Martin 1995). The very
development of a humanized multilateralism might very well be cause of
celebration, not despair, for humanitarian organizations. As I have already
suggested, constructivists, for their part, are so focused on how principled
actors can change the world that they have neglected that they are not of like
mind regarding what are those principles.
Yet what the theorists label as normative convergence or consensus might
be labeled by the participants as a “crisis.” In order to understand this contest-
ation over norms, the debate over what is humanitarian and what are its
practices, requires recapturing how the participants themselves give meaning
to their actions and debate with others over what public meanings should be
ascribed to their actions and events. Kosovo proved so controversial in part
because it challenged humanitarian organizations to re-examine and re-
imagine what are their constitutive norms – that is, what is humanitarian
action. In general, as international relations scholars continue to investigate
the role of NGOs and principled actors in world politics, they need to situate
those organizations within the broader environment, consider how that
environment has shaped the very principles that define principle action, and
how such principles are not simply derivative of international forces but
rather are a result of debate and contestation among actors who are attempt-
ing to adapt their interests and principles to new circumstances.
Kosovo raised troubling concerns regarding whether these adaptations have
erased what made humanitarianism distinctive and have altered humanitari-
anism’s role in global politics. The humanization of multilateralism and the
politicization of humanitarianism destabilized the differentiation principles
that once distinguished humanitarianism from other kinds of actors. Once
upon a time these roles were clearly differentiated. Humanitarian organiza-
tions provided impartial relief to victims of conflict and military organizations
were the ones that made necessary this impartial relief. Yet humanitarian
organizations now engage in broader projects that are clearly political and
turn to military organizations to defend human rights and to help deliver
relief.46 If so, then, states and their militaries also can be humanitarian actors.
Many within the humanitarian sector categorically dismiss this possibility on
the grounds that it is absurd that states, which are political, and militaries,
which use force, could be bona fide humanitarian actors. Yet as Hugo Slim
evocatively observes, humanitarianism is not owned by humanitarian agen-
cies, a position that would be “as disastrous as making humor the sole preserve
of clowns” (Slim 2002a: 4). As humanitarian agencies watch states, militaries,
and commercial firms deliver relief, and as humanitarian agencies increasingly
concern themselves with grander political projects and their organizational
interests, there emerge more questions regarding what, if anything, makes
humanitarian organizations a distinctive social kind. Although there are good
reasons to conclude that humanitarian organizations are still distinct because
of their motives, principles, and social purpose, the very nature of this debate
only highlights how much has changed.
The willingness of humanitarian agencies to engage with politics, working
with states and for grander political projects, also suggests a change in human-
itarianism’s function in the global order. Humanitarianism is now more firmly
part of politics. Certainly it always was part of politics to the extent that its
actions had political effects and relief workers saw themselves as standing
with the weak and against the mighty. Yet humanitarian agencies once saw
themselves as standing outside politics to the extent that their ambition was
to save lives at immediate risk and to keep states at bay – for the principal
reason that it might entangle them with political agendas and thus compro-
mise their goal of relief. No longer satisfied with saving individuals today
so they can be at risk again tomorrow, humanitarianism now aspires to
160 Michael Barnett
transform the structural conditions that make vulnerable populations.
Toward that end, aid agencies desire to spread development, democracy, and
human rights, and to join up with a peacebuilding agenda that aspires to
create stable, effective, and legitimate states. Humanitarianism is increasingly
an ism that has ambitions to transform the world. In this way, aid agencies
are carriers of liberal values as they help spin into existence a global liberal
order.47 Humanitarian organizations may or may not be part of a neo-liberal
agenda, and they may or may not resemble the missionaries of the nineteenth
century, but by their own admission they are now part of a global order that
they once used to resist.
Notes
1 C. Powell, “Remarks to the National Foreign Policy Conference for Leaders of
Nongovernmental Organizations”, Washington, DC, 26 October 2001.
2 In this way, humanitarianism has a logocentric quality, which Jacques Derrida
observes is in play whenever “one privileged term (logos) provides the orientation
for interpreting the meaning of the subordinate term.” For discussion of this
discursive and binary relationship, see Nyers (1999: 21); Cutts (1998: 3); Minear
(2002: 76).
3 This definition draws from Stockton (2004: 15).
4 The ICRC’s principles are largely the “industry standard,” though there are debates
about the prioritization of these principles, their operational meaning, and even
their relevance. For discussions, see Forsythe (2005); Terry (2002); Weiss (1999);
M. Duffield (2001); Minear (2002).
5 For various statements, see Rieff (2002); Minear (2002); Donini (2004); M. Duffield
(2001); Slim (2004a).
6 A fairly exhaustive list of these evaluations can be found at Humanitarian Policy
Network, “Evaluative studies of the international response to the Kosovo crisis”,
online at http://www.odihpn.org/report.asp?ID=1040.
7 For this claim, see Slim (2004). This is related to UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan’s (2000) call for a “people-centered” approach to security.
8 For an interesting discussion concerning the epistemology of “humanitarian
crisis,” see Stockton (2004).
9 See UN General Assembly Resolution 1991.
10 For the debate on humanitarian intervention, see Cassese (1999); Lang (2003);
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001); Holzgrefe
and Keohane (2004); Wheeler (2000); Slim (2002c).
11 See Franck (1999: 858) for a brief comment to this effect.
12 For the Strategic Concept, see http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99–065e.htm
online.
13 For this claim, see Slim (2004).
14 Also see Weiss (1999: 20).
15 Also see Linklater (1998: ch. 2).
16 For a succinct statement regarding the competing logics of relief and rights, see
Bouchet-Saulnier (2000). Also see Macrae and Leader (2000); Chandler (2002);
Minear (2002: ch. 3).
17 For discussions of differing attitudes toward military intervention, see Minear
(2002: 101–4, 115).
18 For various statements, see McCubbins and Sullivan (1987) and Bendor, Glazer,
and Hammond (2001). For applications to international relations, see Thatcher
and Stone Sweet (2002); Abbott and Snidal (1998: 3–32); Nielson and Tierney
(2003); Hawkins et al. (2005).
19 Also see Macrae et al. (2002).
20 Also see Scott (1987); Scott (1995); Scott and Meyer (1993); DiMaggio and Powell
(1991).
21 On organizational legitimacy, see Suchman (1995); also see Dobbin (1994: 126);
Scott (1987); Meyer and Rowan (1977).
22 The heart of the resource dependence approach is that “organizations survive to
the extent that they are effective. Their effectiveness derives from the management
of demands, particularly demands of interest groups upon which the organiza-
tions depend for resources and support. . . . There are a variety of ways of man-
aging demands, including the obvious one of giving in to them” (Pfeffer and
Salancik 2003: 2).
23 See Barnett (2005) for a discussion of variation in response among humanitarian
organizations.
24 For discussions of organizational and bureaucratic culture, see J. Martin (1992)
and Alvesson (1993).
25 On the scramble, see Cooley and Ron (2002).
26 Another factor potentially influencing this expansion is psychological, deriving
from the personal strain of relief work. Relief workers migrate from one night-
mare to another, comforted only by the fact that, at best, they provide temporary
relief. This sort of existence takes a very high emotional toll. Relief workers live in
a twilight of hopelessness, believing that their just acts cannot begin to change the
circumstances that give cause for their services. Wanting to believe that they are
helping to build a better world, they begin to treat human rights, conflict reso-
lution, and nation-building as extensions of humanitarianism (Rieff 2002).
27 The background is informed by Clark (2002); Daalder and O’Hanlan (2001);
Malcom (1999); Mertus (1999); and Judah (2002).
28 UNSC Resolution 1160, 31 March 1998.
29 UNSC Resolution 1199, 23 September 1998.
30 Annan apparently approved of this tactic. See Letter from Secretary-General
Solana to permanent representatives of North Atlantic Council, 9 October 1998.
Cited from Simma (1999: 7).
31 The UNSC essentially backed these agreements with its Resolution 1203 of
24 October 1998.
32 Statement by President Bill Clinton Confirming NATO Air Strikes on Serb Mili-
tary Targets, Federal News Service, 24 March 1999. See also Press Statement of
Javier Solana, Secretary-General of NATO, NATO Press release 040, 24 March
1999.
33 Many NATO members cited the humanitarian circumstances for providing legal
and moral justification for military action absent a UN Security Council author-
ization. See Simma (1999: 11–13) for some of these statements. In addition to
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s (1999) proclaimed “Doctrine of the International
Community”, Czech President Vaclav Havel (1999: 4, 6), also offered a defense of
NATO’s action in the name of humanitarian intervention: “It is fighting out of
concern for the fate of others. It is fighting because no decent person can stand by
and watch the systematic, state-directed murder of other people. It cannot tolerate
such a thing. It cannot fail to provide assistance if it is within its power to do so.”
34 UNHCR was unable to register refugees, the first step toward protecting their
rights, or to play the proper role of determining the priorities surrounding assist-
ance and protection.
35 The general observation is that the military can play three distinct roles in relief
operations: providing security so that relief workers can operate; providing logis-
tical capacity in order to move workers and supplies; and direct delivery of relief.
162 Michael Barnett
In Kosovo, NATO performed all three roles. Subsequent analyses focus on
whether there is a “division of labor” and who might best play what role at which
stage. See Minear (2002: ch. 6) for a general discussion and Minear et al. (2000) for
the case of Kosovo.
36 On NATO’s initial contribution, see Krahenbuhl (2000: 4); P. Morris (1999: 19).
37 Ogata (2005: 149) negatively reflects on the experience as she writes: “NATO had
decided to engage in humanitarian assistance even before the NATO-UNHCR
agreement of April 3 and had gone beyond the defined areas of cooperation”.
38 Quoted from Minear et al. (2000: 64). They also note that NATO’s working defin-
ition of CIMIC [civilian military co-ordination] as it applies to Kosovo and else-
where, is “A military operation, the primary intention and effect of which is to
support a civilian authority, population, international or non-governmental
organization, the effect of which to assist in the pursuit of a military objective.”
39 Also see Vaux (2001: 27–8).
40 The claim that agencies somehow lost their impartiality in this instance overlooks
the simple fact that it has always been difficult for aid agencies and staff “to
maintain a neutral and impartial stance in conflicts in which one party may have
strong claims (including legal ones) to international sympathy and support”
(Roberts 1999: 37). Any compassion NGOs felt for Kosovar Albanians invariably
led to anger at those responsible.
41 While international lawyers and commentators focused on whether the NATO
action was legal because it did not receive Security Council approval, aid agencies
exhibited little concern with such legal niceties, preferring to judge the legitimacy
of the action not on whether it followed the proper legal procedures but whether
its ends were consistent with human rights goals. For the debate among inter-
national legal scholars, see the forum in the American Society of International Law
(1999).
42 Also see Scott-Flynn (1999: x); N. Morris (1999: 17); Minear et al. (2000: 25).
43 One independent evaluation of twelve British aid agencies observed that “given
the scale and profile of the Kosovo crisis, those DEC agencies with an advocacy
remit appeared to carry out only limited public advocacy during the Kosovo
crisis.”
44 Also see MacFarlane (2000: 19); Overseas Development Institute (2000: 78); and
Vaux (2001).
45 For discussions, see Vaux (2001: 30–1).
46 As Peter Fuchs of the ICRC observed: “The respective roles of politicians, gen-
erals, and humanitarian actors are not clear anymore.” Quoted from Chandler
(2002: 48).
47 For a general argument regarding how NGOs are constituted by a global rational-
ization processes, and are carriers of rational-legal values, see Boli and Thomas
(1999).
7 Horizontal and vertical
multilateralism and the
liberal peace
Oliver Richmond
Introduction
This chapter takes as its starting point the debate about the qualities and
dynamics of the liberal peace in the context of multilateral relations between
IOs, states, NGOs and other non-state actors. The “problem of peace” in most
regions of the world has been dealt with by strategies of both elite-level
multilateralism and the promotion of vibrant civil societies, in the context
of democratization, human rights, the rule of law, and development. These
dimensions of the contemporary project to construct the liberal peace encom-
pass the activities of a broad range of state, official, agency, IO, regional
organizations (RO), and NGO actors, which take as their starting point
an assumed conceptualization of the “liberal peace”, present in most
academic and policy documentation.
Multilateralism has traditionally been viewed as a way through which
realist and liberal/idealist interpretations of the propensity of international
relations (IR) towards anarchy can be brought under control. Traditional
notions of multilateralism, prevalent in realist and liberal thinking depict an
international system in which states are persuaded to adhere to a liberal form
of peace by a set of international guardians. These take the shape of institu-
tions, ROs and IOs, organized to defend and enforce a set of liberal norms in
IR. These frameworks inform, guide and monitor state behavior. The focus is
inevitably on state behavior, and so such thinking favors the state, official-
dom, and the elites associated with the control of power and resources, those
who make social, economic, developmental, legal, and political policy, and
those who decide policy norms in these areas. This essentially encapsulates
the multilateralism inherent in state–donor liberal peacebuilding today, and
especially in the state reconstruction and transitional administrations in many
conflict zones around the world at present.
It has also been increasingly recognized since about the late 1980s that non-
state actors play a vital role in such activities, and this has raised the question
of state–non-state actor co-ordination in terms of donor activities and project
management, and more generally in terms of the complexity of the liberal
peace project. State networks and officialdom no longer have absolute control
164 Oliver Richmond
over resources, whether for peace or violence. The state’s Weberian control of
violence or of peace has been moderated by a “global civil society”, “human
security” discourse, the requirement for post-conflict justice in some form,
and the need for the marginalized populations of many conflict zones to be
heard in any peace process. The new multilateralism reflects these new linkages
between states, IOs, IFIs, ROs, agencies, and NGOs, as well as the require-
ment to build capacity in civil societies emerging from conflict. This reflects
an “orthodox” version of the liberal peace, and is an important development.
However, the inherent bias of multilateralism towards state-centricity means
that even an orthodox form of the liberal peace masks what is a “virtual
peace” in many conflict zones.
“Old”, elite, and formal forms of multilateralism – in the context of inter-
national and regional organization, and governance – may increasingly be
eclipsed by the multilateral activities of non-state actors, which have also
emerged as a qualifying factor of the dominance of states, IOs, and their
“rational-legal” authority (Barnett and Finnemore 1999: 699). Multilateral
actors, as Barnett and Finnemore have shown, do indeed have their own
agency and pathologies despite them being creatures controlled by powerful
states, but so too do many other non-state actors involved in peacebuilding
(Barnett and Finnemore 1999: 705). Thus differing levels of horizontal and
vertical multilateralism, formal and informal, are key to understanding the
efficacy and sustainability of the liberal peace model, and to its construction
in post-conflict zones around the world. “Winning the peace” cannot occur
without sophisticated forms of multilateralism (Ruggie 1992: 587) effectively
directed and supported by “willful communities” (Ruggie 1994: 565). How-
ever, it is important to develop our understanding of multilateralism as more
than merely a formal and horizontal architecture of IR (Caporaso 1992:
601), but also representative of a vertical architecture, which implicitly means
that the constructivist, critical theory, and postmodernist agendas of justice,
identity, inter-subjectivity, hegemony, universalism and cosmopolitanism pro-
vide points of departure for understanding the liberal peace, its construction,
and its sustainability. Horizontal forms of multilateralism are defined here as
relationships between official actors, states, and diplomats, and relationships
between a broad range of unofficial and private actors. The “new”, vertical
multilateralism is defined by any relationship between an official and private/
unofficial actor. Vertical multilateralism allows a replication of the norms
that arise in the context of horizontal multilateralism within conflict societies,
but in tandem with at least some level of local debate and custodianship of
peacebuilding.
While the liberal peace is assumed to be unproblematic in its internal struc-
ture, and in its acceptance in post-conflict zones, its methodological applica-
tion may be far from smooth (Paris 2004: 18–20). Indeed its main components
– democratization, the rule of law, human rights, free and globalized markets,
and neo-liberal development – are increasingly being critiqued from several
different perspectives. These critiques have focused upon the incompatibility
Horizontal and vertical multilateralism 165
of certain stages of democratization and economic reform, the ownership of
development projects and thick and thin versions of the neo-liberal agenda,
the possible incompatibility of post-conflict justice with the stabilization of
society, the problem of crime and corruption in economic and political reform,
and the establishment of the rule of law. These terrains are relatively well
explored (Snyder 2000: 43; Annan 2002: 136; Chopra and Hohe 2004: 292;
Rieff 2002: 10; Paris 2002: 638). In this context it is crucial to understand
the way in which multilateralism affects and even facilitates the multiple
interventions designed to construct the liberal peace as a self-sustaining end to
war and conflict. These approaches have led to a “peacebuilding consensus”
(Richmond 2004b: 85)1 that reaches far beyond simply reconstructing the
shell of the state, though with limited success. This consensus of course
implies an inherent multilateralism, driven by a willful community’s (the
so-called international community) view of peace and what must be done to
make it sustainable.
Consequently, this chapter argues that new and often informal forms
of multilateralism have had an important impact on liberal peacebuilding.
Horizontal and vertical forms of multilateralism are vital if the peacebuilding
process is to receive wide support, for the transmittal of norms of governance,
and to have a plausible chance of leading to a sustainable peace. Whether or
not these new forms operate an as extension of the old multilateralism, or
are representative of a radical departure from it, remains to be seen, but it
is now mainly through vertical multilateralism that norm transmittal and
diffusion now occurs within conflict zones – even if this does mean the export
and import of dominant norms and pathologies associated with liberal state
donors, the UN, EU, OSCE, World Bank, IMF, and other international
organizations and agencies (Barnett and Finnemore 1999: 705). In what fol-
lows, this chapter examines the components of the liberal peace and related
levels of multilateralism, and also what vertical forms of multilateralism offer
in the quest to bequeath a sustainable peace to post-conflict polities by the
liberal peacebuilding community.
Peace and multilateralism

The “problem of peace” has always lain in the capacity of unilateral actions to
disrupt the international system, and in the international system’s lack of any
system of control and guardianship based upon consensus. The development
of the liberal peace is exactly in order to respond to these flaws. At its heart
lies a hierarchical international system, but one where international consent
based upon multilateralism is the modus operandi of consensus building in
order to establish a set of mutually agreed norms.
Despite this laudable impetus, the problem of peace has been caused not
just by the contestation of power by sovereign actors operating unilaterally
(Carter, W. H. 1936: xi), but also by the absence of broad debate on the
conceptualization of peace to include so-called human security issues and
166 Oliver Richmond
actors, and the consequence of assuming it is a negative epistemology that
can never fully be achieved. Liberal approaches to peace have generally
assumed that the “liberal peace” is acceptable to all because it is both
universal and built through multilateralism (Mandelbaum 2002: 6; Duffield
2001: 11). Such a consensus has been built multilaterally where it exists,
though it is strongly predisposed towards state and official actors. Ruggie has
pointed out that there is a dark side to multilateralism, which lies in its
possible imperialist tendencies, which effectively deny the sovereignty of sub-
ject states (Ruggie 1992: 571). An extension of this is that non-state subjects
may also be denied individual sovereignty. However, as the liberal peace
assumes that all actors are agents and subjects within an international com-
munity, contemporary multilateral practises should also reflect this. Clearly
this requires the concept of multilateralism to encompass a broader range of
actors if this tension is to be resolved.
Before going any further, the contours of the liberal peace framework need
to be sketched. It contains four main strands of thought influenced by the
key antecedents of, and debates in, international theory. To examine these in
detail would be a task for several other chapters (Richmond 2005: ch. 1 and
2), but they include the victor’s peace, the institutional peace, the consti-
tutional peace, and the civil peace. The victor’s peace has evolved from the
age-old realist argument that a peace that rests on a military victory, and
upon the hegemony or domination of that victor, is more likely to survive. In
its extreme forms this can be seen as a Carthaginian peace, and as the only
way of containing both Hobbesian anarchy and the profligacy of human
nature. The institutional peace rests upon idealist, liberal-internationalist,
and liberal-institutionalist attempts to anchor states within a normative and
legal context in which states multilaterally agree how to behave and how to
enforce or determine their behavior, which also informs the thinking of the
English School. It can be traced from the Treaty of Westphalia, through to
the founding of the UN and beyond. The constitutional peace rests upon
the liberal Kantian argument that peace rests upon democracy, trade, and a
set of cosmopolitan values that stem from the notion that individuals are
ends in themselves, rather than means to an end (Doyle 1983). This became
a common refrain spanning the many European Peace projects of the medi-
eval period and after,2 through to Versailles in 1919, and on into the post-
Cold War period. All of these three strands have been influential across the
scope of the first and second “Great Debates” of IR, and depend to differ-
ing degrees on horizontal multilateralism between official actors, states, and
institutions.
The final strand identifiable is that of the civil peace. This is something of
an anomaly in thinking about peace because it requires individual agency,
rather than state, multilateral, or international agency. The civil peace is
derived from the phenomena of direct action, of citizen advocacy and mobil-
ization, in the attainment or defense of basic human rights and values, span-
ning the ending of the slave trade to the inclusion of civil society in IR today
(Halliday 2001: 35). It is derived from liberal thinking on individualism and
rights, and has been taken up by more recent constructivist, critical and post-
structural thinking on the problem of hegemony and domination, self–other
relations, identity, particularism and pluralism, as well as the need for human
security and justice beyond the states system. The civil peace depends to a
large degree on the connection of actors and issues within the official multi-
lateral context in order to allow for advocacy, norm building, and the estab-
lishment of transnational networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998: xi); this is where
informal multilateral dynamics have developed, which may be described as
vertical multilateralism.
All four strands of thinking about peace effectively nominate omniscient
third parties who are then placed in a position to transfer external notions of
peace into conflict societies and environments. The liberal peace depends
upon intervention, and a balance of consent, conditionality, and coercion
(Ceadal 1987: 4–5). Most significantly, it depends upon co-operation and co-
ordination among international actors engaged in its construction. Without
this, the liberal peace project could not succeed, and as Mitrany pointed out,
forms follows function (Mitrany 1975: xi): the requirement of multilateralism
inherent in the liberal peace has led to the development of new forms of co-
ordination and co-operation among an ever-growing group of actors. New
forms of multilateralism have emerged as a consequence, notably vertical
forms of multilateralism.
These notions have lengthy antecedents and the victor’s peace has remained
a key aspect of the liberal peace, even possibly including the emancipatory
discourses, which still seem to depend on others being able to know, and install
peace for those caught up in conflict. But, the victor’s peace has increasingly
become diluted and disguised by the long line of increasingly multilateral
peace projects in the post-Enlightenment period, which were mainly European
in origin and Euro-centric in nature, the emergence of a private discourse on
peace with the growth of NGOs and civil society actors, and then in the
twentieth century the formalization of a liberal-institutionalist discourse on
peace. This later discourse, again underpinned by the victor’s peace, formed
the basis for the hybrid form that was to become the liberal peace, in which
multiple actors at multiple levels of analysis in rigid conditional relationships
with each other began its universal construction according to a mixture of
conservative, liberal, regulative, and distributive tendencies (Clark, I. 2001:
216–41). This construction requires a specific ontology of peace, a methodo-
logy, mechanisms and tools deployed by epistemic communities that have the
necessary expertise, by coalitions of organizations, states, institutions, involved
in a conditional relationship between them and locations where the liberal
peace is being constructed. It is in these communities that multilateralism,
horizontal and vertical, has flourished.
168 Oliver Richmond
Multilateralism and peacebuilding
The liberal peace is now multilaterally constituted by a number of inter-
national agencies, the UN, international financial institutions, and NGOs, as
well as regional organizations like the EU and the OSCE. While in some cases
as in Iraq multilateralism has been of a lower level, generally in all post-conflict
peacebuilding zones the peacebuilding consensus is representative of a high
level of international co-operation. This multilateral peacebuilding consensus
constructs the liberal peace through the reform of governance in post-conflict
zones. As outlined above, it is characterized by two key dimensions of multi-
lateralism: horizontal linkages between official actors or between unofficial
actors; and vertical linkages between official and unofficial actors. This latter is
vital in confirming the sovereignty of subjects of multilateralism, rather than it
merely being a disguised hegemony stemming from powerful international
actors. Thus, contrary to traditional approaches to multilateralism, it is not
just constituted by a broad range of states and their representatives, but also by
a broad range of NGOs, agencies, and other private actors, which have now
become indispensable as part of the peacebuilding consensus and the attempt
to respond to human security concerns in the construction of the liberal peace.
These forms of multilateral peacebuilding aim at reforming governance in
conflict zones. They entail a communicative strategy on which depends its
viability and legitimacy with its recipients, both at a social and a state level. It
cannot be achieved without significant resources. The allocation of those
resources, the power to do so, and their control, is often the new site of power
in post-conflict societies, despite or because of the emancipatory claims
of the liberal peace. Both of these forms of multilateralism are necessary,
and one cannot exist without the other because the liberal peace is created
through the methodologies associated with a peacebuilding consensus, where
like-minded liberal states co-exist in a Western-orientated international soci-
ety and states are characterized by democracy, human rights, free markets,
development, a vibrant civil society, and multilateralism (Richmond 2005:
85). This represents a consensus of states, donors, IOs, ROs, and NGOs as to
the objectives entailed in the different components of the liberal peace.
The depth of this consensus varies according to the depth of multilateral
consensus it implies. In some cases a broad level of multilateralism leads to a
weak consensus that masks a dissensus, whereas in others a strong consensus
emerges. The temptation is often to replace a weak consensus with unilateral-
ism, if the liberal peace agenda is to be maintained, as seems to have occurred
in both Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. The first level of this consensus
relates to security environments and humanitarian intervention. In the case
of NATO intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia there was only a weak con-
sensus. Australian involvement through INTERFET in East Timor was more
broadly supported, as was British intervention in Sierra Leone, albeit being
unilaterally conducted. A secondary level, but just as significant, relates to
peacebuilding. In all of the above cases, amongst NGOs and agencies, and
the UN family, there was a broad consensus on the breadth of requirements
for democratization, the rule of law, human rights and post-conflict justice
and development. There have been concerns on the part of such actors that
this secondary consensus might effectively justify unilateral military actions
especially on the part of the US or NATO, but generally speaking peacebuild-
ing actors have not let this prevent them from working in these environments.
Vertical multilateralism has developed between these actors and states provid-
ing military security and the necessary discursive resources required for them
to operate in a relatively co-ordinated fashion, while “doing no harm”, estab-
lishing the liberal peace at the civil, constitutional, institutional, and military
levels, and of course conforming with the interests of dominant donor states
and their agencies.
Yet, there is also a dark side to this process. Within the liberal peacebuild-
ing framework there is disagreement on the methodologies to be applied for
its creation, and also which aspect of the liberal peace should be prioritized.
Yet, being part of this framework of liberal peace provides certain rights.
Knowing peace empowers an horizontal and vertical epistemic community,
legitimately able to transfer the liberal peace into conflict zones. This repre-
sents a continuum from war to absence of war or to peace, marked by ever
increasing democratization, human rights, and development, all supported by
a multilateral band of co-ordinated external actors. Not only is the peace-
building consensus heavily contested in this manner but it has also been
argued that institutional and local capacity is actually being destroyed by
intervention in conflict environments (Fukuyama 2004: 53). This implies that
the more external actors engage in peacebuilding, however multilateral, the
more they may actually induce dependency. What is worse, the more efficiently
the multilateral peacebuilding community operates, the more local capacity is
destroyed and the more dependency is induced. There is strong evidence to
show that this is the case: from Cambodia to the Balkans and East Timor,
internationals remain in control of some aspects of domestic politics, they
bankroll the state, provide expertise in every area, control foreign policy, and
exercise censure when local actors misbehave. This of course raises the ques-
tion of whether this is a purposive strategy on the part of the peacebuilding
community, in which imperial multilateralism allows them to become trustees
of conflict zones that are unable to govern themselves peacefully according to
the dominant norms of the liberal international community.
Peace as multilateral governance

Clearly, the development of the liberal peace in conflict zones depends up an
pre-existing blueprint for the liberal peace, and (as argued above) a vertical
and horizontal multilateral consensus on this blueprint. As I have outlined in
earlier work (Richmond 2005: 69), this multilateral peacebuilding consensus
leads to a notion of peace-as-governance, which is heavily dependent on these
forms of multilateralism. However, even within these forms of multilateralism
170 Oliver Richmond
it is clear that the role of the liberal states in building replicas of themselves
dominates the project. This is partly because those working from the top
down to construct the liberal peace tend to focus more on the state and its
institutions. While this is often resisted by those working on bottom-up
versions of peacebuilding, their conditional relationship with recipients,
donors, IOs and IFIs, means that many non-state actors have developed the
capacity for the most intimate forms of intervention in states and in civil
society in order to develop a civil peace and to contribute the broader liberal
peace project. This important capacity is of course of great benefit to the
predominantly state-centric liberal peace project, in which such actors are
deployed as norm entrepreneurs promoting the validity of its components
(Keck and Sikkink 1998: xi). This entails a reform of governance directed by
an alliance of actors, which become custodians of the liberal peace. Their
control of this process rests upon a combination of inducement, consent, and
co-operation, occasionally verging upon the coercive, or even the outright use
of force. There is essentially a conditional relationship between different
states and other actors involved in projecting the liberal peace, the agents they
use to construct the peace, and the recipients of the liberal peace. There is
little questioning of the validity of the liberal peace, or the way in which its
various components fit together.3 Thus, it is assumed that democratization,
development, and economic reform, are complementary, along with human
rights reform, and legal processes. There is also little questioning of the
motivation of the projectors and agents of the liberal peace, other than
among its recipients, who, whether official or non-official actors, tend to be
suspicious of outsiders’ objectives. Most of the critical focus therefore tends
to be on the methods used to construct the liberal peace most effectively,
efficiently, and as quickly as possible.
Peace-as-governance is the most common form of peace applied through
a horizontal and multilateral peacebuilding consensus in conflict zones, in
which a reordering occurs in the distribution of power, prestige, rules and
rights. It focuses on the institutions of state as the basis for the construction
of the liberal peace, followed by the governance of society. This represents
both the top-down and bottom-up peacebuilding approaches. In terms of
bottom-up peacebuilding, different actors contribute to the liberal peace
model by installing forms of peace-as-governance associated with the regula-
tion, control, and protection of individuals and civil society. The balance of
power, hegemony, institutionalism and constitutionalism, and civil society
converge in this version of peace in an era of governmentality, which is super-
territorial, and multi-layered (Foucault 1991: 103). It incorporates official
and private actors from the local to the global, institutionalized in the alpha-
bet soup of agencies, organizations, and institutions. But, in its top-down
guise it is also a form of the victor’s peace, relying on dominant states, in the
context of the states system. They give rise to “normalizing” activities involv-
ing the methodological transfer of knowledge from peaceable communities
into conflict zones.
The next section argues that there are different levels of vertical and
horizontal multilateralism inherent in the different gradations of the liberal
peace.
Multilateralism and gradations of the liberal peace

There are four main gradations of the liberal peace, associated with differing
levels and types of multilateralism. These are illustrated in Figure 7.1 (see
page 176). The conservative model of the liberal peace is mainly associated
with top-down approaches to peacebuilding and development incorporating
horizontal multilateralism at the highest level of analysis. It tends towards the
coercive and often seen as an alien expression of hegemony and domination,
sometimes through the use of force, or through conditionality and dependency
creation. This was the case in the Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan
and Iraq interventions. However, high levels of multilateralism appear to
develop slowly in the context of the conservative version of the liberal peace,
which is generally dependent on a major US role. What is interesting is that
this also often seems to reflect the post-conflict situation in the longer term.
Conservative approaches by implication seem not to make the transition to
multilateralism easily because many peacebuilding actors display some resist-
ance to their resulting association with unilateralism, which may slow down
the engagement of the peacebuilding community. The peace that is created by
conservative approaches is therefore marked by a strong reliance on a single
actor, and little progress towards sustainability – as has been the case in Iraq
recently. Of course, recent evidence suggests that there is a slow progression
from horizontal to vertical multilateralism. As appears to have happened
in the context of Afghanistan, humanitarian actors, while resistant to any
association with the unilateralism of US military action in the first instance,
tend to become drawn into the post-conflict environment eventually because
of their aversion to allowing humanitarian problems to go untreated, and
because of the funding that donors make available in such contexts.
In Afghanistan, the main focus of the peacebuilding community was on
advisory functions, reconstruction, and reconciliation, through the work of
UNAMA and UNDP. Gradually, and despite initial reluctance to work with
the US military forces and in the environment they had been instrumental
in creating, the UN mission took over co-ordination of the many agencies
engaged in humanitarian support. UNAMA is the main provider of such
capacity in the country. The UN operation has, however, been based not on
international administration, but on promoting local Afghan capacity –
though this has clearly been overshadowed by the sheer weight and capacity
of the internationals present. This has become known in the context of state
building debates as the “light footprint” approach,4 which even though this is a
conservative peacebuilding operation has necessitated both horizontal and
vertical multilateralism involving grassroots actors.5 The UN documentation
on this assistance has been very careful to defer to the lead role of the local
172 Oliver Richmond
transitional administration, but even so the mandate of UNAMA includes
national reconciliation, the tasks entrusted to the UN in the Bonn Agreement,
human rights, the rule of law, gender issues, and the management of all UN
humanitarian, relief, recovery, and reconstruction activities.6 Given the frag-
mented nature of politics in Afghanistan, perhaps the most that can be
achieved in the medium term is to collude with regional fiefdoms in order to
construct what Ignatieff describes as a “rough and ready peace” rather than a
fully fledged liberal peace, as has been the focus of efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo,
and East Timor (Ignatieff 2003: 92). This is also what may transpire in the
context of the attempt to construct the liberal peace in Iraq after the interven-
tion of 2003. It is important to note the problems the UN has faced in
maintaining the credibility of the “light footprint” model. There has been a
lack of authority over donors, NGOs, and IFIs on the part of the UN system
meaning that the co-ordination process and system between all of these actors
in the case of Afghanistan has been dysfunctional (Stockton 2002: 2). This
is partly because the “light footprint” approach has confused strategic ends
(for example, maintaining the consent of local actors for the reform process)
with the operational processes in what has been described as “aid-induced
pacification” (Stockton 2002: 5).
The conservative gradation of the liberal peace equates to a hegemonic and
often unilateral, state-led peace, which diplomats are fond of describing as
the “art of the possible.” Such charges are often leveled at the World Bank
or the UN, but more often at recent US unilateral state-building efforts.
This represents a fear of moving peacebuilding into a terrain where coercion
and even force may used to apply it, and where it becomes an expression
of external interest rather than external concern and responsibility. Where
peacebuilding becomes heavily militarized, as has been seen in Somalia, the
Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, this represents a hyper-conservative model,
mainly unilateral and heavily informed by the victor’s peace in preliminary
stages of intervention. In this context, the conservative liberal peacebuilding
project is dogged by problems often associated with colonialism or trustee-
ship, and in particular with the phenomena of often violent spoiling tactics
aimed at the custodians of the intervention.
Until the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most common
form of the liberal peacebuilding project was the orthodox model, which rests
upon both vertical and horizontal forms of multilateralism. In this framework,
intervening actors are wary and sensitive about local ownership and culture,
but still also determined to transfer their methodologies, objectives, and
norms into the new governance framework. Such operations are character-
ized by a high level of horizontal multilateralism between states, and vertical
multilateralism between donors, IOs, ROs, IFIs and NGOs. This framework
is dominated by consensual negotiation. This equates to a balanced and
multilateral, and still state-centric peace. This is generally projected by inter-
national organizations and institutions as well as international NGOs. It
represents a bottom-up approach, peacebuilding peace via grassroots and
civil-society-orientated activities, as well as a top-down approach, through
which peacebuilding is led by states, donors, officials, IOs, and IFIs. It focuses
upon and contests needs-based and rights-based activities. However, top-
down peacebuilding activity tends to dominate, particularly through the con-
ditional models and practices of donors, organizations, and institutions, as
do the interests of major states and donors. This model is exemplified by
the UN family’s practices of peacebuilding and governance reform, which
started at the end of the Cold War and culminated in UN sovereignty for a
time over East Timor. Despite its vertical multilateralism the orthodox model
assumes technical superiority over recipient subjects.
East Timor provides an important example of the orthodox framework.
UNTAET was deployed in October 1999 to administer East Timor during its
transition to independence, during which time it was a non-self-governing
territory.7 The assumptions lying behind this mission were a natural extension
of the role of the UN in Cambodia and the Balkans, and the UN became a
sovereign in its own right during its attempt to construct a sustainable polity.
The UN mission was mandated to establish an effective administration, sup-
port capacity building for self-government, assist in the development of civil
and social services, co-ordinate and deliver humanitarian, rehabilitation and
development assistance, and establish the required conditions for sustainable
development. It was explicitly mandated to “. . . take all measures. . . .” The
Kosovo operation provided a reference point for this mission based upon the
pillars of governance and administration, humanitarian issues and rehabilita-
tion, and peacekeeping (Suhrke 2001: 7). At least in its early stages, East
Timor was effectively governed in its entirety by a coalition of UN, agency,
IFI, NGO, and donor actors representing both vertical and horizontal forms
of multilateralism. The governance pillar is representative of this coalescence
of the different actors and roles engaged in UN peace operations as perhaps
the most sophisticated process of constructing peace today.
However, even an orthodox framework such as this has not been without
problems. The agencies and IFIs stood accused of doing too little, generally
too late, being wasteful, excessively bureaucratic, and erecting barriers to
local participation through the latter. A common complaint has been that
locals cannot contribute to the state-building exercise meaningfully because
of a lack of capacity and that internationals tend to ignore what local cap-
acity there is.8 What is more, there were also complaints that the UN has
shown little leadership in terms of co-ordination of the various agencies.
There has also been a failure to support indigenous peacebuilding processes,
particularly because there has been little effort to initiate peacebuilding to
deal with social justice and welfare issues.9 The operation in East Timor still
focused upon top-down peacebuilding at the expense of bottom-up peace-
building, social justice, and welfare, meaning that focus was on horizontal
rather than vertical multilateralism.
Though the orthodox peace in East Timor had become associated with
governance of a mainly external nature, the operation found most of its local
174 Oliver Richmond
legitimacy in the sense that it was merely transitional rather than a fully
competent government.10 Not only was it a precursor of independence, which
was legitimate in the eyes of the local population, but it shaped the coming
peace as a liberal peace, as it was explicitly tasked to do by the international
community. As a somewhat jaundiced Jarat Chopra has pointed out, the
UN mission risked establishing another form of authoritarianism unless it
was itself held to be accountable to the local population (Chopra 2000: 27).
Indeed, Chopra charts an abrasive relationship between the World Bank and
the UN over who controlled sovereignty, in which UNTAET resisted Timorese
participation to “safeguard the UN’s influence” (Chopra 2000: 30–1).11 The
East Timorese president, Xanana Gusmao, was evidently extremely aware of
the questions relating to the nature of the peace that are apparent in this case.
In one of the most explicit documents in existence from the policy world on
the nature of peace he argued that the experience of East Timor indicated
that peace was a basic human right and this involved not just international
and civil violence, but socio-economic deprivation, a lack of development,
and an engagement with the experience of recipient communities on the part
of internationals.12
A third gradation is provided by a more critical form of the liberal peace,
the emancipatory model, which is concerned with a much closer relationship
of custodianship and consent with local ownership, and tends to be very
critical of the coerciveness, conditionality and dependency that the conserva-
tive and orthodox models operate on the basis of. Though all liberal peace
approaches aspire to be emancipatory, this is mainly found within the bottom-
up approach, and tends to veer towards needs-based activity and a stronger
concern for social justice. Again this approach is highly multilateral, especially
in a vertical sense, and is much more influenced by transnational advocacy
networks (Halliday 2001: 253) and “norm entrepreneurs” made up of an epi-
stemic peacebuilding community rather than networks of state and official
actors. Indeed, many actors operating at this level are cautious of becoming
involved with international actors, even through a vertical form of multi-
lateralism, because they are very aware of the risk of losing control of their
own agendas and being susceptible to donor dependency. This critical
approach to the liberal peace still envisages its universalism, but accentuates
its discursive and negotiated requirements. These different actors, mainly local
and international NGOs in association with major agencies and some state
donors, and associated types of the liberal peace, tend to become more or less
prominent in different phases of the conflict and the peacebuilding process.
This peace equates to the civil peace, and generally is not state-led, but shaped
by private actors and social movements. The civil peace and its emancipatory
claims are indicative of a vertical form of multilateralism in which official-
dom is less highly valued than function, perhaps returning to the insight
of Mitrany that “form follows function” (Mitrany 1975: xi)13 rather than
defining function.
These main aspects of the liberal peace are expressed to different degrees in
any one peacebuilding intervention. Which of these gradations takes prece-
dent in any one peacebuilding operation often depends upon horizontal
multilateral negotiations between key actors to establish its key priorities,
which are then passed down to the many partners invovled in the liberal
peacebuilding project. These are normally associated with dominant state
interests, donor interests, and the capacity of peacebuilding actors. Local
actors’ responses may also have some impact, as has been seen in the case of
the “Timorisation” campaign in East Timor (Smith, M. G. 2003: 63), or in
Kosovo (Rupnik 2005). Yet, even where a high degree of horizontal multi-
lateralism can be observed, as in cases such as Kosovo or East Timor, effective
vertical multilateralism does not necessarily follow.
This means that multilateral operations actually suffer from some major
disadvantages in the area of co-ordination. However, multilateral approaches
appear more likely to lead to outcomes acceptable to the many rather than
just to their main progenitor. Both Kosovo and East Timor became broadly
multilateral after military interventions took place. In both cases the peace-
building consensus has been sustained in an framework approximating the
orthodox version of the liberal peace, even if there is doubt about how deeply
engrained it has become. Similarly across the Balkans, relatively sustainable
polities have been established if only on the continuation of international
mandates for engagement. Yet in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq where levels
of multilateralism have been low and the focus has been on a conservative
version of the liberal peace, the picture is much bleaker.
What is also clear from this is that conservative, orthodox, and emancipa-
tory versions of the liberal peace may actually contradict and undermine
each other, leading to disruption in the broader peacebuilding process. Clearly,
the less unilateral interventions mentioned above are still inherently liberal,
but the sustainable dynamics associated with an orthodox or emancipatory
version of the liberal peace seem to be held perhaps permanently in abeyance
because of the security situation which has arise both before, during, and
since the military intervention. There question here is whether unilateral
military intervention – even if it is to produce the liberal peace – produces
unintended consequences which make progression more difficult. In cases
where military intervention has been multilaterally approved such as East
Timor and Kosovo in 1999, Bosnia in 1994–5, and Sierra Leone in 2003, the
peacebuilding process seems to progress much more quickly. This raises some
important policy implications in terms of the different versions of the liberal
peace and the impact of differing levels of multilateralism on the sustain-
ability of the peace being created. It is assumed that the project of the liberal
peace moves from the conservative coercive models, to the more consensual
orthodox model, or even to the emancipatory model, and that this represents
an increase in the numbers and types of international actors engaged in a
peacebuilding project, and an increase in the networks between international
and local actors. Figure 7.1 illustrates these dynamics in the context of
horizontal and vertical forms of multilateralism.
176 Oliver Richmond
Gradations of liberal peace
Figure 7.1 Multilateralism and gradations of liberal peace.
Figure 7.2 illustrates that unilateral forms of intervention that do not have
broad consent amongst internationals are unlikely to lead to sustainable out-
comes. In the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, a sustainable and orthodox
version of the liberal peace looks very unlikely in the short to medium term.
But, in other cases where there has been broad consent for the use of force,
Figure 7.2 Unilateralism, multilateralism and liberal peacebuilding.

Source: adapted from Richmond (2005)
such as in Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Kosovo, and East Timor, it seems that
there has been movement along this typology to a more sustainable peace.
However, even in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is now a sizeable peace con-
stituency that seems intent on making sure that the liberal peace and its
components survive. What this indicates is that what is key to the sustain-
ability of the liberal peace is ideally multilateral international involvement
that rapidly develops a vertical component, and a broad local constituency
that also accepts this project. Without this in place, any progression would be
unlikely or, at best, tortuous (as in Somalia).
Another aspect of this liberal peace model throws some doubt on even this
minimalist prognosis. In Cambodia, depicted above as being at an orthodox
stage of the liberal peace after 13 years of international peacebuilding involve-
ment, progress has been excruciatingly slow in building a self-sustainable
situation. It not just that unilateralism results in slow progress as the cases of
Afghanistan and Iraq suggested, or some progress as the additional cases of
the Balkans and Sierra Leone suggest, but that all of these attempts to build
the liberal peace result in excruciatingly slow progress. The evidence suggests
that the situation improves when more actors are involved and more con-
sent is available – though co-ordination, conditionality, dependency, and the
acquisition of the necessary resources then become problems – but also that
unilateralism does not necessarily mean that progress cannot be made. What
Figures 7.1 and 7.2 show most importantly, however, is that all unilateral
interventions, if they are aimed at building the liberal peace, eventually become
multilateral. This is because the liberal peace is such a complex project that
one actor simply cannot succeed alone.
178 Oliver Richmond
Conclusion
Multilateralism remains crucial to a sustainable peace. Where an intervention
has not been multilateral, there is great pressure to overcome international
political opposition in order to make the peacebuilding process and the con-
struction of the liberal peace multilateral as it is implicitly recognized that a
multilateral peace process has more chance of creating a sustainable peace.
Furthermore, a vertical and informal form of multilateralism both provides
enhanced capacity for a sustainable liberal peace, and also advocates such
a peace. Entry into a conflict zone is often predicated on a conservative
version of the liberal peace, which is unilateral, with the aspiration of moving
towards the orthodox position, which is inherently multilateral. A significant
number of examples can be provided for this movement, as Figure 7.2 illus-
trates, but a significant number also remain mired within the conservative
gradation of the liberal peace. No cases can be located within the emancipa-
tory gradation, and indeed, the lack of social justice, and socio-economic
well-being and development seems to have marred all international involve-
ments in the post-Cold War era (Paris 2004; Bellamy and Williams 2004;
Chandler 2002; Chopra and Hohe, 2004; Cousens and Kumar 2001; Caplan
2002). Clearly, the above diagrams illustrate the tendency for internationals to
enter a conflict environment somewhere within the conservative gradation,
and then aspire (both the internationals and local recipients included) to move
along the axis to the orthodox peace, which is perceived both to be sustainable
and to allow the internationals to withdraw.
This requires the development of both horizontal and vertical multilateral-
ism, a combination of which has the effect of guiding recipients’ governance
frameworks while not denying their sovereignty as more traditional forms of
multilateralism might. “Willful” actors are required to drive this, including
state and non-state actors, if it is to maintain high levels of legitimacy, par-
ticularly with recipient actors. However, experience seems to show that where
force is used in a hyper-conservative initial approach, moving along the axis
towards the orthodox category tends not to occur quickly. The best illustra-
tions of this appear to be Bosnia and Kosovo, where the political entity (state
or not) is weak, and may even be socially and economically unsustainable
despite the length of time the internationals have been involved. Where entry
is based upon a peace agreement with broad consensus, it often occurs within
the conservative gradation but moves rapidly towards the orthodox, as many
of the cases in Figure 7.2 indicate. In other words, multilateralism at both
international and domestic levels offers a greater chance of a sustainable peace.
One of the eternal truths of IR is that for any agreement to be made and then
to be implemented, it must be done multilaterally, with both horizontal multi-
lateralism – including that between officials (between state-level actors and
international institutions) and non-officials (between private actors, both
civilian and militarized) – and a vertical multilateralism between officials,
private actors, states and institutions, whether NGO, militarized, or both
formal and informal. This is the clearest lesson of the last two decades of
attempts to build liberal states and the liberal peace.
Notes
I take responsibility for all errors in this essay as is the custom. Thanks go to Roland
Bleiker, Costas Constantinou, Jason Franks, A.J.R. Groom, Ian Hall, Vivienne Jabri,
Anthony Lang, Farid Mirabagheri, Nick Rengger, Chandra Sriram, R.J.B. Walker,
Alison Watson, and Peter Wallensteen. I would like to thank the many people, local
and international, private or official, from East Timor and the DRC to the Balkans,
who were willing to talk to me during the course of my fieldwork on which this article
is based. I am also grateful to the Leverhulme Trust, the Carnegie Trust, and the
Russell Trust for providing funding for various parts of the fieldwork.
1 This phrase indicates a weak consensus between the UN, major states and donors,
agencies, and NGOs, that a liberal peace should incorporate a democratic market,
democracy, the rule of law, and development, and that all international interven-
tion, both humanitarian or security-orientated should be contingent upon this.
This consensus masks a deeper dissensus in terms of the application of resources,
the use of force to establish the basis for such a reform, and the efficacy of different
actors involved in the many roles this requires.
2 See for example Penn (1693/1993: 5–22).
3 For exceptions see Chopra and Hohe (2004); Paris (2004); Lund (2003).
4 See “Speech of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghani-
stan,” Opening of 55th Annual DPI/NGO conference, Rebuilding Societies Emer-
ging from Conflict: A Shared Responsibility, New York, 9 September 2002.
5 See for example the UN Tribal Liasons Office.
6 See UNSC Resolutions 1401 of 28 March 2002 and 1272 of 25 October 1999.
7 UNSC Resolution 1272 of 25 October 1999.
8 Personal interview with S. Frietas, Program Manager, Democracy and Governance
Program, USAID, 11 November 2004.
9 Personal interview with O. Ofstad, Head of Delegation, International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Dili, 11 November 2004.
10 See Goldstone (2004: 87).
11 In meetings with senior World Bank Staff in Dili, they were at pains to point out
their concern about local ownership, and about not offending local politicians and
the government, however. Personal interviews, 9 November 2004, Dili.
12 President Xanana Gusmao, “Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding in Timor Leste”,
Seminar of the role of the UN in Timor Leste, Dili, 26 November, 2004.
13 Here Mitrany reflects upon the working peace system without defining what it was
to achieve in terms of peace. However, it is clear that he has a somewhat broader
notion of the concept than was generally accepted in the policy world at the time.
Part II
Assessing multilateral
security institutions
8 Transatlantic relations,
multilateralism and the
transformation of NATO
Frank Schimmelfennig
Introduction
When the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact collapsed at the beginning of
the 1990s, NATO lost its most important raison d’être: to counter the com-
munist military threat to, and deter a possible attack on, western Europe.
This landmark change forced the Western alliance to redefine its relationship
to the former enemy, to reappraise its security environment, and to review
its organizational set-up, its force structure, and its security strategies and
policies.
The transformation of NATO has had two main dimensions. In its external
relations, NATO introduced partnership organizations for co-operation with
central and eastern European countries (CEECs) and opened the door for
new members from this region. In January 1994, NATO agreed on the Part-
nership for Peace (PfP) program, which deepened security co-operation and
consultation between NATO and the CEECs. In 1997, NATO invited the first
CEECs (the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) to join the alliance and,
in 1999, established the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for the remaining
CEECs interested in becoming full members. Seven of them joined NATO in
March 2004. In lockstep with the enlargement decisions, NATO upgraded its
institutionalized relationship with Russia and Ukraine in 1997 (NATO-Russia
Founding Act; Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between Ukraine and
NATO) and 2002 (NATO-Russia Council, NATO-Ukraine Action Plan).
Internally, NATO responded to the disappearance of the common Soviet
threat and the rise of new, more diverse and unpredictable risks and chal-
lenges to the security of its members by developing more flexible and diversi-
fied structures. At its 1994 Brussels summit, NATO endorsed the Combined
Joint Task Force (CJTF) Concept calling for “easily deployable, multi-
national, multiservice military formations tailored to specific kinds of military
tasks.”1 In 1996, NATO agreed to build a European Security and Defense
Identity (ESDI) within NATO, which would permit and support autono-
mous military operations led by the EU. At the Washington summit of 1999,
NATO launched the Defense Capabilities Initiative to equip its forces for new
tasks of crisis management and intervention. The Prague summit in October
184 Frank Schimmelfennig
2002 gave new impetus to the transformation of NATO. In June 2003, NATO
defense ministers agreed on a new and streamlined command structure
with a single command (Allied Command Operations) with operational
responsibility and another command (Allied Command Transformation)
responsible for overseeing the transformation of NATO forces and capabil-
ities. In October 2003, NATO inaugurated a highly flexible, globally deploy-
able and interoperable NATO Response Force based on a pool of troops and
military equipment.
Finally, and paradoxically at first sight, it was only after the end of the Soviet
threat, for which it was established, that NATO became involved in actual
warfare, invoked the mutual assistance and consultation articles of the North
Atlantic Treaty (NAT) and sent member state troops outside the North
Atlantic region – each for the first time in its history. In 1995 and 1999 NATO
used its airpower to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo and put an
end to ethnic violence in these parts of former Yugoslavia. On 12 September
2001, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) agreed to regard the terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington as an attack on all alliance members
according to Article 5 NAT, and in October 2003 NATO assumed the
command and co-ordination of the International Stabilization and Assist-
ance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. At the same time, however, NATO mem-
ber states were deeply split over the war on, and occupation of, Iraq in 2003
and any NATO involvement in it. The strongest opponents of the Iraq war
(Belgium, France, and Germany) for some time failed to agree to NATO
preparations to protect their ally Turkey against a possible Iraqi counterattack
and have rejected any substantial NATO role in Iraq to this day.
It is the aim of this chapter to review the transformation of NATO in the
perspective of multilateralism with regard to both institutional structure and
actual co-operation. Has NATO become more or less multilateralist in form
and practice in the course of its transformation? And how do we explain
institutional change and behavioral variation? Following John Gerard Rug-
gie, multilateralism is defined as a generic institutional form that “coordinates
relations among three or more states on the basis of generalized principles of
conduct: that is, principles which specify appropriate conduct for a class of
actions, without regard to the particularistic interests of the parties or the
strategic exigencies that may exist in any specific occurrence.” These “general-
ized organizing principles logically entail an indivisibility among the mem-
bers of a collectivity with respect to the range of behavior in question” and
generate “expectations of ‘diffuse reciprocity’ ” (Ruggie 1993b: 11).
In the first part of this chapter, I describe and explain the flexibilization
of NATO, the main feature of its external and internal post-Cold War insti-
tutional transformation. In the second part, I assess the multilateral quality
of NATO post-Cold War co-operation. Above all, I seek to account for the
variations in member state co-operation on the core policies and decisions of
the past decade: enlargement and the decisions to intervene in Yugoslavia and
the Middle East.
Transatlantic relations and NATO 185
The main argument of the chapter draws on different theoretical appro-
aches. First, I argue that the institutional transformation of NATO has made
NATO less multilateralist and this is best explained in functional terms by the
nature of the core co-operation problem that the old NATO and the new
NATO address. The old NATO faced a common and certain threat and the
enforcement problem of extended deterrence: to “keep the Americans in” and
to prevent the allies from free-riding under the US nuclear umbrella. The
functional response to this situation was a restriction of membership and
flexibility.
In contrast, post-Cold War NATO has not been confronted with common
or clearly identifiable threats. Within NATO, the core co-operation problem
was potential deadlock caused by consensual decision-making under the
condition of heterogeneous strategic views, threat perceptions, and security
interests. A functional response to this problem was institutional flexibility.
With regard to the former Warsaw Pact countries, the main problem was
uncertainty resulting from a lack of information on security problems and
preferences in this region and a lack of trust. Under these conditions, high
flexibility made sense in order to gain knowledge and create trust.
The more flexible and less multilateralist structure of the new NATO does
not lead per se to a less multilateralist behavior of its members. Rather,
behavior varies with the kind of security threats or challenges at issue. Multi-
lateral co-operation has been strongest when core values and norms of the
liberal transatlantic community were at stake – either as a result of their
massive violation (as in the “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans) or their strong
reaffirmation (as in the candidates for NATO membership). It was weakest
in the Iraq case, which was neither located in the core community region nor
related initially to the protection of liberal community values. In between are
the Afghanistan and Darfur cases. In the absence of a direct common threat,
it is their common values that still promote multilateral co-operation between
NATO members.
The institutional transformation of post-Cold War

NATO: flexibilization
An increase in flexibility has been the hallmark of institutional transform-
ation in post-Cold War NATO. For the purpose of this study, I understand
flexibility as the degree to which NATO’s rules and arrangements allow
member states to choose their level of participation and commitment. Whereas
inflexible rules and arrangements bind all member states all of the time,
highly flexible or fragmented ones permit varying participation across mem-
ber states and time. In this regard, the “new NATO” differs markedly from the
“old NATO.”
Although the NAT is not very specific on this issue, it is clear that collective
deterrence and defense was designed to include all member states. Article 5,
the most important article of the treaty, reads: “The Parties agree that an
armed attack against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack
against them all and consequently they agree that . . . each of them . . . will
assist the Party or Parties so attacked . . .” (my omissions and italics). More-
over, the integrated military command structure and the forward stationing
of allied forces (mainly in Germany) in the 1950s were designed to reduce the
member states’ flexibility in responding to military attacks. As a consequence,
member states would have been involved immediately in combat as well as in
executing defense plans; their room for political decision-making and man-
euvers would have been severely curtailed. To be sure, even during the Cold
War, France was able to formally withdraw from military integration (in
1966) while remaining a NATO member and co-operating à la carte with its
Supreme Command. Many other member states have traditionally had spe-
cific arrangements with NATO, for instance, with regard to the stationing of
nuclear weapons on their territory. The general thrust of institutional design,
however, was to include all member states in the deterrence of the Soviet
threat and in the collective defense of NATO territory and to restrict the
flexibility of their participation.
In contrast, in the post-Cold War period, the general thrust of institutional
design has been reversed. The main transformation decisions of the new
NATO have also been decisions in favor of flexibility. According to the CJTF
Concept, forces would “vary according to the circumstances”; headquarters
would be formed ad hoc; members and partners would contribute “as neces-
sary, using a modular approach, in order to meet the requirements of the
specific mission.”2 ESDI permits the use of NATO capacities for operations
led by the EU, that is, without US participation. Both follow the principle of
“separable but not separate” forces allowing “coalitions of the willing” to take
advantage of NATO’s organizational assets. In addition, while NATO oper-
ations do not require actual participation of all NATO members any more,
they are open to participation by non-members, partners or non-partners.
For instance, 22 non-NATO countries participated in the Stabilization Force
(SFOR) in Bosnia and 19 non-NATO countries did so in the Kosovo Force
(KFOR) in Kosovo under NATO command – including, for instance, Argen-
tina and Morocco in both cases.
NATO’s partnership arrangements are also based on high flexibility. Since
its beginnings in the North Atlantic Co-operation Council, NATO’s relations
with the CEECs have covered an extremely broad scope of activities, some of
which are only weakly related to military security. They range from narrow
security issues – such as defense planning, arms control, peacekeeping and,
more recently, the fight against terrorism – to issues such as defense econom-
ics and conversion, environmental problems emanating from defense-related
installations, the military protection of cultural monuments, civil emergency
planning, responses to natural and technological disasters, international
humanitarian law, and scientific co-operation. Each NATO partner has been
able to pick and choose from this long list of potential co-operation activities
and to conclude individual work plans and partnership programs. Moreover,
NATO has based its partnership activities explicitly on the principle of dif-
ferentiation according to which the level and intensity of co-operation varies
with the readiness and ability of its partners to meet NATO’s political and
technical conditions. As a consequence, NATO partnership has resulted in a
highly differentiated, diversified, and individualized set of co-operative activ-
ities with the non-member countries of central and eastern Europe, some of
which – such as Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia – work closely with NATO
in preparation for accession to the Alliance, whereas others – such as Belarus
– are formal NATO partners with little actual co-operation activity. At any
rate, the level of formal and binding commitments in NATO partnership is
extremely low.
Thus, if we follow Ruggie’s definition, multilateralism has clearly decreased
in post-Cold War NATO. Its institutional form is less based on “generalized
principles of conduct” but allows more room for “particularistic interests
of the parties,” the “strategic exigencies that may exist in any specific occur-
rence,” and the divisibility of security co-operation and benefits (Ruggie
1993b: 11). This assessment needs to be qualified in two ways, however. In a
pan-European perspective, the formerly exclusive NATO, which offered
mutual assistance only for a small group of countries, has expanded its mem-
bership considerably and extended its security co-operation to all countries
of the region. In addition, the more flexible rules apply equally to all member
countries. Although not all of them may be interested in or capable of doing
so, each member state is equally entitled to form or join coalitions of the
willing and receive institutional support. In other words, NATO does not
create a priori privileges for certain member states, nor has flexibilization
resulted in institutionalized bilateralism – the opposite of multilateralism for
Ruggie (1993b: 8–9).
This descriptive analysis is the starting point for the remaining two ques-
tions the chapter asks. First, how can we explain the change towards insti-
tutional flexibility? Second, how and to what extent is variation in design
related to variation in actual co-operation? In other words, does a less multi-
lateral institutional form also produce a less multilateralist behavior of the
alliance members?
A functional explanation of flexibilization

According to the functional theory of international institutions, institutional
design varies with the type and seriousness of international co-operation
problems (Downs et al. 1998; Koremenos et al. 2001a). In the case of security
institutions, this general condition can be specified further: design varies with
the nature of the threat and the problems of security co-operation that arise
from countering it.
In the old NATO, the core threat was clearly identifiable and common
to all member states: the Soviet Union. However, while all member states
had a common interest in “keeping the Soviets out,” their capabilities and
vulnerabilities differed. On the one hand, the west European countries were
immediately threatened by the massive conventional forces of the Warsaw
Pact on their borders, against which they were not capable of defending
themselves alone. In addition, most west European countries did not possess
nuclear weapons and those that possessed nuclear weapons (Britain and
France) had only limited capabilities that might not have been sufficient
to deter a conventional or nuclear Soviet attack. For this reason, the west
European countries had an interest in a security guarantee by the United
States, above all in a place under its nuclear umbrella.
Because of its geographical position, the United States, on the other hand,
was not directly threatened by the conventional forces of the Soviet Union
and the Warsaw Pact. It usually had a technological edge over the Soviet
Union and a superior capability of projecting military power globally. In the
early days of NATO, its nuclear capabilities trumped those of the Soviet
Union. Later, it has always preserved a credible second-strike capability.
Whereas its homeland has generally been safe (with the exception of the
Cuban missile crisis), the United States was in a disadvantaged geographical
position with regard to the control of the Eurasian landmass. Above all, it
sought to deny the Soviet Union access to and control of highly industrial-
ized and wealthy western Europe. For this reason, the United States was
interested in a military presence on western European territory and in finding
allies for the defense of the region.
The common interests cum different capabilities and vulnerabilities created
sufficient interdependence between the United States and western Europe to
promote the building of a transatlantic alliance, but, as the functional theory
of institutions leads us to expect, they also created co-operation problems.
I suggest that the enforcement problems of extended deterrence were at the
core of the transatlantic alliance. On the one hand, under the US nuclear
umbrella, the western European countries had an incentive to minimize their
military contributions to the alliance. If, as they assumed, US nuclear capabil-
ities were sufficiently strong to deter the Warsaw Pact from attacking western
Europe, why should they invest heavily in expensive conventional military
forces (except to pursue their own specific strategic interests)? In a system of
mutual nuclear deterrence, investments in conventional defense are militarily
irrelevant and rather signal mistrust in the credibility of deterrence. In short,
western Europe had the incentive of free-riding under the US nuclear
umbrella. On the other hand, the credibility of extended deterrence in a
system of mutual nuclear deterrence is always questionable. Whereas the
United States had a credible incentive in using nuclear weapons to retaliate
against an attack against its own territory, it was doubtful whether it would
really use nuclear weapons in the case of a conventional attack on western
Europe and thereby invite a Soviet nuclear attack on US territory in retali-
ation. In short, the United States had the incentive to defect from the nuclear
defense of western Europe.3
Given these two enforcement problems of extended deterrence, the alliance
partners had an interest in making each other’s commitments as credible as
possible. The United States was keen on committing the Europeans to do as
much as possible for their own defense. This would not only reduce the costs
of US military engagement in western Europe but, above all, reduce and
protract the need to revert to the use of nuclear weapons and thus to test the
credibility of extended deterrence. In contrast, western Europe was interested
in limiting the US room for discretion and in increasing the pressure on
the US administration to use nuclear weapons early in the case of a Warsaw
Pact attack.
The nature of the threat and the co-operation problems changed funda-
mentally with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. As the
main successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia inherited its nuclear forces
but suffered a loss in territory, population, and allies. Above all, however, it
was not so much the balance of power but the balance of threats that
changed to the advantage of NATO (Walt 1987). Under the Yeltsin presi-
dency of the 1990s, Russia was generally perceived as a country that had
terminated the Soviet legacy of enmity to the West and sought a co-operative
relationship with Western organizations. Already in its 1991 “Strategic Con-
cept,” NATO stated that “the threat of a simultaneous, full-scale attack on
all of NATO’s European fronts has effectively been removed.”4 Four years
later, in its “Study on NATO Enlargement,” the organization added, “since
then, the risk of a re-emergent large-scale military threat has further
declined.”5
The disappearance of the Soviet threat effectively removed the alliance
dilemmas of extended deterrence. The nuclear umbrella ceased to be neces-
sary to guarantee the security of western Europe. The US administration did
not have to fear any more that it might be drawn into a nuclear exchange
because of the weak conventional forces of its alliance partners, and European
governments did not have to be concerned any more about the credibility of
the US nuclear security guarantee.
At the same time, however, the clearly identifiable and common threat that
had generated the common interest of the alliance members ceased to exist as
well. The military interdependence of the United States and western Europe
diminished and so did the need for NATO as an organization of collective
defense and deterrence. Realist theory therefore expected the end of NATO
to follow the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact because of the
allies’ overriding interest in autonomy and the western Europeans’ need to
balance US hegemony (Waltz 1993). In contrast, the functional theory of
international institutions explains the persistence of NATO as a result of
high sunk costs stemming from prior investments in the institutionalization
of the alliance and of general and specific institutional assets that were seen
to be “cost effective in the new security environment” (Wallander 2000). In
addition, however, we should observe changes in and adaptations of the
institutional design reflecting this new security environment and the new
co-operation problems it created.
What were these new co-operation problems? Among NATO members, the
absence of a common and clearly identifiable external threat brought the
heterogeneity of strategic views and security interests among the allies to
the fore. Prominent descriptions of the divergences include global US versus
regional European security interests and a militarized foreign policy (attrib-
uted to the United States) versus the emphasis on diplomatic, legal and
economic tools of foreign policy (attributed to Europe).6 To be sure, these
differences did exist during the Cold War as well and led to debates and
conflicts among the allies. Yet the Soviet threat provided a strong focus, which
urged the allies to co-operate despite their divergences. The divergence was
put into stark contrast again after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United
States. In the United States, they created an unprecedented sense of insecurity
and a strong preference to combat them by the global projection of military
force. Both reactions were much weaker in Europe. For NATO as an organ-
ization operating on the principle of consensus, the absence of a clear and
common threat and the prominence of diverging strategic views and security
interests decreased the likelihood of reaching agreement and created the co-
operation problem of deadlock or decision-making blockades. Generally
speaking, if an individual member state or a group of member states wants to
act on a security issue that it considers relevant according to its strategic
views and security interests and wants to use NATO resources for that pur-
pose, it is likely to be faced with other member states that do not share its
concerns and reject collective action.7
In NATO’s relations with its former enemies, the CEECs and the successor
countries of the Soviet Union, the core problem was uncertainty – about the
security preferences of the new and transformed states and about the emer-
gence of new security threats in this region. Would the post-communist
regimes consolidate democracy or develop into authoritarian states? Would
these states seek friendly relations with the West or follow new anti-Western
ideologies rooted in nationalism or traditionalism? What would happen to
the enormous armaments of the Soviet Union including its nuclear weapons
now located in several independent states? Where would its military technol-
ogy and knowledge spread? And finally, would the new states develop peace-
ful relations with each other or would they become mired in new hegemonic
struggles and ethnic strife? In other words, the co-operation problems for
NATO in this region resulted from both a lack of reliable information about
the new security environment and a lack of trust in the newly emerging state
actors of the region (see, e.g., Kydd 2001).
Can we attribute the increase in flexibility during NATO’s institutional
transformation to the change in threats and co-operation problems as the
functional theory of institutional design would suggest? More specifically,
does the disappearance of a common and clearly identifiable threat – and the
concomitant shift from enforcement to deadlock as the core co-operation
problem – explain the flexibilization of NATO? And does the emergence of
uncertainty in the East account for the flexible design of NATO partnership?
I argue that the functional account is largely plausible. First, international
institutions designed to solve an enforcement problem require low flexibility
because flexible rules allow countries to decide their level of commitment
autonomously and thus further defection and free-riding. Thus, it made sense
for old NATO to constrain institutionally the rather flexible treaty commit-
ments to mutual assistance and defense, for instance, through an integrated
command and the forward stationing of allied troops. Conversely, the higher
flexibility of post-Cold War NATO is a functional response to the deadlock
problem it faces. It allows the task-specific creation of “coalitions of the
willing”, that is, of those member states that share security concerns on spe-
cific issues. These coalitions need the basic consent of the Allies to use NATO
assets but do not require the participation of those member states with other
threat perceptions and security interests. In addition, flexibility allows mem-
ber states to participate to different degrees reflecting their capabilities and
their interests in a security issue. An agreement to make an organization more
flexible is likely if all member states expect to need alliance resources and the
co-operation of other member states at some point for their specific security
concerns but do not expect to generate general consensus and participation.8
Co-operation in post-Cold War NATO: varying multilateralism

The final part of the analysis moves from institutional form to international
interaction and asks what accounts for the varying degree of multilateralism
in post-Cold War NATO policies. The policies I analyze belong to the major
post-Cold War decisions of NATO: enlargement and the military interven-
tions and operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Darfur. On the basis of two main indicators – participation and resourcing –
I roughly distinguish between areas of strongly and weakly multilateral co-
operation. First, if only a part of NATO members agree to a NATO decision
or participate in a NATO action, multilateralism in NATO co-operation
qualifies as weak. Conversely, an area of strong multilateralism involves the
consent and participation of the large majority or all NATO member states.
Moreover, strong multilateralism is indicated by a high level of financial and
military commitment to a NATO policy.
Table 8.1 gives an overview of multilateral co-operation in the major
post-Cold War NATO policies. Whereas multilateral co-operation has been
strong overall in NATO’s Eastern enlargement and NATO interventions in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, it has been weak in the Iraq case and
medium weak with regard to military operations in Afghanistan and Darfur.
When the central European governments first expressed their interest in
joining NATO in the course of 1991, they were confronted with general
reticence among the member states. Although NATO was prepared to estab-
lish and expand institutionalized co-operation with the former members of
the Warsaw Pact, the expansion of NATO membership was initially rejected.
In 1993, a few policy entrepreneurs within alliance governments – most
Table 8.1 Multilateralism in post-Cold War NATO co-operation
Policy Participation Resourcing Multilateralism
Eastern enlargement Consensual decision Treaty commitment Strong

Bosnia-Herzegovina Consensual decision, Joint military combat Strong
NATO operation and peacekeeping
operation
Kosovo Consensual decision, Joint military combat Strong
NATO operation and peacekeeping
operation
Afghanistan NATO sidelined by Joint peacekeeping Medium weak
US-led coalition of operation with
the willing, broad comparatively weak
participation in war resources
and ISAF
Iraq Decision blockade, Training of police Weak
partial participation forces
in war
Darfur Consensual decision, Provision of airlift Medium weak
NATO operation in capacities
support of African
Union
notably US National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and German Defense

Minister Volker Rühe – began to advocate the expansion of NATO, against
an overwhelming majority of member governments and even strong oppos-
ition within their own governments. It took until the end of 1994 to make
enlargement official NATO policy. Enlargement requires the consensus of all
member states, and this consensus was reached in 1997 on the first round of
enlargement and in 2002 on the second round (Schimmelfennig 2003: 182–6).
Although Eastern enlargement entailed a rather low risk of actual military
involvement to defend the new members, the treaty-based commitment to
mutual assistance is the strongest commitment that NATO can make. In
addition, NATO enlargement caused immediate costs to the member states:
the adaptation of NATO’s headquarters, staff, and the common infrastructure
as well as support for the upgrading and “interoperability” of military forces
in the new member states (Geipel 1999). In sum, the consensual decision to
expand treaty-based alliance commitments to ten CEECs after initial
reluctance and member state divergence qualifies NATO enlargement as a
significant policy of strongly multilateral co-operation.
The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina broke out in March 1992. Initially, neither
individual member states nor NATO as an organization were prepared and
willing to deny Serbia control of the new state and to protect civilians and
refugees by military force. NATO repeatedly threatened the Serb forces with
air strikes if they attacked UN protected areas and peacekeeping forces, but
it was not before 1994 that the NATO threats became more frequent and
credible. Yet they could not prevent repeated Serb attacks on the civilian
population including kidnappings and killings. In the summer of 1995, how-
ever, after Serb forces overran the protected areas of Srebrenica and Zepa and
killed 37 people in a shelling of the Sarajevo market place, the major NATO
powers (the United States, Britain, and France) overcame their initial policy
differences. As a result, NATO decided to exclude the UN from participating
in NATO military decisions on Bosnia-Herzegovina and initiated its Oper-
ation Deliberate Force. This operation consisted in massive air strikes on Serb
forces on the entire territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which continued until
Serbian commander Ratko Mladic gave in to the NATO ultimatum and
agreed to a ceasefire. In December 1995, the Dayton Peace Accord was signed
and NATO deployed the 60,000-strong Implementation Force (IFOR) to
guarantee the peace and oversee the implementation of the Dayton Accord.
In 1996, and until the end of 2004, IFOR was replaced by SFOR. NATO’s
intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina constituted the first active combat mis-
sion of NATO since its establishment and its first large-scale operational
peacekeeping mission. This indicates a high level of resourcing. In addition,
the level of participation was high. Not only did the United States, Britain
and France agree on a joint military strategy but IFOR and SFOR involved
almost all member states and up to 22 partner countries. In sum, multilateral
co-operation was strong on both accounts.
The analysis of NATO’s involvement in the war in Kosovo comes to a
similar conclusion. In 1989, under the leadership Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia
abolished the autonomous status that the province of Kosovo with its pre-
dominantly ethnic Albanian population had enjoyed since World War II.
After almost ten years of peaceful but unsuccessful resistance against Serbian
oppression, a Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) emerged and initiated an
armed struggle for the independence of Kosovo in 1998. The Serbian Police
and the Yugoslav Army responded with the pillage of Kosovo villages in the
summer of 1998; almost 500,000 ethnic Albanians were expelled from their
homes. Given the policy convergence already achieved on the similar case
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO reacted quickly to the outbreak of violence.
Already in June 1998, the alliance began to study possible military options; in
October, the NAC authorized activation orders for air strikes. Faced with the
threat of NATO bombings, the Serbian leadership accepted a ceasefire and
the deployment of an OSCE peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.
In March 1999, however, after Serbia started a new offensive in Kosovo
and rejected a peace agreement, NATO initiated air strikes against Yugoslavia
(Operation Allied Force) that lasted for 72 days before the Serbian leadership
began to withdraw from Kosovo. Operation Allied Force was the result of a
consensual decision of the NATO allies, run by the Supreme Allied Com-
mand, and politically directed by the NAC. General Wesley Clark, the
Supreme Allied Commander Europe at the time, called it “the first Alliance-
wide air operation of its type.”9 Although the United States provided most of
the military equipment and conducted most of the military operations by far,
other allies contributed according to their capabilities. Despite persistent
political disagreement on the conduct of the air campaign – and heavy
complaints by US officials and militaries on the constraints and inefficiency
of “war-by-committee” – alliance cohesion and the intergovernmental steering
of the military operation in NATO were preserved until the end (Clark, W.
2002). In addition, NATO provided humanitarian assistance to the ethnic
Albanian refugees in Kosovo and the neighboring countries, and led KFOR
(established in June 1999) to monitor and enforce the peace. In KFOR, just
as in IFOR and SFOR, almost all member states and many partner countries
participated. At its full strength, KFOR consisted of approximately 50,000
troops.
In other cases, multilateralism in post-Cold War NATO policy has been
much weaker. Compare the interventions in Afghanistan and Darfur with
those in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The terrorist attacks on New York
and Washington on 11 September 2001 were followed by a strong wave of
solidarity and sympathy for the United States in the transatlantic community.
For the first time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5 of the Treaty, in
effect declaring the attack on the United States an attack on the entire West-
ern alliance. In terms of practical policy convergence, however, the effects
have been much weaker. The war in Afghanistan has not been a NATO-led
but a US-led military operation – in co-operation with a coalition of willing
NATO member countries. Initially, the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) – established to keep the peace in the country after the defeat of
the Taliban regime – was not led by NATO but by individual nations (Britain,
Turkey). In February 2003, however, NATO began to support the joint
Dutch-German command of ISAF – this was, by the way, the first time that
NATO officially provided logistical support to a “coalition of the willing.”
In August 2003, NATO took command of ISAF. All NATO member states
and many partner countries participate in one way or another in ISAF. Yet
compared with the Balkan missions of NATO, the level of resourcing and
commitment is much lower. First, ISAF is not a military combat force. US
combat forces that are still active in Afghanistan remain outside the com-
mand of NATO. Second, in January 2006, ISAF numbered some 9,000
troops – that is around 15 per cent of the size of KFOR in a country about 60
times the size of Kosovo.10 Moreover, efforts to deploy more forces and to do
so in areas outside Kabul needed to be postponed several times because the
Allies were unwilling to increase their commitment to the security of
Afghanistan. In sum, I rate multilateral co-operation in the Afghanistan case
as medium weak.
In the Darfur region of Sudan, a rebellion broke out in 2003, which was
brutally suppressed by the government with the help of the janjaweed, a
mounted Arab militia. The janjaweed burnt villages, uprooted crops, raped
women, and is estimated to have killed almost 200,000 people. Two million
have been displaced. The NATO allies have been united in condemning the
acts of the Sudanese government, imposing trade sanctions, giving aid to the
displaced people, and putting pressure on the Sudanese government to enter
into negotiations with the rebels and to declare a ceasefire in 2004. On request
from the African Union (AU) in April 2005, NATO quickly agreed on a
package of support measures, most importantly the provision of airlift facil-
ities for AU peacekeepers. In a humanitarian crisis similar to Kosovo in 1998
and 1999, NATO members have thus consensually agreed in the NAC on
providing military support. The level of support, however, has remained
restricted to small-scale logistical support despite the fact that AU peacekeep-
ing has failed, the ceasefire has broken down and the killings have resumed at
the end of 2005. The deployment of NATO troops to Darfur is still ruled out.
In the Iraq case, multilateral co-operation among alliance members has
been even weaker. From the beginning, the Bush administration’s case and
plans for war with Iraq divided the NATO allies. In February 2003, the
conflict culminated in probably the most severe crisis in the history of
the transatlantic alliance. First, NATO failed to agree to a formal request by
the US administration for limited support of NATO. Then, Belgium, France,
and Germany blocked advance planning for NATO support of Turkey in the
event of a war with Iraq. In response, Turkey called for consultations accord-
ing to Article 4 of the Treaty. This was the first time in the history of the
alliance that Article 4 had been invoked. After a week-long standoff, the crisis
could only be formally solved by passing the issue from the NAC to the
Defence Planning Committee, on which France does not sit, thereby exclud-
ing France from the decision. In the end, whereas NATO would have been
ready to support Turkey against a possible Iraqi counterattack (which did not
occur), it did not lend support to the “coalition of the willing” that fought the
war side by side with the United States. Moreover, the coalition was much
smaller than in the Afghanistan case. Also in contrast with the Afghanistan
case, NATO has not taken over peacekeeping tasks to assist or replace the
coalition combat troops after the regime of Saddam Hussein had been
defeated. To this day, the opponents of the war reject any official NATO
presence in Iraq. The only minor commitment that NATO was able to make
consensually at the Istanbul summit of June 2004 was the training and
equipment of Iraqi military forces – with some member states providing
training in Europe rather than inside Iraq.
Explaining multilateral co-operation: community values

None of the major post-Cold War NATO decisions was harmonious.
Enlargement met with overwhelming resistance from the member govern-
ments initially. It took NATO three years to agree on a full-scale air campaign
in Bosnia-Herzegovina. NATO was initially sidelined in the case of Afghani-
stan and could not agree in the case of Iraq. Even in the Kosovo case, in
which the general decision to act militarily was quick and rather consensual,
the actual conduct of war caused strains among the allies. After the disap-
pearance of the clear and common Soviet threat, against which NATO had
originally been established, the allies had to negotiate in each case whether
it required a NATO response and was able to generate consensual commit-
ments. The question then is how multilateral co-operation was produced
and why it succeeded in some cases but failed in others. Can we attribute
the variation to the functional explanation that explained the change in
institutional structure best?
Given the high flexibility in NATO’s institutional structure, international
security co-operation cannot be accounted for by strong institutional effects
but must be explained, first, by the need to co-operate to counter a common
threat effectively and, second, by the higher efficiency of international co-
operation as compared to autonomous action. I argue, however, that co-
operation (and its variation) in the post-Cold War period still cannot be
explained in this way. In the case of enlargement, the member states did not
face a military threat or the growing power of an adversary in Europe that
they would need to have balanced by adding new members. Rather, NATO
enjoyed a higher degree of security and relative power than at any time
before. What is more, given their military and economic weakness, the new
central and eastern European members rather diluted than strengthened the
military power and effectiveness of NATO (Schimmelfennig 2003: 40–50).
Similarly, neither Bosnia-Herzegovina nor Kosovo were of any major
strategic, let alone vital, interest to NATO and its member states. After the
end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia had lost its geopolitical relevance. Moreover,
there was no need to intervene in order to prevent or stop negative security
externalities of the civil wars for the NATO members. By sealing off their
borders, NATO countries were able to protect themselves effectively from the
consequences: they were able to keep the refugee problem in manageable
proportions and were neither threatened by nor drawn into the wars by any
of the participants (Hasenclever 2001: 362–80). Thus, in the absence of a
relevant threat, security interdependencies, or strategic gains, why should
the NATO members have co-operated particularly strongly with regard to
enlargement and intervention in the Balkans? At any rate, in the rationalist
perspective, the initial divergence of preferences and absence of co-operation
is much easier to explain than the eventual policy convergence.
Moreover, it is not clear in this perspective why co-operation should have
been weaker in the other cases. At least, Islamist terrorism presented a real
and proven security threat to the member states of NATO. In addition, huge
geopolitical and energy (oil) interests are at stake in Iraq and Sudan. Even if
one argues that the Islamist threat was perceived differently in the United
States and Europe, and that the connection between Islamist terrorism and
the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was highly doubtful, this might
explain the weak co-operation in this case – but not why it was weaker than in
the other cases.
As an alternative to functional reasoning, sociological or constructivist
institutionalism proposes two main links between institutional design and
international co-operation. First, institutional designs may be more or less
conducive to processes of institutional learning and socialization (Checkel
2001b, 2005). This line of explanation, however, is not helpful in accounting
for the variation in post-Cold War NATO co-operation. All decisions analyzed
here were made in the same institutional context (the NAC). In addition, the
time dependency of learning and socialization can be dismissed, too, because
instances of strongly and weakly multilateralist co-operation occurred almost
simultaneously – such as the second round of Eastern enlargement in late
2002 and the Iraq crisis in early 2003.
Second, international organizations institutionalize the fundamental
values and norms that constitute the identity of an international community
(see, e.g., Abbott and Snidal 1998: 24, and Weber 1994: 4–5, 32). They are
established in the treaties and other basic documents of the organization and
regularly invoked in its official discourse. In this view, the more these funda-
mental community values and norms are at stake in a given situation or issue,
and the more a proposed collective decision is in line with them and serves
to uphold and defend them, the more member state policies will converge. In
line with this theoretical argument, co-operation in the alliance will be high if
fundamental human rights and liberal-democratic norms are at stake in the
transatlantic community. This will either be case, negatively, when they are
challenged by grave and systematic human rights violations in the Euro-
Atlantic region (such in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo) or, positively, when
they are reaffirmed, strengthened, and expanded (such as in the democratic
consolidation of central and eastern Europe that preceded the enlargement
of NATO). Either way, the consensual decisions and co-operative actions
were not driven by security threats and interests but by the liberal democratic
and Euro-Atlantic identity of NATO. NATO members felt compelled to
intervene in the civil wars in Yugoslavia insofar as “ethnic cleansing” on the
European continent violated the most basic norms of the community and to
admit new members from central and eastern Europe insofar as they had
embraced liberal democracy and a Western identity.
As the brief case studies have shown, consensus and co-operative action
were not the immediate responses of the NATO member states to either the
CEECs’ bid for membership or the human rights violations on the Balkans.
Initially, the member states were reluctant to offer membership to the CEECs
or to intervene decisively in Bosnia-Herzegovina precisely because strategic
relevance was low and expected costs were high. In both cases, processes
of rhetorical action and shaming produced co-operation in the absence of
egoistic material and political incentives.
In the enlargement case, the central and eastern European governments
and the advocates of enlargement within NATO successfully portrayed the
CEECs as traditional members of the Euro-Atlantic community now “return-
ing to Europe” and to liberal democracy. At the same time, they stressed the
instability of democratic achievements in their region. In addition, they
framed NATO as a democratic community rather than a military alliance,
and enlargement as an issue of democracy promotion and protection rather
than an issue of military necessity or efficiency. On this basis, they argued the
case that NATO’s liberal values and norms obliged the member states to
stabilize democracy in the CEECs and, for that purpose, to grant them mem-
bership in NATO (Schimmelfennig 2003: 230–5). Based on the fundamental
identity of the transatlantic community, this framing and justification made it
difficult for the opponents to openly oppose enlargement without putting
into question their commitment to the community values and norms. It also
gave the proponents of enlargement considerable normative leverage in putt-
ing this policy on the agenda and work towards its implementation. Thus
rhetorically entrapped, the skeptical majority of member states acquiesced in
the increasingly concrete planning for NATO enlargement and did not block
the enlargement decisions – even though they remained unconvinced of their
utility (Schimmelfennig 2003: 242–50).11
In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the allies shied away from the risks and
costs of an intervention for a long time and could not agree on a common
strategy to help. In the summer of 1995, however, it had become clear that
low-risk and low-commitment strategies such as humanitarian assistance,
peacekeeping, diplomatic mediation efforts, and momentary threats or uses
of force were not sufficient to stop the human rights violations and end the
plight of the population. In particular, when Serbian forces overran the UN
protected areas of Srebrenica and Zepa and killed some 7,000 people who
had trusted the UN’s and NATO’s safety guarantee – while Dutch peace-
keeping forces stood by helplessly – Western governments came under strong
public criticism and moral pressure to act (Hasenclever 2001: 407–19).12
In contrast, the Middle East cases were not only “out of area” but also
outside the Euro-Atlantic region to which the identity of NATO applied. Yet
the intervention in Afghanistan could be justified as a legitimate act of self-
defense against a terrorist organization that not only rejected the funda-
mental values and norms of the West but also was determined to use violence
against NATO member states. This explains the strong show of alliance soli-
darity after 9/11 and the general readiness of NATO members to join the
United States in fighting al-Qaeda and stabilizing Afghanistan. That the war
in Afghanistan was not fought under NATO command did not result from a
lack of consensus in NATO but from a deliberate choice of the Bush
administration to prevent intergovernmental political constraints in the con-
duct of war. In contrast, the Iraq war failed to generate consensus and policy
convergence in NATO because it lacked legitimacy. It was outside the com-
munity region, not an act of self-defense and initially not primarily motivated
by the defense of community values (although it was later increasingly justi-
fied as a war to end tyranny and establish democracy in the Middle East). In
the Darfur case, whereas the uncontested perception of the situation as a
grave violation of fundamental human rights generated consensual support,
the location of the crisis outside the community area prevented this support
from going beyond low-level assistance to the regional organization in charge,
the AU.
In sum, alliance co-operation varies with the degree to which a security
issue was relevant to the identity of the Euro-Atlantic liberal community.
Participation is high when NATO action responds to clear and undisputed
violations of the Western community’s fundamental values, but high partici-
pation is only accompanied by high resources when this violation takes place
in the transatlantic community region (see Table 8.2). Which alternative
explanations could be brought up to challenge the identity-based explanation
of multilateral co-operation in NATO? I distinguish between capabilities,
hegemony, and partisan alternative explanations and argue that none of them
accounts plausibly for the variation in co-operation.
According to the first alternative explanation, the divergence in capabilities
is at the core of the co-operation problem in NATO (see, e.g., Kagan 2003).
In this view, most European allies lack airlift capacities and globally deploy-
able, usable military forces. Therefore, NATO co-operation becomes increas-
ingly inefficient and useless as the most important security problems move
away from the European region. Thus, NATO multilateralism was strong in
the European conflicts where the allies’ military capabilities were marginally
useful in supporting the US armed forces and, above all, in providing peace-
keeping forces. By contrast, in the Middle Eastern wars, the capabilities of the
allies were too limited for NATO involvement to be useful (with the exception
of some allied forces like the British, post-war peacekeeping in Afghanistan,
or some EU airlift capacities in Darfur).
Whereas the description of the gap in capabilities is correct, it does not
convincingly account for the variation in co-operation. Most importantly, the
decisions for or against NATO involvement and individual participation
were political, not military decisions. Whereas the decision for NATO-led air
strikes in Bosnia-Herzegovina was made consensually, the actual combat
involved only a few NATO member states. In the Iraq crisis, it was the US
administration that asked for NATO support of the war and preparations for
a possible defense of Turkey (in spite of the partners’ limited military capabil-
ities). These requests were not rejected because they would have been beyond
NATO’s capabilities (France would have been able to contribute effectively
to the intervention), but because they were contested. Moreover, the Bush
administration was highly interested, for reasons of legitimacy, in enlisting as
many countries as possible in the coalition, including many that made no or
Table 8.2 Community and multilateralism in post-Cold War NATO co-operation
Inside community area Outside community area
High legitimacy High participation and resourcing High participation, low

(Eastern enlargement, Bosnia, resourcing (Afghanistan,
Kosovo) Darfur)
Low legitimacy – Low participation and
resourcing (Iraq)
only minor contributions to the actual warfare. In other words, co-operation
in NATO is about coalitions of the willing, not coalitions of the capable.
According to the second alternative explanation, it was American hege-
mony and leadership in NATO rather than value commitments that led to
co-operation. Indeed, all cases of high policy convergence are cases of strong
and essential US leadership. The US administration was the main driving
force behind the air campaigns in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, and
without the US military, the interventions would just not have been possible
militarily. The US administration was also the main driving force of NATO
enlargement. NATO’s main decisions on PfP, the Study on Enlargement, the
setting of a date for enlargement, and the selection of new members mirrored
US preferences and were predetermined by US domestic decisions (Goldgeier
1999). Nevertheless I argue that it was not the bargaining power of US
hegemony but the normative power of US moral entrepreneurship that pro-
duced co-operation. First, whereas there is abundant evidence of US use of
arguments based on the identity, values, and norms of the Euro-Atlantic
community, explicit bargaining was conspicuously absent from the process.
There is no evidence – either in newspaper reports or in interviews – of US
material threats to the reluctant European allies in the case that they vetoed
enlargement. Moreover, US leadership is only successful when it is in line
with and legitimated by the fundamental community values. Consequently,
it was not sufficient to produce multilateral co-operation when this legitimacy
was absent or weak – as in the Iraq crisis. Thus, whereas US leadership
may well have been a necessary condition of multilateral co-operation in
the cases analyzed here, it was sufficient only in conjunction with value and
norm conformance. What is more, when it was successful, US leadership did
not need to use bargaining and coercion but consisted mainly in moral
entrepreneurship.
Third, it seems at first glance that whereas the cases of strong multilateral
co-operation occurred during the Clinton administration, those of weak
co-operation fall into the “unilateralist” Bush administration. Yet the second
round of NATO enlargement was launched mainly by the Bush administra-
tion and consensually approved at the end of 2002 when the Iraq crisis was
already looming. In the constructivist perspective, it was approved precisely
because the Bush administration argued the case for enlargement on very
much the same identity-based grounds as the Clinton administration
(Schimmelfennig 2003: 255–60).
Conclusion
In the post-Cold War era, NATO has become more flexible. This change in
institutional design can be explained plausibly as a functional response to the
disappearance of the common and certain Soviet threat and its replacement
with a diversity of less common and clear security issues and with uncertainty
about the new security environment in the East. At the same time, however,
the more flexible institutional design of post-Cold War NATO, which allows
for varying degrees and constellations of co-operation among NATO mem-
bers, is indeterminate with regard to actual international co-operation. It
does not tell us why and how member state policies sometimes converge
toward multilateral co-operation and sometimes do not. I have argued in this
chapter that, in the absence of a common and clearly identifiable threat to
their security, the member states of NATO are mainly held together – and
bound to act together – by their common liberal democratic identity and the
shared liberal values and norms of the transatlantic community of all mem-
ber states. Whenever this identity was at stake, member states eventually felt
compelled to co-operate, even in the absence of a threat to their own security.
Notes
I thank participants in the Delphi workshop for useful comments on the first draft of
this chapter.
1 See NATO Handbook at www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb1204.htm.

2 See NATO Handbook at http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb1204.htm
(accessed 26 January 2006).
3 On alliance dilemmas in general, see G.H. Snyder (1984). For conflicting views on
the effectiveness of extended deterrence, see Huth (1988); Lebow and Stein (1990).
4 “The Alliances’s Strategic Concept agreed by the Heads of State and Government
participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council,” Rome, 8 November
1991, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b911108a.htm (accessed 26
January 2006).
5 “Study on NATO Enlargement” at paragraph 10, available at http://www.nato.int/
docu/basictxt/enl-9501.htm (accessed 26 January 2006).
6 The most prominent statement of these differences is Kagan (2003).
7 This is different from free-riding insofar as collective action is not in the common
interest.
8 To be sure, this explanation is plausible but underdetermined: flexibility is not
the only rational response to problems of deadlock. For a discussion of other
solutions, see, e.g., Héritier (1999: 15–27).
9 See http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990325a.htm (accessed 30 January 2006).
10 See “NATO in Afghanistan” online at http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/
index.html (accessed 30 January 2006).
11 On the mechanism of social influence that is central here, see Johnston (2001).
12 In addition, it must be said that the military situation on the ground had improved
due to the Croatian offensive in the west of Bosnia and the pullout of peacekeep-
ing forces. As a result, the risks had decreased with the increase of moral pressure.
9 Persuasion and norm
promotion
International institutions in the
western Balkans
Geoffrey Edwards and Mladen Tošić
What we are talking about here are values and standards, values and stand-
ards which underpin the European Union, and which Bosnia and Herzegovina
must honour if it wishes to move forward in its relations with the EU.
(Ashdown: 2004b)
Introduction
The extent to which international institutions bring about change in the
domestic systems of states has long been a matter of inquiry. The academic
literature has burgeoned since the end of the Cold War to match and even
overtake the examples of multilateral involvement and intervention. It has
ranged from the general to the particular, with the role of the EU a frequent
focus of study (see for example the issue of International Organization, Fall
2005). Yet while there is widespread agreement that institutions such as the
EU can and do play a role, the weight and importance to be attached to them
varies. On the one hand, much, inevitably, depends on the international con-
text itself as well as the nature of the international institution. On the other
hand, central, too, are the circumstances of the target state – whether it is
failing, frail, rogue-ish, or post-conflict – and the obduracy or responsiveness
of its authorities, the strength and capacities of its domestic institutions, its
economy, its geo-strategic position and its conceptions of itself. Moreover,
the debate has taken place at a variety of different levels, pitching, for
example, positivists against constructivists. Whereas the former might focus
on the strategic assessment of costs and benefits and whether incentives out-
weigh the costs of standing out or defecting, the latter have explored less
tangible issues such as identities, norms and cultural practices. There have
also been further divisions between enforcement theorists and management
theorists, the former focusing more on coercive strategies undertaken by the
international institution, the latter on social learning and capacity building
(Tallberg 2002). For their part, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) have pointed
to the diverse roles of norm entrepreneurs in bringing about change – not
least in holding actors responsible for their violations.
Persuasion and norm promotion in the Balkans 203
This chapter, taking its lead from the quotation from Paddy Ashdown
above, focuses more on norms and on the ability of international institutions
to bring about changes in the values and standards of the political actors in
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).1 This is because the preoccupations in the
Office of the High Representative (OHR) and generally in the EU–BiH rela-
tionship so intimately concern normative structures relating to the rule of
law, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms. They touch so
closely on issues of identity that they both construct and circumscribe the
behavior of the various parties and groups in BiH. They also, as Wiener and
others have argued, relate closely with the institutional context since strate-
gies and the policies they give rise to are inevitably constructed within such
frameworks (Wiener 2004).
In the case of BiH, the institutional framework is particularly complicated
because it involves both the basic constitutional structure as well as the inter-
related legal and economic elements laid out in Dayton in 1995, together with
an overarching framing of the issues through the prospect of EU member-
ship, institutionalized since November 2005 in the negotiations of the Stabil-
ization and Association Agreement (SAA) but in prospect since 1999. To
reach the goal of EU accession, BiH is being called on to go through a double
transition: firstly, to overcome the legacy of Tito, that is, the legacy of a
socialist self-management economy and a single party political system; and,
secondly, to vanquish the horrors of war that have dispersed populations
through ethnic cleansing and massive population upheaval, deepened the
already formalized corruption that existed at all levels of society, and left
political power in the hands of nationalist parties seemingly determined to
continue the war by political means. This, especially in the case of those in the
Republika Srpska (RS), has led to a fierce insistence on maintaining the
constitutional position laid down in the Dayton Agreement of 1995. Even if
the transition from Titoism to economic liberalism can be comparable, war
and its consequences put BiH in a very different position in their develop-
ment from the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEECs), different as
they were from each other (see, for example, Pridham et al. 1997; Henderson
1999; Zielonka and Pravda 2001; Vachudova 2003). The CEECs have not
only avoided the experience of war and ethnic cleansing, but they have not
had a military presence – whether in the form of the Peace Implementation
Force (IFOR), the Stabilization Force (SFOR), both led by NATO, or finally
EUFOR, led by the EU – to ensure the implementation and continuation
of the peace, or a representative of the international community with such
powers as those of the Office of High Representative.
Nonetheless, despite these vital differences, the EU’s enlargement to take in
the CEECs has been of critical relevance to BiH and the western Balkans for
two reasons. Firstly, the success in bringing the CEECs into the EU on the
basis of the so-called “Copenhagen criteria” of 19932 inspired member states,
as Noutcheva put it, “to replicate the model in a region that has been a
security concern for the EU for over a decade. The recipe worked once, it was
204 Geoffrey Edwards and Mladen Tošić
believed it would work a second time” (Noutcheva 2004: 1). This was despite
the fact that in the CEECs, as Batt has noted, “the phases of stabilization,
transition and integration indeed overlapped, they did basically follow one
another. In the western Balkans, EU integration is a condition of stabiliza-
tion, rather than the other way round” (Batt 2004: 19). Insofar as it suggests
that all the elements need to be pursued simultaneously, it inevitably creates
confusion between Dayton-derived and integration-inspired reform which
has been difficult to accept. Secondly, the EU’s role has to be put in the whole
context of the Union’s past relations with the Balkans. The failure of the EU
to prevent or to resolve the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, especially in
BiH and later in Kosovo, has meant that the EU has now every incentive to
prove itself to be a credible foreign policy actor, able to play an active and
constructive role in establishing and maintaining peace and stability in
Europe – to the extent of using all available foreign and external policy
instruments, with membership as the ultimate prospect.
The Copenhagen criteria call not only for the adoption of democratic
norms and a liberal economy but also for the administrative capacity actually
to implement the acquis communautaire. The criteria may have gradually
gained substance with the enlargement to the CEECs but they leave, nonethe-
less, a great deal open for interpretation by the European Commission and
the member states at a point when there have been expressions of “enlarge-
ment fatigue” if not skepticism about further enlargement as an intermediate
necessity. Moreover, the extent to which governments, parties and people in
BiH are already clear as to what such a remote goal might mean also remains
an open question. Nonetheless, while raising questions of consistency and
co-ordination, among others, the “return to Europe” and future membership
have been policy goals pursued with determination and ingenuity by both the
OHR and the EU, especially in the shape of the European Commission. They
have therefore constituted powerful norm entrepreneurs even if not quite in
the same way as the non-governmental issue, policy or advocacy networks
suggested by, say, Keck and Sikkink (1998). They have, nonetheless, been a
vital factor in seeking to mobilize change both through their own actions and
by attempting to co-ordinate those of others.
This chapter unfolds in three sections, beginning with an examination of
the role of international institutions as norm entrepreneurs and their ability
to persuade domestic actors. The second section assesses the contextual
framework in which these find themselves in BiH, while the third focuses on
the role of the two most prominent international institutions active in BiH,
the OHR and the EU, and the impact of the prospect of EU membership.
The conclusion points to the dilemma facing international institutions seek-
ing to bring about changes in the values and standards of political actors
derived from the experience in BiH.
Entrepreneurs and powers of persuasion
Different paradigms inevitably evoke different approaches to their role. The
key issues here are the processes by which the institutions have brought about
the transformation that has so far occurred, the “transformative dynamics”
as Checkel has termed them (2005). Much of the literature, whether positivist
or constructivist, has focused on conditionality – constructivists thereby earn-
ing the criticism of Payne for using such material incentives and levers (Payne
2001: 41). But for conditionality to work effectively, the overall objectives and
goals have to be clear and acceptable to those targeted and the incentives have
to be regarded as credible and valuable, in both the longer and shorter term,
not just at governmental level but also more widely among the people. In
addition, they have to be seen as being consistently applied both over time
within the targeted state and when compared to others. As Schimmelfennig
put it, “if international organizations were perceived to subordinate con-
ditionality to other political, strategic or economic considerations, the target
state might either hope to receive the benefits without fulfilling the conditions
or conclude that it will not receive the rewards in any case” (Schimmelfennig
2005: 5). In the BiH case – as in other instances – not only have there been
questions raised about the consistency of EU policies, but there have been
doubts as to the credibility of eventual membership and whether all member
states are actually committed to western Balkan accession, which inevitably
have had an impact on the situation in BiH.
In such conditions of uncertainty, persuasion through the provision or
denial of rewards becomes a particularly sensitive issue. Much depends on
considerations such as “the depth of cooperation,” when the key condition
is that the “shadow of the future is long enough that states have to care
sufficiently about future payoffs” (Fearon 1998: 270). Or, from a less game-
theoretic perspective, the question of the “goodness of fit” has relevance
whereby “the lower the compatibility between European and domestic pro-
cesses, policies, and institutions, the higher the adaptational pressure” (Börzel
and Risse 2000: 5, emphasis in original). When domestic and European
“norms, rules, and the collective understandings attached to them are largely
compatible,” the pressures are less and compliance and implementation less
contested. Both approaches assume states are not ultimately opposed to
change. In the BiH case, however, some elements have most certainly been
against basic change and participate in the process only with the greatest
reluctance and in the absence of alternatives. Others have been against par-
ticular policies and norms of behavior.
There has thus been a cycle from which it has proved extremely difficult to
break: the greater the pressures for change, the more reluctance has been
displayed in embracing it; that has then engendered the greater need for
enforcement mechanisms, which in turn has often inhibited policy compli-
ance and acceptance of the desired norms. In the absence of agreement on
reforms, the HR has had recourse to more coercive measures. The failure to
comply actively with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia at the Hague (ICTY), for example, as well as continued resistance
to policing and defense reforms which had led NATO to reject BiH’s applica-
tion for a Partnership for Peace agreement (PfP), caused the HR to dismiss
some 60 party officials and police from their offices in June 2004, including
the President of the Serb Democrat Party (SDS) and the Chairman of the RS
National Assembly.3 Nationalist parties resistant to change and hostile to
incursions into areas of control have, therefore, been able to exploit such
actions with their electorates to reinforce opposition to further change.
Such a spiral of coercive activity, of intervention and sanction in BiH, has
been largely tied up in the role of the High Representative and his office
(OHR) – with which the EU in its various guises are linked if separate. But
implementing Dayton which reflected above all a “logic of consequentialism,”
while promoting European norms that are a part of “logics of appropriate-
ness” (March and Olsen 2004) in the face of continued resistance, there has
been inevitable tension. It has meant behavior by the HR that has often been
“explicitly inappropriate” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 897). That raises
not only questions about norms and practices but also the likely effectiveness
of persuading or inducing local actors to accept different, democratic, lib-
eral norms when the entrepreneurs may have international support but their
actions allow for little sense of any local accountability.
What therefore remain important, even for constructivists, are the incentives
and a rational assessment of future benefits set against sanctions through
imposed conditionality (see, for example, Schimmelfennig and Seidelmeier
2004: 664). The problem for the HR and the EU has been the creation of
incentive structures that would encourage such socialization. On the one
hand, as Caplan has argued, while outside experts can “encourage ‘owner-
ship’ of ‘best policies’ through persuasion”, the degree of ownership likely to
be achieved will be “much greater if those who must carry out the policies are
actively involved in the process of shaping and adapting, if not reinventing
these policies in the country itself” (Caplan 2005: 472). It is when, how-
ever, local actors reject ownership, and measures have been imposed, that a
“dependency syndrome” builds up. As one former HR put it, “every piece of
legislation that I impose with my authority as the High Representative, gives
politicians in BiH a perfect excuse not to do their job properly” (Petritsch
1999). It may mean that, if the measures are then implemented (which does not
necessarily follow), local actors are perforce acting in ways that raise ques-
tions about the level or genuineness of any socialization that the institutions
might have been hoping for.
The alternative – and key to the EU’s approach – has been the emphasis on
rewards (especially long-term rewards) if criteria are met. It may be that, as
Joseph Stiglitz has declared, “good policies cannot be bought” (quoted in
Checkel 2000: 3), but such conditionality remains the favored policy of most
international institutions, including the EU. Since all Bosnian actors have
signed up to the idea of eventual EU membership, at least in principle, and
despite the confusion of Dayton and EU criteria, it is not surprising that
there has been frustration on the institutions’ part when the Bosnians do
not accept EU-generated rules and processes and seem almost to prefer the
tougher tactics of persuasion used by the HR.
The confusion of EU and HR criteria raises the possibility that it is less the
deliberate refusal of actors to comply than their inability to do so. Tallberg in
his 2002 article looks back to theorists such as Oran Young (1992) or Chayes
and Chayes (1993) who saw a general propensity to comply (whether through
considerations of efficiency, interests or norms) countered or undermined by
factors such as the ambiguity of the rules, their lack of transparency which
made them difficult to monitor, and the limited capacity to implement them.
These, Young described as factors endogenous to the institutional arrange-
ments themselves (as opposed, that is, to exogenous or contextual factors)
(Young 1992: 176). In such circumstances, coercive action might be mis-
guided since the emphasis might be better placed on management-orientated
measures such as economic and administrative aid and training, with, for
Young, considerable importance attached to the institutional design and the
arrangements laid out. In the BiH case, it may not only be the political and
economic consequences of war that have inhibited political and administrative
capacity, but also popular opposition to change.
A rather different dimension to institutional design and capacity building
to consider, emphasized by constructivists, is the importance of social learn-
ing in bringing about compliance. Social learning, whether by persuasion,
argumentation, monitoring and ultimately exposing those who resist the pro-
cess, emphasizes both the rules by which bargaining should take place and the
alternative outcomes possible, including their costs and consequences. It pre-
supposes a degree of acceptance of the parameters of the possible outcomes.
But while socialization and even a growing element of Europeanization may
be brought about by continuous interaction of the parties involved, it does
not necessarily imply more than a strategic calculation of advantage and
benefits. The ideas and norms being circulated may resonate with the target
audience, but not always in the sense of them becoming more than a part
of the political intercourse. That may give them a credibility and an ele-
ment of legitimacy; it may not guarantee any permanent switch of logic or
internalization.
The problem in such approaches is, of course, when non-compliance is
actually the preference – even if that may be complicated by a lack of cap-
acity. It is here that Tallberg sees the need for both enforcement and manage-
ment measures to build capacity, to monitor compliance in order to enhance
transparency and expose violations, and to ensure that the legal system can
deal with the violators. Transparency also at least invites accountability to a
wider audience, both domestic as well as international. At the intra-state
level, it allows the various actors to see whether practice and implementation
match agreement; at the international level it also encourages greater co-
ordination of effort (Tallberg 2002: 612–13). In the tangled web of the BiH,
however, issues of ownership of the reform process are entwined with com-
peting legal systems and principles. Issues of accountability have, too, become
blurred given the number of international institutions (the OHR, the EU, the
Council of Europe and the OSCE) that are responsible for, or involved in, not
just reconstruction but state and democracy building.
Contextual framework
The intimate and complex inter-relationship between the conditions laid
down for EU membership and the Dayton Agreement have been of funda-
mental importance in the BiH’s history since the late 1990s. Dayton, after all,
set out the constitutional structure for BiH. Opinion as to the compatibility
of that structure with continued stability as well as possible membership of
the EU has been divided. Cox, for example, has pointed out that there has
been “the tendency of peace negotiations to produce highly decentralized
constitutional structures, which provide a poor foundation for a state” (Cox
2001: 6). On the other hand, Bose in 2005 argued that “the notion that a
(con)federal, consociational structure of government is an inherent obstacle
to Bosnia’s journey to Europe . . . is sadly misguided” (Bose 2005: 329). The
problem was well expressed by the former President of the RS and of BiH’s
tripartite presidency, Mirko Šarović, who declared in 2003:
Let’s not play games with each other. We had a war here. We wanted to
secede and join with Serbia, while people in the Federation wanted an
independent Bosnia. We got peace in Dayton that we all accepted. Now,
we are not going to give up any bit of our sovereignty that we got at
Dayton.
(International Crisis Group 2003: 21)
And yet, while not seeking to revise Dayton as such, both the HR and the
EU have sought to change key powers or competences in the interests of an
effective and efficient BiH.
Uncertainty and confusion as to how far such reforms might go in under-
mining key constitutional and institutional norms and the role of the entities
has been at the heart of the opposition. Ahmet Hadžipašić, the Federation
Prime Minister, remarked on the inevitability of further centralization of BiH
governance, because
when you make new police regions, you will have to make the same
regions for the judiciary. So, once you have made this rationalization in
the area of finance, security, and the judiciary, then what is left for us as
the entities? We can clean parks and that’s about it.4
For its part, the RS position was summed up by Mladen Ivanić when he
commented that there needed to be a dual-track process, one that kept a
decentralised structure “since this is the reflection of reality in BiH.” But he
recognised, too that “the institutions of BiH must have the authority to fulfil
European conditions.” The question for him, therefore, was “not a choice
between the state or the entities, but to have the state and the entities . . . A
balance can be found, such as it exists in every federal state.”5
It not simply a question of constitutional structures, therefore, but also
a matter of the practices to which they give rise and which embed them
further. Nearly four years of war had concentrated wealth and power struc-
tures within the military and political elites in each of the ethnic groupings
with the result that there were strong vested interests that were opposed to a
strong functioning state, whether decentralized or not. Democratic control
and economic liberalization have simply not been in the interests of many
of the hard-line nationalist parties and/or those determined to perpetuate
a vicious cycle of corruption. Pugh, for example, while seeking to explain
how the criminal and shadow economy flourished in Milošević’s Yugoslavia
and its successor states saw it as a way of enabling people to cope – which
was not to excuse “the ruthless, predatory and socially destabilizing role of
mafia-networks, or the political grip of rent-seeking, patron-client ties, or
nepotism among newly enriched war elites.” But, he went on, “such networks
and elites retain their power partly because of the services they perform for
their followers and dependants” (Pugh 2004: 54).
Control of socially-owned assets provided revenues for nationalist parties
and those dependent on them. But the situation was made worse by the,
certainly unintended, consequences of the privatization policies urged on BiH
by the international community, which reinforced the position of the former
war elites, and allowed them to extend their networks beyond their political
protectors to those responsible for tackling crime. As Hadžipašić expressed it:
The people who led the war had status that they wanted to transfer into
capital. In order to hold onto this capital they then had to hold onto
political power after the war and so we still have local sheriffs who are
dominant in politics. Transition is the perfect opportunity for all this.
In any system it would be a difficult task. But, during transition it is
possible to make and break laws. According to these people the process
of transition needs to be as long as possible.6
Bureaucracies swollen, even while underpaid, by corrupt networks did not or

could not collect taxes; poor services undermined the state and reinforced the
need for continuing the services performed by corrupt networks. The vicious
circle was made worse by a weak judiciary that could not enforce the law and
contracts, thereby making any incoming investment an unattractive prop-
osition. The very institutional incapacity of the state became, as Cox put it“a
major obstacle to the peace process in its own right, fostering the conditions
of economic and social instability which make a return to open conflict more
likely” (Cox 2001: 10).
There was therefore both an unwillingness and a lack of ability to respond
to the challenges of post-war reconstruction and transition to an open eco-
nomy. The international institutions, particularly the OHR and the EU, were
thereby able to exercise only limited leverage to bring about voluntary com-
pliance, despite Bosnia’s still heavy dependence on external support. But it
was no surprise that the EU qua Commission in its Report on the prepared-
ness of BiH to negotiate an SAA pointed to the pressing need for more
effective governance, a more effective public administration, and an effective
judiciary among its 16 points – as well as an independent public broadcasting
system (European Commission 2003).
However, foremost among the EU’s requirements was compliance with
international obligations and especially full co-operation with the ICTY in
bringing indicted war criminals before the tribunal. It was a demand that the
international community in its various formations had made many times
before. Awareness that one of the most wanted war-crime indictees, Ratko
Mladić, had remained on the RS pay roll until 2002, suggested more than a
lack of commitment on the part of the RS to meeting its obligations. As the
chief prosecutor at ICTY, Carla del Ponte, remarked, “I believe there are
fundamental systemic weaknesses built into the law enforcement and security
structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in particular the Republika
Srpska . . . The Ministries of Defence and of the Interior of Republika
Srpska cannot, by any reasonable standards, be judged to have helped in this
regard” (International Crisis Group 2005: 2–3). The EU 2003 Feasibility
Study was therefore tied closely not simply to capacity building but also to
Bosnian compliance with its international obligations and the conditions
already laid down.
Complexity and co-ordination

The transmission of norms to BiH has been made even more difficult by two
factors: the complexity of the issues that interconnected the not always easily
reconcilable processes derived from Dayton and from European integration,
and the multiplicity of norm entrepreneurs. The result has been manifold
problems of co-ordination. As one senior EU official admitted,
The multiplicity of projects and activities, which are complemented by

bilateral measures by individual EU member states, cannot hide the fact
that the overall record in this field is not altogether encouraging. Not
only is there a distinct deficit in co-ordination among the various actors
in this field but the resources and the manpower deployed are so far
no match for the well-financed and smooth international and interethnic
co-operation of criminal networks.
(Lehne 2004: 118)
Whether a display of rhetoric or not, it was interesting that Ashdown, in

reporting that his dismissal of 60 officials was co-ordinated with other meas-
ures taken by the United States and EU, declared that “for the first time since
Dayton we have initiated a concerted approach to hit those who support war
criminals” (Ashdown 2003).
The problem was therefore of long standing and Ashdown accepted that
the OHR’s relationship with other agencies had not always been easy, espe-
cially since each agency had different reporting lines (as, indeed, did he, to the
Peace Implementation Council (PIC), to the UN and to the EU). What he
had sought to do, by chairing weekly meetings of the principal organizations
present in BiH (including SFOR, UNHCR, OSCE, EU, World Bank, and
IMF), was to improve co-ordination and as a result raise the quality of work
of the international community in BiH (Ashdown 2003). As Solana (to whom
Ashdown himself reported, insofar as he was the EU’s Special Representative)
declared on the tenth anniversary of Dayton:
a clear lesson from the Balkan dramas is that when the EU, the United
States and NATO are united and work together, we can achieve great
results . . . The opposite, as the war itself illustrated all too clearly, is also
true. Linked to this point that we Europeans have to be willing and able
to act ourselves to tackle security situations where we feel more strongly
or differently than the United States does.
(Solana 2005)
Even if there was an element of special pleading involved, especially on the

last point, the fact remains that the EU and the United States have not always
seen wholly eye to eye on BiH and that has had its impact on elites in BiH and
the way in which the OHR and the EU have pursued their policies.
The external actors involved in BiH have inevitably had wider, other con-
cerns. The United States, for example, having prevaricated about its involve-
ment when the Europeans had failed to keep the peace in the early 1990s, and
again as the crisis broke over Kosovo, had expected that stabilization and
reconstruction in BiH would have been achieved in a limited timeframe
(Altmann and Whitlock 2004). As the process moved much more slowly than
anticipated, it was also overtaken by the events of 9/11, the invasion of
Afghanistan and later of Iraq. It then became increasingly difficult for the
United States to justify any major presence in Bosnia. At the same time, it
wished to retain an influence in the Balkans and has, indeed, taken the lead on
several reform processes in BiH, as on defense and on constitutional reform.
But there have been differences of significance between the United States
and the EU both towards the Balkans and BiH: Altmann and Whitlock,
for example, cite differences over Kosovo with the US more in favor of
rapid recognition and the EU concerned about the knock-on effects on BiH
(Altmann and Whitlock 2004); Matthiesen cites differences over the United
States linking support to countries’ non-co-operation with the International
Criminal Court in the Hague, even while holding to the policy of co-operation
with ICTY (Matthiesen 2004: 17). And it is clear that many in the BiH,
especially in the Federation, have looked to the United States for support.
This has broadened in the face of the growing prevarication among some EU
member states on future accession. As Reljić has remarked, governments
increasingly recognized that “by cozying up the United States, they implicitly
put pressure on the EU, discouraging Brussels from dropping the Balkan
expansion plans.” And as he points out, they have the example of successful
US pressure on the EU over Turkey’s application for membership (Reljić
2005).7 There are therefore tensions even if US policy has shown signs of move-
ment in that, according to one National Security Council official in March
2002, they were now no longer so much pressing them to implement Dayton
as asking them “how they are doing in preparing for a Stabilization and
Association Agreement with the EU” (quoted by Vachudova 2003: 158–9).
The EU and the OHR as norm entrepreneurs

A systematic approach to building up the Bosnian state had been adopted by
the international community, especially through the PIC, in May 2000. The
aim was to work through the OHR to build up core institutions, supported by
an effective and merit-based civil service, and to remove obstacles to eco-
nomic reform – responsibility for the slow pace of domestic implementation
being laid “squarely with obstructionist political parties and their allies, both
within and outside of BiH” (PIC 2000: 1). That meeting of PIC reaffirmed
the go-ahead for the OHR to use to the full the so-called Bonn powers, from
the 1997 PIC. Originally, under Dayton, the OHR’s purpose had been to
facilitate indigenous BiH efforts to implement the agreement. There was
growing frustration with the nationalist parties, who were held responsible for
the lack of progress, together with endemic corruption, “bureaucratic scle-
rosis, widespread cynicism among the general public, lost opportunities and
wasted international resources on a massive scale” (Ashdown 2003).
The Bonn powers were understood to allow “an unlimited authority to
impose laws at any constitutional level, and to dismiss elected representatives,
political party officials and public officials” (Cox 2001: 13). By the end of
2000, some 100 laws and binding decisions had been imposed and 57 officials
had been dismissed (Cox 2001). Hence the PIC had concluded that any
achievements had been the result of international rather than domestic
efforts. Paddy Ashdown continued this interventionist policy based on his
Mission Implementation Plan (agreed by the PIC in January 2003) with its six
core tasks: entrenching the rule of law; ensuring that the peace implementa-
tion could not be reversed by extreme nationalists; reforming the economy;
strengthening the capacity of institutions, especially at state level; establishing
state-level civilian command and control over armed forces, reforming the
policing and security sector, and paving the way for Euro-Atlantic integra-
tion; and promoting the sustainable return of refugees and displaced persons
(International Crisis Group 2003).
Clearly, as the HR and others recognized, such intervention created a
dilemma. On the one hand, it enabled him to push even harder against those
blocking reforms. As one Council of Europe Assembly Report suggested,
“the scope of the OHR is such that, to all intents and purposes, it constitutes
the supreme institution vested with power in Bosnia and Herzegovina”
(quoted by Caplan 2005: 467). But the Assembly in another report also
regretted “that much of the progress achieved in the last two years was a
result of the constant pressure by the international community, and in parti-
cular the High Representative.” It went on to recall that a key objective of
BiH’s membership in the Council of Europe was to promote domestic owner-
ship and responsibility for reform, adding that “before the responsibilities for
running the state are completely transferred to the domestic authorities, the
country’s leadership will however have to demonstrate a higher degree of
political maturity and improve mutual readiness for dialogue and consensus
(Council of Europe 2004). Ashdown himself was well aware of the problem,
declaring in 2003:
I have sought to be as sparing as possible in my use of the power to

dismiss elected officials. This had come to be seen as an immediate and
effective sanction in the absence of efficient courts and against the back-
drop of an inadequate system of parliamentary or popular account-
ability. Yet each dismissal by the High Representative, it could be argued,
diminishes the impetus to set in place the kinds of structures of account-
ability whose absence makes these dismissals necessary. By solving the
problems by fiat we remove the incentive for BiH to set in place its own
mechanisms for solving the problems.
(Ashdown 2003)
The problem was how to extricate himself and his office from the ensuing
dilemma when “ownership” of the political process of “normalization” and
“Europeanization” had clearly not passed to the BiH, whose elites remained
largely obdurate in the face of the OHR’s activities. That opposition and
obduracy, whether determined by vested interests or because political leaders
preferred not to compromise their position with their electorates, meant that
ideas of partnership for further development within a European framework
were continuously being found wanting.
Yet it has been a key assumption of the international institutions that the
prospect of EU membership could be the critical driver for reform in BiH and
elsewhere in the Balkans. What Paddy Ashdown declared he was pursuing as
HR was not “an exit strategy, but rather an entry strategy for BiH into broader
European structures, with EU membership as the ultimate goal” (Ashdown
2003). Ashdown’s own appointment as the EU’s Special Representative was
an indication of the EU’s commitment. It was of particular importance given
the problems of moving from the emphasis on reconstruction in BiH to state-
building and in the aftermath of Kosovo, that the rationalization of EU
policy towards the Balkans included the offer of EU membership
once, that is, the Copenhagen criteria had been met (Glenny 2001). The
“repackaging” of the various Balkan initiatives into the Stabilization
and Association Process was the result. Meeting the conditions laid down
by the EU has been seen as critical with all the implications of continuous
monitoring to ensure compliance. What the EU sought to avoid, however,
was the dilemma created by the OHR and his Bonn powers; if BiH was
to show itself capable of undertaking all that European membership
entailed, it had to show both capacity and the ability to adapt to European
norms.
The offer of prospective membership went along with another indication
of the EU’s commitment, the move to replace the NATO-led SFOR with an
EU-led force. This finally took place in 2004. EUFOR’s mission, however,
remains very largely that of SFOR yet within different parameters: it is to
“provide deterrence and continued compliance” with Dayton, “to achieve
core tasks in the OHR’s Mission Implementation Plan and the Stabilisation
and Association Process” (emphasis added), as well as provide support to
ICTY and the security environment in BiH in which the police could act
against the organized criminal network.8 Despite therefore the efforts on the
part of the Commission’s delegation to be seen as separate from the OHR,
there remains an inherent inseparability. In that sense, the EU has faced an
uphill struggle in terms of its capacity to persuade and to bring about any
great rapidity in the process of socialization.
Credibility and consistency

While the 1999 decision was welcomed in BiH, there was a certain sense of
unreality about it. It remained too distant a prospect to have any great
meaning, not least given the parlous state of the economy. (By 2000,
Bosnian GDP was still only 66 per cent of its pre-war levels.) And in any case,
there was skepticism that, however remote membership might be, it was
not actually being seriously entertained by the EU. Despite the reconfirm-
ation of the possibility of membership at the Thessaloniki European Council
of June 2003 and the subsequent EU–West Balkans Summit in the same
month, such suspicions were later to be endorsed with, for example, some
foreign ministers seeking to exclude wording on EU membership as the final
goal for the western Balkans at their meeting in Salzburg in March 2006.9
Thus although integration has remained the objective – at least in principle –
and no one has been prepared to be seen to be an obstacle to it, its remote-
ness has meant that the EU and even the OHR had relatively little leverage
on that basis.
Remoteness of membership compounds the problem of the lack of clarity
about what eventual accession might mean, as well as suspicion and confu-
sion about the means to attain it. Too few, even among the elites, really know
what membership might entail – as one leader put it:
From my experience, out of 1,000 politicians we have, I think that perhaps
only 50 or so know what entry into the EU means, what its consequences
might be and its benefits and its costs. Even among that elite there is
insufficient education about it and then, because of this, there is a need
for arm-twisting on the part of the international community.10
Lack of education and sometimes deliberate miseducation about the EU

means that the wider public have even less idea of what changes are required
of them. Yet their knowledge and acceptance are critical if they are to deny
power to the extremist elements, opposed to reform. As one commentator
concluded on the 2004 round of enlargement, “it is when politicians from
both sides of the political spectrum start identifying their interest with the
EU-demanded changes and are willing to invest their own political capital in
achieving compliance with these conditions that EU integration becomes the
only game in town” (Noutcheva 200: 3). But in BiH, there has not always
been either the willingness or the ability to move to compliance with EU
norms and values. Without that socialization which ultimately includes the
general public, it has become something of a vicious circle, of politicians
unwilling to engage with the people, the people unable to understand the
issues and therefore reluctant to mandate the politicians.11 Even those politi-
cal figures inclined to accept European values have, it is held, had to trim and
temper their positions in order to survive.12 That balancing act has been the
primary cause for the frequent imposition of policy by the OHR, which then
once again “relieves the domestic institutions of their responsibilities and
inhibits the development of accountable government” (European Stability
Initiative 2001: 26). And so the cycle threatens once again.
Eliminating the need for such a balancing act has not been helped either by
the problems of co-ordination referred to above or by the difficulties experi-
enced by the IC and EU in maintaining clarity and consistency of purpose
through different processes at different levels and over an extended time
period. The piecemeal approach that characterized the period before 1999
has not wholly been rationalized in the Stabilization and Association Process
(SAP) within either BiH or, indeed, the Balkan region. Within BiH, for
example, police reform has been particularly problematic in terms both of
the norms and standards being transmitted and the solutions proposed. The
reform of the various entity police forces emerged as a requirement of the SAP
so that it was, in that sense, EU-led although the OHR established the Police
Restructuring Commission (PRC) with domestic and international represen-
tatives, and the former Belgian prime minister, Wilfried Martens, as Chair.
The PRC’s Final Report was radical, proposing that local police, hitherto
closely allied with the entity structures, should be realigned in areas that
would cross entity boundaries. Unlike the defense reform, driven by the OHR
and the OSCE with the United States and closer relations with NATO in the
background, the EU had explicitly ruled out the possibility of the HR impos-
ing any legislation relating to the SAA conditions, including those on police
reform. The result, however, has, in effect, been only agreement to continue to
try to reach substantive agreement, and this despite numerous and protracted
closed-session meetings between the various domestic and international act-
ors. Since many old and new EU member states have their local policing areas
organized along federal and local administrative or community lines, the
pressure to delink them in the BiH case was resented and opposed, especially
by the RS leaders, even while it was regarded as vital by the EU and HR if
crime and corruption were to be effectively tackled. But inconsistencies were
made more apparent by the fact that existing and newly created BiH state
policing institutions like the State Investigation and Protection Agency
(SIPA), the Bosnian FBI, and the State Border Service (SBS), which could
have expanded their policing roles in tackling organized and other serious
crimes, including war crimes, were experiencing serious shortfalls in funding
and staff.13
Other European norms have also been misinterpreted or regarded as mis-
directed. Insofar as the EU has been particularly active in terms of other
dimensions of regional policy, it has inevitably sought the greater involve-
ment of local authorities – which sits uneasily with the pressures for central-
izing authority in BiH. Issues relating to minority rights are clearly critical
and yet there are few models within the existing EU to cite since the principle
was introduced only under the Copenhagen criteria to be applied seemingly
only to new member states. More generally, Europeanization can sometimes
appear at odds with the aim of promoting greater democratization, insofar as
it tends to privilege elites over the general public, executives over legislatures
and so on (see, for example, Pridham 2002: 954; Grabbe 2001: 1018).
The immediate post-Dayton pressure by the international community to
privatize as quickly as possible has been criticized as both simplistic and
misguided in conception in that it enriched the war entrepreneurs and their
political and judicial networks rather than attract new capital, bring about
restructuring or bring in new ideas. In part, Donais argues, this was because
international officials and agencies focused on technical issues while those
with political responsibilities tended to lack a consistent focus (Donais 2002:
14). The result was that, however unintentionally, nationalist elites, as Pugh
has pointed out, were able to control telecommunications (including broad-
casting) and energy (electricity, oil and gas) supplies, the revenues from which
funded nationalist parties and their parallel structures (Pugh 2004: 56–7).
These were consequences that the OHR and EU have had to go to great
lengths to counter. Criticism of their efforts was still current in 2002, one
group, for example, declaring them to be inadequate for the challenges emer-
ging in the BiH and more generally in the western Balkans in that the instru-
ments required for post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization simply did
not tackle the underlying causes of instability: “The danger is no longer
ethnic hatred, nationalist extremism or military conflict, but a new crisis of
economic and social dislocation” (European Stability Initiative 2002: 4).
A number of other inconsistencies further weaken any commitment to
change within the BiH. Vachudova (2003: 154), among others, has pointed to
shortcomings on the part of the EU in rejecting some policies which would be
particularly helpful in winning and maintaining popular support, such as
access to the EU market for agricultural goods and visa-free travel to the EU
for Balkan citizens. While there have been improvements in opening up trade,
restrictions still apply because of the difficulties such policies would create for
EU governments themselves. Yet visa restrictions have meant not simply a
sense of isolation – one that has built up since the collapse of the former
Yugoslavia and which is likely to increase for Bosniaks and Serbs as Croatian
accession talks begin – but they also both deny an important sense of reward
and restrict opportunities for a new generation of Bosnian voters of becoming
familiar with European values and practices.
Interaction and socialialization?

Such isolation has to be set against the growing involvement of many party
leaders in regional and other European political groupings – even if such
involvement then also highlights other inconsistencies. BiH membership (and
indeed, chairmanship in 2003–4) of the South East European Co-operation
Process (SEECP), for example, may not be particularly important in itself
(though discussions on improved neighborly co-operation in the Balkans
across a range of policy issues of close interest to the EU are of importance),
but it nonetheless allows for greater familiarity with developments in other
Balkan states. Pevehouse, for one, sees such regional organizations as being
particularly useful enabling mechanisms in terms of socialization (Pevehouse
2002: 524) and the BiH Foreign Minister, Mladen Ivanić has endorsed such
a view.14 On the other hand, such meetings and exchanges provide ample
opportunity for each country to compare and contrast its treatment at the
hands of the international community and EU on such issues as co-operation
with ICTY, signing up to the SAA, and PfP membership. However rational it
might be for the EU to take account of individual state differences, for those
less enamored of change, it creates opportunities to focus on what they might
then describe as double standards. Insofar as conditionality is assessed on a
country-by-country basis, it also threatens the principles of multilateralism
and regional co-operation espoused by the EU (Smith 2003: 83).
Elite familiarity with EU norms is also increasingly apparent through the
developing links with EU party foundations and parliamentary groups –
which also bring with them further peer pressures. The German party foun-
dations, especially the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Friedrich Ebert
Stiftung, have increased their activities in BiH. There has also been increasing
co-operation with the party groups in Brussels. The Party for Democratic
Progress (PDP), the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), and the Croat
Democratic Union (HDZ) have all, for example, become associated as Obser-
vers with the European Peoples’ Party (EPP). According to one participant
this has forced the Bosnian parties “to use a different discourse and behave
differently. Every three months we go to Brussels and one is made to explain
before one’s colleagues what the conflicts we are having within Bosnia are
about. This is having a huge impact.”15 It is perhaps then unfortunate that the
EPP’s President, Wilfried Martens, was responsible for the report on police
reform. It has also been among EPP members such as Angela Merkel, the
German Chancellor, that the strongest opposition to further enlargement has
been expressed and the need for more constructive thinking about alterna-
tives to full membership. Those views may have been directed largely against
Turkey, but they have also included a “privileged partnership” for the western
Balkans.16
The growing intensity of interaction of different levels, formal and informal,
makes the actions and intentions of each of the actors significantly more
transparent, even if not necessarily more acceptable. To the extent that such
interaction is institutionalized, it is often regarded as the harbinger of social-
ization and Europeanization, and a vital part of the process of inducing
actors into the norms and rules of the Union (to paraphrase Checkel 2005:
804). Bosnian elites should, then, have begun on the process – for even if
formal relations within the SAP are only very new, the EU has been active in
its various policy guises since 1995. According to the Deputy Head of the
European Commission’s Delegation, the process has begun, if slowly, with
differences among the political leaders.17 Such differences have themselves
been welcomed and, indeed, exploited in the interests of opening up schisms
that pit one set against another, both then needing to seek allies elsewhere
in the system. As Ashdown declared, when discussing how to eliminate the
nationalists’ stranglehold:
One of the ways is to vote against their return to power. Frankly . . . this
is not very likely to happen . . . There is a different way too. The HDZ in
Zagreb is an example of that. This is not the same HDZ as it was under
Tudjman. By forcing the nationalist parties to implement reform you get
factions within the party. That is the case of Raguz vs. Covic, and you
can find the very same elements in other political parties.
(Ashdown 2004a)
But the process has been a slow one. In terms of the formulation of policies
consistent with the process of transition towards potential EU membership,
for example, Bosnian attitudes remain ambivalent and/or suspicious. Legisla-
tion consistent with the acquis has invariably been drawn up by lawyers from
the EU and the member states. However, rather than representing the future,
the legislation is regarded in the BiH as “sometimes not compatible with our
general legal framework or legal culture,”18 or alien and not easily under-
stood or accepted.19 Implementing such legislation then becomes politically
sensitive and enforcing it sometimes impossible.20 Such reluctance to imple-
ment legislation emphasizes the importance as well as the difficulty of
continuous monitoring. It, and the presumption of the political impact of
“shaming” non-implementers and violators, are critical elements both in terms
of conditionality and social learning. But if the process of non-compliance
simply results in action by the OHR in order to keep processes going, then the
normative significance of the reforms begins to lose its impact and adaptation
becomes regarded with little more than indifference, at best.
Conclusions
Very clearly, the international community – in the form of the OHR and the
EU – has brought about changes in the values and standards that prevail in
BiH. Both have sought to ensure peace and stability, which has meant tack-
ling the extreme nationalist parties and the corrupt networks that did well out
of the war, and bringing BiH into line with the conditions demanded by the
EU of those who seek membership. But they have been changes that have
frequently been brought about by imposition on the part of the OHR. Critics
have therefore argued that, while many of the statebuilding measures are
necessary for effective, open and democratic governance in contemporary
Europe, their imposition, in the face of opposition from elected leaders,
undermines those same values. At a minimum, such an argument would claim,
there are limits to the extent that “inappropriate” measures can be taken in the
interests of bringing about a logic of appropriateness. On the other hand, the
role and powers of the HR have, indeed, created a dilemma. It is, after all,
improbable that, in the absence of the Bonn powers, those who have been
manipulating the political, economic and judicial systems through corrupt
networks would have quietly given up that control in the interests of adapting
to the Copenhagen criteria and some future membership of the EU.
But the roles of the HR and the EU raise important questions about
compliance with the demands of the international community and the nature
of rewards and sanctions. However much the image has been created that
“nobody does anything until the IC makes them,”21 there is a commitment on
the part of BiH leaders to European integration. What then becomes confus-
ing is the fact that the HR is also the EU’s Special Representative and the EU
qua Commission has been attempting to separate out the areas covered by the
SAP/integration process from that of stabilization, reconstruction and state-
building, which remain the responsibility of the OHR with its Bonn powers.
The primary instrument of both is, of course, persuasion, but for the EU it
has become a matter very largely of the use of conditionality to ensure con-
tinuous progress towards the possibility of future EU membership. The
rewards of compliance are continued movement in opening up the SAP pro-
cess and continued assistance; sanctions in essence add up to non-movement,
but not the withdrawal of aid. For the OHR, there has been the opportunity
and frequent recourse to the Bonn powers and the imposition of measures,
the removal of officials, party leaders, and so on. For so long as the inter-
national community sees the need for reform in the interests of state viability
as well as adhesion to the norms of open democracy, sound administration
and economic liberalization in opposition to vested political and economic
interests, there is likely to be continued need for those powers and the OHR.
The inevitable overlap between the norms and standards both the EU and
OHR (and OSCE, IMF etc.) wish to see adopted in BiH equally inevitably
gives rise to confusion of roles. This, in turn, has provided opportunities for
those opposed or reluctant to engage in the transfer to exploit. The clarity
and credibility of the message as well as, therefore, the co-ordination of the
messengers are vital factors in any successful norm promotion.
Conditionality and monitoring continue to be regarded by the EU as criti-
cal in ensuring compliance. It had, after all, worked in the case of the coun-
tries of central and eastern Europe who had sought EU membership. The
continuous need for the intervention of the OHR indicated that circum-
stances in BiH were somewhat different and that, despite the rhetoric and
lack of alternatives, not all BiH parties were wholly enthusiastic about the
changes EU membership seemed to presage. The rush towards privatization
and the use of “one size fits all model of economic transformation” (Donais
2002: 14) paid too little attention to the specifics of the BiH case and ignored
the possible consequences. In political terms, the legacy of the past – of Tito
as well as Milošević and of the war – cast a significantly longer shadow than
that of any future within the EU, and skepticism whether the EU actually
wanted BiH then made the shadow even darker.
Schimmelfennig and others have been particularly insistent that for con-
ditionality to be effective in bringing about compliance, there needs to be
clarity, credibility and consistency. In BiH’s case, in the efforts of the HR and
the EU, at least as represented by, for example, Ashdown’s Mission Statement
of 2002 or the European Commission’s Feasibility Report of 2003, there
were clear principles enunciated. The latter’s 16 points, while seemingly
numerous, were nonetheless sometimes couched in fairly general terms. The
problem has thus been in the application of the policy prescriptions that
underlay them, the degree to which they were known and understood among
both elites and the wider BiH public, and were acceptable to them. Added to
that have been the problems of co-ordination among EU actors, between the
institutions responsible for foreign and external policy matters, or the fight
against international crime or in establishing the acquis. Given the range of
policy commitments and the complexity of the situation, such problems of
consistency are probably unavoidable. But they have not always helped in
winning over a skeptical public or an entrenched politico-economic elite –
particularly when access to the media has often been constrained.
Against this, however, to the extent that the process is to be monitored and
judged by the EU, issues of “ownership” that have continuously plagued the
Bosnian–OHR relationship do not arise in the same way. This is not a peace
agreement imposed on warring factions. It is a process leading towards a
goal on which all, ostensibly at least, are agreed. However, as we have seen,
that commitment is often only partial or faint-hearted. The degree to which
European norms and values have become more than superficially accepted is
debatable. As the BiH Foreign Minister Ivanić has suggested, any promotion
of European values has nearly always had to be balanced by the concern of
alienating political support; European values might be entering into Bosnian
patterns of thought, but operationalizing them remains unattractive, at least
in the short term.22 So far, it would seem, there is rather more a strategic
deployment of acceptable arguments than any internalisation of norms.
However, even here it may be a case for looking to the notion put forward
by Elster of “the civilising force of hypocrisy” (Elster 1998: 109–12, quoted by
Checkel 2001a) where, however manipulative the motive, the publicity may
have a “civilizing” effect and ultimately change preferences. Schimmelfennig,
too, has written of rhetorical entrapment in relation to the EU’s eastward
enlargement (Schimmelfennig 2001) which may work in both the case of BiH
elites and the EU, even if that rhetoric may not yet extend to Turkey or even
to all Balkan countries. The uncertainties on both sides cannot but perpetu-
ate problems in any BiH socialization process. It is clear that, even if in only
quantitative terms, the rate of exposure of BiH elites to European standards
and practices has intensified and that has brought a growing familiarity with
them. That, combined with what might still only be public lip-service to
European norms, creates a momentum or dynamism that establishes its own
benchmark against which to hold leaders to account and may yet drive BiH
towards a less uncertain future. The problem, however, lies in the extent to
which the public knows, accepts and identifies with those norms and the
norm entrepreneurs. On that score, there remains rather less optimism that
the international institutions have been able to persuade.
Notes
The authors are grateful to those who consented to be interviewed: Renzo Daviddi,
Deputy Head of Delegation, European Commission Delegation, BiH, Ahmet Hadži-
pašić, Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mladen Ivanić,
Foreign Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Osman Topčagić, Director of the Director-
ate for European Integration, BiH, OSCE Staff Member, OSCE Mission to Bosnia-
Herzegovina and OHR Staff Members, OHR Sarajevo; and to Tarak Barkawi of
the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, for reading an earlier
version of this chapter.
1 Lord (Paddy) Ashdown represented both the international community as High

Representative from May 2002 until January 2006, when he was replaced by Chris-
tian Schwarz-Schilling, and the European Union as a Special Representative in
BiH, having been appointed to that post a few months earlier (in March 2002).
2 The Copenhagen criteria – agreed by the Copenhagen European Council of June
1993 – include stable democratic institutions, the rule of law, protection of human
and minority rights, an open and functioning economic system and the adminis-
trative capacity to implement the acquis communautaire and the declared aims of
the Union.
3 “List of Removed and Conditionally Removed Officials by the High Representa-
tive,” 30 June 2004, OHR Press Statement at http://www.ohr.int/decisions/war-
crimes-decs/default.asp?content_id=32747 (accessed 27 April 2006).
4 Interview with Ahmet Hadžipašić, 2006.
5 “The question is not a choice between the state or the entities, but to have the state
and the entities. There must be some balance here. The key answer is that the state
must be authorised to regulate the basic principles and that the entities and the
lower levels of government must be bound to behave within the given limits. A
balance can be found, such as it exists in every federal state” (Ivanić, interview,
February 2006).
6 Hadžipašić, interview, 2006.
7 EU Observer, 12 April 2006, which also reported senior US politicians attempting
to press the EU to stand firm on membership.
8 For EUFOR’s Mission Statement see http://www.euforbih.org/mission/mission.htm
(accessed 21 April 2006).
9 EU Observer, 16 March 2006. While the Salzburg text confirmed the future of the
western Balkans in the EU, it also highlighted the EU’s ability to absorb further
members.
10 Hadžipašić, interview, 2006.
11 As Federation Prime Minister Hadžipašić put it: “The key is when European
socialisation comes down to the citizens’ level. But we have a barrier here. We
cannot fully develop a European strategy if our citizens do not fully understand
this and we cannot discuss this with them” (Hadžipašić, interview, 2006).
12 BiH Foreign Minister Mladen Ivanić: “The EU thus creates a solution in Bosnia
as it sees fit and . . . there are among Bosnian politicians people who accept these
European values as their own. But, I cannot say that they do this fully. They are
politicians and must survive. Thus they need to maintain a balance” (Ivanić, inter-
view, 2006).
13 And throughout the process, the EU had its Police Mission (EUPM) offering
advice and guidance on best practices at the operational level, while awaiting the
political outcome – a role sometimes almost in competition with EUFOR in its
role as a stabilization force.
14 “The SEECP leaves positive effects on the domestic scene. The language being
used over the past years is far less radical, far more compromising than ever
before. I believe that to a significant extent this is the result of the regional element
which has become more important over the past years. Thus . . . it is very useful
that BiH is a member of such regional organizations” (Ivanić, interview, 2006).
15 Ivanić, interview, 2006.
16 EU Observer, 17 March 2006. Mrs Merkel is reported as saying “from my side
I would like to say that we should not avoid the term “privileged partnership”.”
17 Daviddi, interview, 2006.
18 Ivanić, interview, 2006.
19 Topčagić, interview, 2006.
20 “The biggest problem in implementation is among the politicians. We make the
necessary reforms on paper, but then we do all we can not to implement them”
(Hadžipašić, interview, 2006).
21 To quote the BiH Director for European Integration, Topčagić (interview, 2006).
22 “The story about European values is a sort of pressure on us, forcing us to do
something which does not seem very attractive politically in the short run. But,
also, there is the parallel gradual entry of European values into our pattern of
thought” (Ivanić, interview, 2006).
10 From “perverse” to “promising”
institutionalism?
NATO, EU and the
Greek–Turkish conflict
Panayotis Tsakonas
Introduction
The disagreement of the 1980s and 1990s about whether institutions matter
or not has given over to a disagreement – or to much less agreement – over the
last decade about exactly how institutions affect states’ behavior (Martin and
Simmons 2001: 43). Thus, the preoccupation of scholars to respond mostly
to the realist premise that institutions are epiphenomenal and they can only
serve as useful leverages in the hands of the most powerful states to promote
their preconceived national interests1 has been replaced by rational (mainly
neo-liberal institutionalist) and social constructivist accounts about how
institutions have affected states’ behavior.
However, although rational and constructivist efforts have so far generated
some promising propositions to better specify the mechanisms of institutional
effects and the conditions under which international institutions are expected
to lead to the internalization of new roles or interests from their member
states,2 much less has been done on the role institutions play as facilitators
of co-operation and conflict management and/or transformation.3 Bridging
“rational-institutionalist” and “constructivist” accounts, this chapter aims at
exploring the impact of two of the most successful and prominent inter-
national institutions, namely NATO4 and the European Union, have had on
the management and/or transformation of the long-standing Greek–Turkish
territorial dispute.
Interestingly, the phenomenon of the Greek–Turkish conflict – which so far
has been heavily biased by policy-oriented perspectives – has long consti-
tuted an anomaly in the security community of Europe.5 Especially with
regard to NATO, the Greek–Turkish conflict is a case that goes against the
conventional wisdom of alliance co-operation, and it is thus dismissed as an
exception to the positive identification achieved among the Alliance’s other
members (Law and McFarlane 1996: 39). The loosening of the structural
constraints of the Cold War, the reconstruction of the Alliance’s identity,
especially after NATO’s eastern expansion and the strengthening of the insti-
tution’s status as “a collective security system” (Wendt 1994: 386; Wendt
1996: 53; Risse-Kappen 1996: 357–99) and a community of “like minded
224 Panayotis Tsakonas
democracies” (Hampton 1998–9: 235), and the strategic upgrading of the
eastern Mediterranean region as the new central front of the Alliance seemed
to constitute the very factors why the new NATO would be more likely to
adopt a bolder approach toward the settlement of the Greek–Turkish dispute.
Interestingly though, the Greek–Turkish conflict was exacerbated after the
end of the Cold War.
A strong optimism that Greece and Turkey would seek ways of resolving
their long-standing territorial dispute also emerged after 1999 due to Turkey’s
candidacy and potential accession into the EU. It seems, however, that the
EU is itself a contentious issue between Greece and Turkey. This is due to the
fact that Greece has been a member of the EU since 1981, whereas Turkey,
although recognised as a membership candidate at the Helsinki European
Council in 1999 and in spite of accession negotiations which began in October
2005, is still generally seen as being a long way from full membership.6 Inter-
estingly then, the Greek–Turkish dispute may prove to be a “hard case”
regarding the impact of the EU on conflict transformation; indeed it may be
possible that the EU, due to its particular involvement in this conflict, may
have had a detrimental rather than a positive effect.
Overall, it is indeed puzzling how the feelings of mistrust and threat per-
ception between the two states have persisted in institutional contexts that
should have led to the emergence of shared norms, understandings and a
sense of collective identity, paving the way for the peaceful resolution of their
disputes. Although one may argue that these institutional contexts have
restrained the two states from full-scale war, they have not succeeded in
generating the sense of collectively being part of a security community given
that both states have continued to consider military means a rational and
justifiable way to relate to each other.
Hence, the examination of the impact NATO and EU have on the man-
agement and/or transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict has both the-
oretical value and policy relevance. Indeed, the examination of the effects of
particular international institutions on the conflict between two states may
provide insights into an especially valuable arena, international security,
where theorists of all stripes have expected international institutions to be
least consequential (Lipson 1984: 1–23; Keohane 1984: 6–7; Grieco 1988: 504;
Grieco 1990: 11–14; Mearsheimer 1994–5: 5–49). Moreover, the theoretical
inquiry that research should increasingly turn to the question of how institu-
tions matter and emphasize theoretically-informed analysis based on observ-
able implications of alternative theories of institutions (Martin and Simmons
2001: 437) may also be served. An academic inquiry of that kind allows also
for a departure from the currently dominant single-issue, single-organization
and single-country format to comparative research across time, across states
and across international institutions (Simmons and Martin 2002: 205), while
the effects of “international socialization” – a process introduced and fol-
lowed by both NATO and the EU – are to be analyzed in a theory-informed
and comparative way (Schimmelfennig 2002: 22; Wichmann 2004: 129).
NATO, EU and the Greek–Turkish conflict 225
Last, but not least, the policy relevance of a study examining NATO’s and
the EU’s impact on the Greek–Turkish conflict is directly related to the Greek
and Turkish policy makers’ ability to better define their countries’ future
expectations from those two institutions. By analogy, it may also provide
NATO and the EU with insights into the limits and/or the unintended effects
of their actions, and thus contribute to their ability to refine the strategies they
follow in ways that would lead to the positive transformation of the disputants’
conflict.
The chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part a review of the
relevant literature regarding the role of international institutions in interstate
conflict is presented; particular reference is made to research efforts under-
taken so far in investigating whether and how NATO and the EU matter in
managing and/or transforming the Greek–Turkish conflict. Secondly, two
core arguments, which seem to account most for the positive and/or negative
impact of EU and NATO on the Greek–Turkish conflict, are presented. A
point of methodological nature is also made; it refers to the need to assess
NATO and EU institutional effects on the Greek–Turkish dispute by adopt-
ing a multi-stage process: one that links an institution’s characteristics with
certain institutional effects and socialization outcomes. Thirdly, relevant
empirical evidence is used to test the chapter’s central arguments and to
explain why NATO’s role is doomed to remain poor and parochial in the
years to come, while that of the EU can change the interests and/or the
identity scripts of the conflict parties.
Literature review
Institutions and interstate conflict

Unsurprisingly, the ways through which institutions may diminish interstate –
and intrastate – conflicts have been the focus of the conflict resolution
literature (Rumelili 2006). This literature treats [international and regional]
institutions as third parties that have the ability to mediate disputes and pro-
vide diplomatic “good offices” (Young 1967; Bercovitch and Langley 1993;
Miall 1992), as well as to bridge the parties in conflict or change the nature of
the conflict either through various side payments and/or penalties – which are
expected to change the conflict parties’ cost–benefit calculations about the
utility of a negotiated settlement (Stone Sweet and Brunell 1998; Amoo
and Zartman 1992) – or through problem-solving [social-psychological]
approaches that will change the disputants’ perceptions, values and behaviors
(Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 1999; Fisher and Keashley 1991: 29–42).
Needless to say that, although a range of capacities exist for the resolution
of conflicts among their members, institutions’ third-party roles are often
constrained by their limited resources and enforcement powers (Amoo and
Zartman 1992; Chayes and Chayes 1996). By implication, the main argu-
ment of the conflict resolution literature is that institutions seem to be more
effective in preventing conflicts in their early stages than by promoting [and
monitoring] their member states’ and prospective member states’ compliance
with the institution’s fundamental norms, such as democracy and respect of
human rights.
Neo-liberal institutionalist accounts of how international institutions may
promote peaceful relations argue that institutions can shape state strategies
by conveying information, reducing transaction costs – especially those asso-
ciated with bilateral negotiation, monitoring and verification – and providing
opportunities for side payments, linking issue areas, increasing the level of
transparency, attenuating the fear of unequal gains, raising the price of defec-
tion and discouraging cheating and thus fostering co-operative ventures
(Keohane 1984: 146–7; Keohane 1986; Kupchan and Kupchan 1991).
For constructivists, institutions can not only affect states’ behavior or strat-
egies; they can also alter their identities by promoting a “common/collective
security identity.” Providing legitimacy for collective decisions, international
institutions – according to constructivist premises – transmit through the
“process of socialization” (Schimmelfennig 2000) their norms and rules to
their members as well as to prospective member states (Finnemore 1996;
Finnemore and Sikkink 1999a). Motivated by ideational concerns to join
international institutions, namely the legitimization/justification of their
national identity (Hurd 1999), states gradually define their national identities
and interests by taking on each other’s perspectives, thus building a shared
sense of values and identity (Wendt and Duvall 1989; Wendt 1994).
Based on both institutionalist and constructivist premises, much work has
been done on the mechanisms that institutions use to transmit their norms
both to member states and to prospective members and thus to inducting
actors into their norms and rules. Although such work does not explicitly
address the linkage between institutional effects and interstate conflicts, its
findings on the ways states’ behavior is being changed due to the internaliza-
tion of institutional rules and norms can also tell much about the changes
that may follow in states’ position over a border conflict. In accordance with
this line of reasoning, most recent studies have tried to better specify the
mechanisms through which institutions are able to socialize states and state
agents, as well as the conditions under which institutions are expected to
lead to internalization of new roles and interests (International Organization
special issue, 2005).
More specifically, these studies have aimed at theoretically highlighting
and empirically testing three distinct mechanisms connecting institutions
to socializing outcomes – namely “strategic calculation,” “role playing” and
“normative suasion” – and thus identifying the various causal paths leading to
socialization. In accordance with this line of reasoning and building on
rationalist and constructivist premises, certain studies suggested that particu-
lar socialization mechanisms are usually at work (e.g., “strategic persuasion”
and/or “normative suasion”) and linked them to particular state behavior and/
or policy (Schimmelfennig 2005; Gheciu 2005).
NATO, EU and the Greek–Turkish conflict
Particular efforts have also been undertaken to investigate the effects NATO
and the EU have had on the Greek–Turkish conflict. Building on various
theoretical strands, research into the effects of NATO and the EU on Greece’s
and Turkey’s strategies toward co-operation and positive identification and,
more specifically, into their conflict transformation has shown whether these
institutions matter and, more importantly, how they matter even though their
impact may have “perverse,” undesirable, implications.
As has already been noted, NATO’s role in the transformation of the
Greek–Turkish conflict has been dismissed as an exception to the positive
identification achieved among the other Alliance’s members (especially after
the end of the Cold War, when it was expected that liberal international
institutions such as NATO would facilitate this collective identity and positive
identification among its members). By implication, the theoretical expect-
ations of constructivism, that is that institutional linkages not only shape and
constrain states’ behavioral strategies but also reconstruct their identities
and interests, were proved wrong.
Interestingly enough, NATO’s positive role in its two members’ conflict
was also challenged on rational-institutionalist grounds, which would confine
the impact of international institutions/organizations to behaviors of states.
Indeed, although it was shown that, contrary to realist expectations, institu-
tions (including alliances) do reshape states’ definitions of their interests and
they do pattern international interactions, they do not, however, always foster
co-operation, even among their members. NATO’s parochial and/or negative
role on the Greek–Turkish conflict was thus explained as a “malfunctioning”
of particular rationalist premises and as an indication that certain institu-
tionalist provisions of the Atlantic Alliance have unintentionally exacerbated
relations between Greece and Turkey (Krebs 1999).
More specifically, it was argued that the persistence of conflictual relations
between Greece and Turkey in the context of their joint membership in
NATO was due to three factors: firstly, NATO had created an incentive struc-
ture that intensified, rather than mitigated, the two allies’ conflict; secondly,
arms transfers among NATO’s powerful members and the disputants had
exacerbated the latter’s security dilemma and had triggered a spiral of diplo-
matic tension; and, thirdly, instead of leading to the amelioration of the two
allies’ conflict, “issue linkage” and “transparency” – with which NATO had
provided the two disputants – have contributed to the deterioration of their
conflict (Krebs 1999).
It was also argued that by providing Greece and Turkey with a security
blanket against the Soviet threat during the Cold War era NATO had allowed
them to shift the focus of their foreign policy from the Soviet threat to their
more parochial conflicts and their national issues. Hence, instead of amelior-
ating Greece’s and Turkey’s security dilemma, NATO had intensified their
dispute. In addition, when the Alliance acted as a facilitator of “issue
linkage” it had contributed to the deterioration of the conflict because the
multiple issue areas linked together by the Alliance gave Turkey and
Greece the opportunity to manipulate these linkages to their political and
strategic advantage (since they sought for bargaining leverage), thus broad-
ening the conflict and producing escalating levels of tension (Krebs 1999:
360, 365). Even the Alliance itself – and its fora – became an object of
contest.7
A series of other institutionalist provisions have also proved unable to
produce the fruitful results rational institutionalism expects. For example,
“transparency” – which is expected to raise the costs of cheating within an
institutional context and thus play a central role in the amelioration of con-
flict between members of the institution – has not been sufficient to promote
co-operation between the two NATO members. By the same token, the
“information model” – which stresses the role of institutions in the provision
of information and in the learning process – does not seem to apply in the
Greek–Turkish dispute and NATO.
Indeed, instead of lessening the one’s fears of the expansionist aims of the
other, the transparency that NATO’s internal mechanisms provided made the
power disparities between Greece and Turkey more acute. In the same vein,
information about respective military capabilities was seen by Greece and
Turkey as a means to get a comparative advantage vis-à-vis the other. By
implication, matters then turned on a more “security dilemma” situation, in
other words on intentions and motives and on how the one expected the other
would use its armed forces (Krebs 1999: 366). In the absence of reassuring
information regarding Turkey’s goals, Greece viewed Turkish superior cap-
ability as a real threat. Therefore, any confidence-building enterprise NATO
decided to promote should have gone beyond the conventional knowledge
regarding the two states’ military capabilities and dealt with the two states’
real intentions.
Last, but not least, certain institutional deficiencies of the Alliance had
negative effects on the allied rivals’ dispute. More specifically, NATO’s short-
comings with regard to its potential contribution to a Greek–Turkish con-
fidence-building enterprise were coupled with a particular “institutional
impediment” that has so far contributed enormously to the Greek–Turkish
arms race, namely NATO’s Cascade Program.8 The latter has in fact violated
the spirit of the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty (namely to
build-down offensive capabilities), since it simply transposed the problems
from the former central front to the flanks. Thus, through NATO’s Cascade
Program, Greece and Turkey became the principal recipients as the countries
with the largest stocks of old Treaty Limited Equipments (TLEs). It is char-
acteristic that, with regard to the volume of weapon systems, by the end of
1995, Greece and Turkey were the greatest importers of military material
worldwide.9
All in all, rational institutionalist assessment of the role NATO has played
in the Greek–Turkish dispute seems to suggest that although NATO has so
far succeeded in preventing the Greek–Turkish conflict from turning into
a hot war it has unintentionally exacerbated relations between its two members
as well as failing to promote co-operation, in the form of confidence- and
security-building measures, or to facilitate positive identification among its
members, or to provide the confidence it can facilitate the positive transform-
ation of its members’ dispute in the future.
From a constructivist perspective, and through a case study of Greek–
Turkish relations in the period 1995–9, another study has shown how – by
situating Greece and Turkey in different and also liminal/precarious positions
with respect to “Europe” – the community-building discourse of the EU
reinforced and legitimized the two states’ representations of their identities as
different from and also as threatening to each other, allowing thus for the
perpetuation of their conflicts (Rumelili 2003).
Most recent studies exploring the impact of the EU on the Greek–Turkish
conflict, however, suggest a rather promising role for the EU in regard to the
positive transformation of the long-standing dispute. Indeed, these studies
argue that the EU, especially after 1999 when Turkey was recognized as a
membership candidate, can have a positive transformative impact on a series
of border conflicts (the Greek–Turkish being one) through four particular
“pathways” (Diez, Stetter and Albert 2006: 563–93; Celik and Rumelili 2006:
203–22).
It is worth-noting that these studies view the EU both “as a framework”,
that can eliminate the bases of interstate conflicts in the long run through
democratization and gradual integration, and “as an active player”, which
can impact border conflicts [also in the short run] through direct and indirect
ways. Thus the EU appears as a necessary condition that can have a direct
(“compulsory” and/or “connective”) as well as an indirect (“enabling” and/or
“constructive”) impact on the disputants’ – especially on Turkey’s – strategies
towards co-operation and, by implication, on the positive transformation of
the two states’ conflict.
Argument and methodology

Either from a rational-institutionalist or a constructivist perspective, the rele-
vant literature has so far argued that the Atlantic Alliance has played only a
parochial role in the Greek–Turkish conflict. At the same time, a certain
amount of optimism has been expressed, especially after 1999, for a promis-
ing EU role in the transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute. Apart from
simply sharing the aforementioned pessimism and optimism with regard to
NATO and EU impact on the transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute,
this chapter attempts to specify the reasons that NATO’s role has always been
– and is doomed to remain – poor, while the EU appears as being able to
change the interests and/or the identity scripts of the conflict parties.
More precisely, through a comparative assessment of the empirical records
of NATO and EU roles in the transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict,
this chapter attempts to specifically show when and under what conditions the
two institutions have been able to impact the conflict parties’ strategies toward
co-operation and conflict transformation. To this end, two interrelated condi-
tions that seem to account most for NATO perverse and EU promising roles
in the Greek–Turkish conflict are being developed and empirically tested:
Firstly, the type of norms NATO and the EU have exerted on the conflict
parties,10 and the subsequent consequences for the two institutions’ legitim-
acy and credibility appear as a strong determinant for the conflict’s positive
or negative transformation. In other words, what accounts most for NATO’s
perverse and EU’s promising role in the Greek–Turkish conflict seems to be
related to the strength of the norms each institution exerts as well as to the
credibility each institution enjoys vis-à-vis the parties in conflict.
Secondly, NATO and EU positive and/or negative effects on the disputants’
strategies toward co-operation and positive identification are determined by
the “type of socialization” NATO and EU mechanisms produce. To put it
differently, whether the institutional mechanisms – by which NATO and EU
seek to attain domestic salience and legitimacy – are directed towards the con-
flict parties’ elites only or towards the conflict parties’ elites as well as the
public and the society does matter because a “thorough” internalization of the
institutional rules and norms, and not a solely “elite-driven” one, is a crucial
determinant for the positive transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute.
Interestingly, as a comparison of the empirical records of NATO and EU
roles in the transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute will suggest, the
reasons that seem to account for NATO’s parochial role in the Greek–Turkish
conflict are the ones that should get the credit for a promising role on the part
of the EU in the positive transformation of the long-standing dispute.
It should be noted, however, that the fulfillment of the aforementioned
conditions also demonstrates the limits of the EU’s potential role in the
positive transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict. Indeed, as the EU case
demonstrates, to contribute to the positive transformation of a conflict as
well as to the disputants’ strategies, international security institutions should
– apart from fulfilling the aforementioned conditions – also be careful enough
to promote the right mix of conditionalities and incentives for distributing
rules and norms and for resolving “distributional conflicts.”
An additional point of a methodological nature needs particular reference
here. It is the basic premise of this chapter that in order to analyze the effects
of international institutions on interstate conflicts a multi-stage process should
be followed. The aim of this process is twofold: firstly, to integrate institu-
tionalist and constructivist insights into the effects of international institu-
tions on shaping states’ interests and identities towards co-operation and
positive identification, respectively; secondly, to bring domestic politics more
systematically into the study of international institutions (Cortell and Davis
2000) by highlighting the ways different states use the same institutions as well
as the ways in which the nature or interests of the state itself are potentially
changed by the actions of institutions.
Thus, for assessing the effects of NATO and the EU on the positive and/or
negative transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict, the pathway our
analysis follows can be viewed as a multi-stage process that attempts to link
an institution’s characteristics (norms, views, strategies) with certain insti-
tutional effects and/or socializing outcomes. The first stage in this multi-stage
process involves an institution’s approach towards both the conflict parties
and the conflict itself. The issues raised at this stage of analysis refer to
particular structural conditions, such as the issue of membership.
In the second stage, particular attention is paid to the mechanisms and to
the processes by which international norms stemming from different inter-
national institutions can attain domestic legitimacy and salience in different
states and so influence foreign policy decisions. The mechanisms that institu-
tions use to exert their norms and influence are thus considered as interven-
ing variables linking input (international institutions’ characteristics) and
output (conflict transformation and/or conflict parties’ strategies towards
co-operation and positive identification) (Checkel 2005: 805).
In the third stage, attention turns to the ways institutional actions are
perceived, acted upon, manipulated and, most importantly, internalized by
the conflict parties’ elites and societies. Analysis is at this stage related to
the examination of the particular socialization and/or internalization effects
of institutional actions and to the domestic degree of salience (Cortell and
Davies 2000; Checkel 1997).
Following this multi-stage process in assessing institutional effects on inter-
state conflicts, the type of impact of a particular institution on the conflict
parties can be assessed both from an institutionalist perspective (how insti-
tutional action reflects upon the conflict parties’ strategies) and a constructiv-
ist perspective (how institutional action may reconstruct the conflict parties’
identities and interests). Particular inferences can thus be suggested about the
reasons that account for NATO and EU positive and/or negative roles in the
transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict.
Empirical illustrations: assessing NATO and EU role

and performance
Strength of norms and credibility

Throughout its evolution NATO has been characterized as an exclusive insti-
tution whose primary concern was to enhance the security of its members
with respect to non-members (Duffield 2006: 638). Moreover, as the prime
security institution of the Western community, NATO has always worked
as a community-building agency, and international socialization – through
“teaching” and “nursing” activities – has been one of its fundamental tasks.
The Atlantic Alliance has thus developed and exerted a set of both constitu-
tive and specific norms.11 The former were interrelated with the collective
identity of the Alliance and refer to basic liberal norms, such as democratic
political participation and representation, the rule of law and a market-based
economy. The latter regulate behavior in individual issue areas and reflect
the Alliance’s field of specialization, such as norms of international military
co-ordination and standardization and norms of civil-military relations.
Especially in the post-Cold War era, NATO has followed an exclusive
strategy of community building, which consists in “socialization from the out-
side,” as the Alliance’s constitutive norms have been communicated to out-
sider states by telling them which conditions they should meet before being
entitled to join (Schimmelfennig 2003). Specifically in the post-Cold War era
and following NATO’s transformation, there have been clear references on
the part of NATO to democratic – among other – principles as well as to civil
dominance over the military. It should be noted at this point that the trans-
mission of such norms has been successful in east and central European
states where the prospects of membership induced states to undertake demo-
cratic and economic reforms and to settle their outstanding territorial and
ethnic conflicts (the examples of Romania and Hungary are striking), but it
had played relatively little role in promoting democracy in an already existing
NATO member, namely Turkey.
With regard to the conflict between two of its members, Greece and Turkey,
the NATO role has been problematic, in terms of two particular issues: the
norms and standards being transmitted as well as of the solutions to the
conflict proposed.
During the Cold War, NATO’s primary concern was to consolidate oper-
ational stability and cohesion in the Alliance’s southern flank by deterring a
Greek–Turkish crisis and/or conflict in the Aegean (Stearns 1992; MacKenzie
1983; Couloumbis 1983). In other words, NATO was interested in regulating
behavior in individual issue areas and such a concern reflects the marginal
interest that NATO (and the US) had in investing to facilitate the resolution
of the two countries’ dispute. NATO has also never been interested in making
clear to its two allies that there would be costs inherent in any effort by one of
the parties to either cheat or defect from the rules agreed within the alliance’s
institutional context. Such a stance would mean that NATO should be able to
play the role of guarantor of any confidence-building enterprise undertaken
by the two neighbors but, as the history of NATO relations with its two allies
in conflict suggests, NATO did not have such an ability.12 By implication, the
norms NATO has exerted can be valued as specific and/or regulative, that
is, in the management of the two allies’ conflict,13 and, most importantly, as
particularly weak given that the Alliance had always kept a safe distance from
emphasizing the necessity of the resolution of territorial disputes among its
members as a precondition for the continuation of their membership (Oguzlu
2004: 461).
By exerting weak and constitutive/regulative norms on the disputants and
by maintaining that the ultimate goal was securing operational stability in
the Alliance’s southern flank (i.e., conflict management), NATO acted as
a substitute for more substantive and long-term solutions.14 By maintaining
an attitude of detached concern, hands-off policy and impartiality to the
conflict15 and by offering to the disputants the certainty the Alliance would
do whatever it takes to prevent Greece and Turkey from fighting each other in
order for stability in the Alliance’s flank to be secured, the two allies had no
incentive to take responsibility for resolving their own differences. It also gave
them little reason to place NATO priorities above their own when it came to
force planning and deployment, weapons procurement and other aspects of
their national defense policy (Oguzlu 2004: 464). Indeed, with regard to the
Greek–Turkish conflict NATO has never been – and never will be – in the
position to clearly declare and enforce its commitment to international treat-
ies and international law and/or to recognize in no uncertain terms the status
quo of the territorial integrity of its member states.
All the above have resulted in NATO experiencing a low level of credibility
and a gradual lessening of its importance as an institutional platform in
which the intra-member co-operation process could result in the mitigation
of the anarchical effects of the international system.16 It should be stressed
that during the Cold War the credibility of the Alliance was also affected by
the preponderant position of the US in NATO and the subsequent US pol-
icies vis-à-vis Greece and Turkey. It is not a coincidence that US military sales
and aid to Greece and Turkey on a “7-to-10” ratio was interpreted by Greece
as a sign of US acquiescence in Turkey’s greater geopolitical value and hence,
led to Greek thinking that any NATO-framed solution on the Cyprus issue and
the Aegean dispute would be likely to favor Turkey at the expense of Greece.
By analogy, Turkey interpreted the US “7-to-10” policy as a sign that the
US concurred with Greece that Turkey posed a threat to Greece in the
Aegean sea.17
Moreover, in the post-Cold War era, NATO started losing its attraction for
Turkey and Greece as an institution able to define their collective Western/
European identities. The new priorities of the Alliance, namely the promotion
of the normative ideational elements of the Western international community
in central and eastern European countries through enlargement, reduced the
attention paid by the Alliance to Greek–Turkish relations and both countries
became marginal to NATO’s new identity and missions (Oguzlu 2004: 470–1).
Although NATO started as a pan-European co-operative security organ-
ization it was gradually transformed into “one of the European security
organizations” (Aybet 2000) while, during the 1990s, the EU became the
institutional platform upon which Turkey and Greece could prove their
European identities and work out their disputes.
It is worth noting that, although the security concerns emerging in the
Balkans and the Greater Middle Eastern regions from the second half of
the 1990s onwards pushed Greece and Turkey into a position of “front-line
states,” the consequent promise that NATO might start dealing with the
Greek–Turkish conflict in a committed manner was not realized. Faced with
increasing “Americanization”18 of the Alliance and the European acqui-
escence in US involvement in European security (Art 1996; Duffield 1994–5),
Greece tried to identify its security interests with those of its partners in the
EU, whereas Turkey, rebuffed by the EU’s gradual discriminatory policies,
has had to improve the quality of its strategic security relations with the
United States on a more bilateral and less multilateral basis.
NATO has gradually lost its power of attraction in Greek and Turkish eyes
and, as a consequence, the credibility of the Alliance as a promising actor has
been seriously eroded. Furthermore, the efforts of the European members
of the Alliance to develop an autonomous Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has dra-
matically eroded the multilateral and transatlantic character of NATO and
led to a gradual lessening of its importance as an institutional platform in
which the intra-member co-operation process could result in the mitigation
of the anarchical effects of the international system.
Throughout the Cold War years the European Community (EC) did not
have, as the cases of Northern Ireland and Gibraltar indicate, either a clear
procedure or an institution to deal with disputes between its members that con-
cerned political issues of high national salience (Alford 1984: 34). Especially
with regard to the conflict between Greece, a full member since 1981, and
Turkey, an aspirant country since the early 1960s, the EC approach towards
the resolution of the conflict has been a hesitant, if not an indifferent, one
(Stephanou and Tsardanides 1991). In fact, the EC never decided as a whole
to mediate in either managing or resolving the Greek–Turkish dispute. Mainly
concerned about keeping both Greece and Turkey anchored to the West, the
EC has been purposely kept out of the conflict, thus leaving some space for
intervention to either the US or to isolated diplomatic activities of some of its
members (Meinardus 1991). Unsurprisingly, the indifference of the EC to the
resolution of the conflict has been viewed, interpreted and, most importantly,
dealt with differently by the disputants.
Greece’s membership of the EC, though largely economically motivated,
was also meant to bolster the existing Greek government and, most import-
antly, to strengthen the country’s international position, especially its deter-
rent capability against Turkey.19 Enjoying a comparative advantage as a full
member of the EC, Greece tried to use the latter as a diplomatic lever against
Turkey. As Greek and Turkish analysts argue, the EC collective approach
towards the conflict was greatly influenced, if not captured, by Greece’s views
and desiderata on Cyprus and Greek–Turkish relations (Couloumbis 1994;
Guvenc 1998–9). Indeed, successive Greek governments have shown remark-
able continuity in using the Cyprus issue for blocking EU-Turkey relations
since the 1980s (Kramer 1987; Stephanou and Tsardanidis 1991).20 At the same
time, advancement in relations between the EC and Turkey have remained
linked to the exercise of Greece’s veto power, unless Turkey first meets par-
ticular criteria – related mainly to the state of democracy and the respect for
human rights – and/or abandons its revisionist policy in the Aegean.21
Unsurprisingly, the EU was perceived by Turkey as just another platform
through which Greece, taking full advantage of its position as a member,
could exert pressure on Turkey and pursue its national agenda with respect to
Turkey. Furthermore, the perception of an EC captured by Greece was nega-
tively interpreted as a reflection of a European reluctance to take Turkey into
Europe (Ugur 1999). This reluctance, in turn, fuelled a dominant conviction
in Turkish political culture, namely the “Sevres syndrome,” or fear of dis-
memberment as a result of a Western conspiracy (Kirisci and Carkoglu 2003).
It is thus evident that by choosing to keep out of the Greek–Turkish dispute,
the European Community was exerting rather weak norms over the dispu-
tants about the management and/or resolution of their conflict. Indeed, the
hesitancy and/or indifference of the EC to intervene in disputes over national
issues had negatively affected the EC “third-party” capacity as well as its cred-
ibility to act as an honest broker for the resolution of the Greek–Turkish
dispute, and overall its ability to have a positive impact on the conflict.
The institutional strengthening of the EC and its genesis into the EU was
not followed by a more credible stance towards the Greek–Turkish conflict.
Following the Imia crisis in January 1996, some normative pressure was
applied on the aspirant Turkey by the European Commission and the Euro-
pean Parliament. The former expressed the EU’s solidarity with Greece and
warned Turkey that its relationship with the EU was supposed to take place in
a context of respect for international law and the absence of the threat or use
of force. The European Parliament expressed its concern over Turkey’s terri-
torial demands vis-à-vis an EU member and stated that Greece’s borders con-
stituted EU borders as well. On a stricter note, the EU Council of Ministers
issued a statement in July 1996 urging Turkey to appeal to the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) over Imia, to show respect for international law and
agreements as well as for EU’s external borders, and to declare its commit-
ment to the aforementioned principles. It also considered that disputes should
be settled solely on the basis of international law, that dialogue should be
pursued along the lines which have emerged in previous contacts between the
interested parties and it called for the establishment of a crisis-prevention
mechanism.22 Interestingly, the only result of the normative pressure exerted
by these two prominent EU organs and the EU Council on the conflict was the
further justification of the dominant perception in the Turkish elite, namely
that the EU was being captured by Greece (Rumelili 2004b: 13).
A conflict-resolution proposal was for the first time made on the part of
the EU, by an initiative taken by the Dutch Presidency in April 1997. In
search of a solution to the continuing exercise of the Greek veto on the EU
financial packages offered to Turkey, the Dutch Presidency initiative called
for the establishment of a “Committee of Wise Men” (where Greece and
Turkey would propose a “wise man” from a third party) who would study the
Greek–Turkish problems, identify possible solutions and then refer the prob-
lems that could not be resolved to the ICJ. It must be stressed that through
the Dutch Presidency proposal the EU had for the first time in its history
acted as a typical “third party,” without making any explicit link either to
Turkey’s membership prospects or to Greece’s status within the EU (Rumelili
2004b: 15–17). This in turn reflected a move of the EU from its traditional
stance of hesitancy or indifference to a new stance towards the conflict,
innovative and persuasive, though unfortunately only to a certain sector of
the Greek and Turkish elite. It is thus not a coincidence that although the
proposal was eventually diluted, due to the strong nationalist opposition it
faced within Greece and Turkey, it was followed by the Madrid Declaration in
July 1997, which marked a positive step in the two states’ search for peaceful
relations.
The 1997 European Council in Luxembourg was the first one to introduce
the conditionality factor in the EU’s intervention in the Greek–Turkish con-
flict. Thus, the settlement of the Greek–Turkish dispute and the establishment
of stable relations with Greece appeared as a condition for strengthening
EU links with Turkey. Apparently, the Luxembourg EU decisions were not
addressed to both disputants but only to the aspirant Turkey, identifying
its dispute with an EU member as an impediment to its candidacy and asking
Turkey to comply with this norm and/or condition without offering it, how-
ever, the carrot of candidacy. Unsurprisingly, the EU’s introduction of a nega-
tive conditionality, without being followed by any carrot or reward, was
interpreted by Turkey as a policy of “conditional sanctions” imposed by
Greece on an ambivalent, if not reluctant, EU with regard to Turkey’s mem-
bership (Rumelili 2004b: 17–18).
As has been made evident, the EU impact on the transformation of the
Greek–Turkish conflict remained parochial prior to the late 1990s. This was
not only due to the EU’s hesitant, if not indifferent, stance towards the
dispute, which had in turn affected negatively its “third-party” capacity as well
as its credibility to act as an honest broker. Empirical evidence shows that the
EU’s impact on the transformation of the Greek–Turkish conflict remained
dependent on the weak norms the EU had been exerting since the early 1990s
towards the disputants, since the few initiatives taken did not incorporate any
membership carrot for the aspirant country and served only to reinforce
the latter’s perception that the EU’s initiatives towards the settlement of the
conflict had been “captured” by the disputant who happened to be a member
of the EU. It was thus clear that the EU’s credibility would remain at a low
level and that the EU itself would not have a positive impact on the resolution
of the Greek–Turkish dispute.
Things seemed to change dramatically in the late 1990s, however, especially
prior to the EU’s “big bang” – namely its enlargement to the east. A radically
different EU – more supranational, more post-sovereign, more post-modern,
more multi-cultural and more demanding – seemed to be emerging. European
integration has always been credited with ensuring peace in Europe. Particu-
larly the EU’s enlargement process has widely been legitimized by arguing
that it will bring peace and stability to a part of Europe that would otherwise
be in danger of returning to violent conflict, with possible spill-over to the old
member states. Built on core principles, values and norms, the EU sought
to export its success story to those who were willing and who could meet
the criteria. Pursuing its enlargement task, the new post-Westphalian EU
demanded that the candidate countries undergo a radical transformation
process following certain principles and adopting the EU Community Law
in earnest. Most important, these characteristics were reflected in the norms
and rules/conditions encouraged by the EU to states that sought to become
members, such as one of the disputants, namely Turkey.
Indeed, prior to the enlargement, the norms and conditions promoted
by the EU were both constitutive (e.g., democratization, rule of law, respect
of minority and human rights, the role of the military in politics etc.) and
specific/regulative (e.g., certain economic and administrative adjustments
for harmonizing the state’s internal structures to European standards etc.).
Moreover, the EU asked states that sought to become members to organize
their domestic and foreign policies on the premises that underlie liberal-
pluralistic democracy. The EU thus appeared as having a power of attraction
stemming from its normative ability to determine the confines of appropriate
state behavior in the European theatre.
Especially with regard to the Greek–Turkish conflict, in the 1999 EU
Council in Helsinki the EU’s role and credibility with regard to its positive
transformation and resolution of the dispute was tremendously enhanced.23
What seemed to make the difference in the EU’s transformative ability towards
the conflict was a series of issues that may be put under the same heading:
exertion of strong norms and positive conditions.
First of all, the EU decisions at Helsinki established the – peaceful – reso-
lution of outstanding border disputes as a community principle (Rumelili
2004a: 9). This in turn meant that the EU was not interested in providing a
“patchwork” solution that would either settle for short-term solutions or con-
solidate the abnormal (to both sides) status quo. Instead, for the first time in
the history of the two states’ conflict, there was a clear reference24 to the final
forum and/or mechanism the two states should use for resolving/ending their
long-standing conflict. By imposing a particular time-framework (2004 was
identified as the deadline) and by indicating the final forum to which the
disputants might refer for the ending of their conflict (i.e., the ICJ), the EU
succeeded in encouraging and, moreover, facilitating substantive and long-
term solutions, instead of offering short-run and ad hoc ones.
Secondly, due to the Helsinki decisions, progress on Turkey’s candidacy
and membership of the EU was linked to the resolution of its border disputes
with an EU member. What is of particular importance here is that the strong
carrot of candidacy/membership was incorporated along with a positive con-
ditionality. Thus, the EU’s stance towards the conflict was viewed, especially
by the Turkish elite, as a policy of “conditional rewards,” and not – as had
been the case in the past – as a policy of “conditional sanctions.” The incen-
tives for the disputants to find a better way of resolving their conflict were
also increased. For Turkey, the Helsinki European Council Conclusions con-
stituted both an alert and an incentive that “there was light at the end of the
tunnel” and therefore Turkey had to successfully address the issues causing
instability in a particular part of the Union. They also entailed, implicitly yet
clearly, certain commitments for Greece, as the latter would have to enter into
a dialogue with the candidate state in order to resolve their dispute, and in
case that failed also agree with Turkey what the agenda to be brought before
the ICJ for its final verdict to their dispute should be.
Thirdly, the resolution procedure adopted in Helsinki by the EU – namely
a “two-step compromise structure” involving first negotiations on all issues
followed by adjudication of unresolved issues – reflected a compromise pro-
posal, allowing the disputants not to perceive EU influence as an imposition,
but as a deal struck on a balanced distribution of gains.25 It should be stressed
at this point that, besides the EU Council, the European Commission and the
European Parliament also contributed, especially after 1999, to the mitiga-
tion of the distributional conflicts by “keeping account” of deals struck, com-
promises made and gains achieved. As examples of effective mechanisms for
resolving “distributional conflicts” one may refer to EU Commission Reports
and EU Summits and Councils’ Conclusions where the progress achieved
in Greek–Turkish relations since Helsinki were recorded.26 Particularly with
regard to the conflict between a member state and a candidate state, the EU
emphasised the flexibility of the acquis27 in order to accommodate special
concerns arising between the disputants. In this manner, disputes perceived
by the European Commission as a “series of issue conflicts” were translated
into possible solutions through pragmatic approaches.28
To sum up, the 1999 EU Summit in Helsinki constituted a breakthrough in
the way the EU had intervened in the Greek–Turkish conflict. For the first
time the EU adopted a clear and strong position with regard to the dispute
between a member and a candidate for membership, in addition to making
the long-term goal of the resolution of the conflict a community principle
and incorporating the strong carrot of future membership along with a posi-
tive conditionality. By applying strong and convincing norms and conditions
to a particular inter-state conflict the EU had thus succeeded not only in
strengthening its ability to be viewed “as a framework” with potential positive
effects in the long run, but also as “an active player” able to impact the conflict
through a plethora of ways.
Unfortunately, severe damage to the EU’s ability to apply strong norms,
and hence to its credibility to positively affect the conflict, occurred at the
2004 EU Summit in Brussels, where as a result of the EU Council’s decision
that EU-Turkey accession negotiations would start on October 2005 an issue
of paramount importance for the resolution of the conflict disappeared.29
More specifically, the EU decided – obviously with Greece’s concession – that
the Helsinki timetable urging the two countries to solve their bilateral differ-
ences, or else agree by December 2004 to refer them to ICJ, should be with-
drawn. Turkey – in addition to the Copenhagen criteria – was now simply
asked by the EU to commit to good neighborly relations and resolve any
outstanding border disputes in conformity with the principle of peaceful set-
tlement of disputes in accordance with the UN Charter, including if necessary
jurisdiction of the ICJ (our emphasis). By implication, progress on Turkey’s
membership would no longer be linked to the resolution of its dispute with
Greece, with an obvious decrease in both disputants’ incentives (especially
Turkey’s) to find a way of resolving their conflict. It thus seemed that a
resolution of the Greek–Turkish conflict should, for the immediate future, be
sought outside the EU context and be achieved sometime in the distant future
by a hesitant Greece and a – hopefully – increasingly Europeanized Turkey en
route to Brussels.
Depth of internalization
As suggested by the relevant literature, the mechanisms that institutions use
to exert their norms are not competing or mutually exclusive and can be
differentiated according to the logic of action they follow. Thus, the mechan-
isms following the “logic of appropriateness” (when actors do what is deemed
appropriate) can be either “cognitive” [they teach domestic actors what is
deemed appropriate in a given situation] or “normative” [they seek to con-
vince states of their norms]. On the other hand, the mechanisms following the
“logic of consequentiality” (based on a cost–benefit analysis, actors choose
the action that maximizes their individual utility) may either be “rhetorical”
[institutions use social-psychological rewards for compliance and punishment
for non-compliance] or “bargaining” [institutions use material threats and
promises either directly to coerce a state to follow its norms or indirectly to
alter the domestic balance of power in favor of actors that support its norms]
(Schimmelfennig 2002: 12–13; Checkel 1999). Needless to say those insti-
tutional mechanisms are to be directed towards the conflict parties’ elites and/
or societies.
Through the aforementioned mechanisms and following particular sociali-
zation policies, institutions exert their norms and, most importantly, impact
the domestic landscape of the states to be socialized. A useful categorization
of the “domestic impact” distinguishes between normative effects and the
depth of internalization (Schimmelfennig 2002: 9–10). The former refers to
the kind of institutional impact and includes the “formal conception of
norms” (mainly seen in the transfer of institutional norms to domestic laws
or in the creation of formal institutions that enforce the institutional norm),
“the behavioral conception of norms” (measured by the extent the behavior
of the states under socialization is consistent with the behavior set by the
institutional norm) and the “communicative conception of norms” (related
to the ways the communication or discourse among the domestic actors is
being affected). The depth of internalization or the “norm salience” (Cortell
and Davis 2000: 70–1) refers to the extent the international norm has been
transposed into a state’s domestic political institutions and culture. By impli-
cation one may refer to degrees or levels of internalization and/or salience
(high/intermediate/low internalization or high/moderate/low degree of sali-
ence). Needless to say, different kinds of normative effects (formal, behavioral,
communicative) may also be detected at different levels of internalization or
norm salience.
Obviously, it is a rather difficult enterprise to measure the depth of
internalization or salience of the institutional norms, rules and conditions.
In assessing NATO and EU normative effects and internalization on the
Greek–Turkish conflict, empirical evidence is used for the exploration of only
measurable effects of NATO and the EU on the conflict, such as changes in
the disputants’ (especially in Turkey’s) institutions and policies, due to inter-
nalization of institutional norms (Cortell and Davis 2000: 70). Needless to
say, it is a rather difficult enterprise for changes in the domestic political
discourse to be objectively assessed, although they seem to be the most impor-
tant ones. However, an effort will be made to assess changes in the disputants’
behaviors and strategies towards co-operation and resolution of their conflict
as “deeper” changes in the disputants’ interests and identities.
As has already been noted, throughout the Cold War and the post-Cold
War era the norms exerted by the Atlantic Alliance with regard to the conflict
between two of its allies were weak and regulative, focusing on securing
operational stability in the Alliance’s southern flank. What is of particular
importance, however, is that the particular norms exerted by NATO were
directed – and are still being directed – only towards the disputants’ elites.
Indeed, NATO’s regulative norms, basically limited to regulating behavior in
individual issue areas between the disputants’ governments, such as norms of
military co-ordination and standardization, have been transmitted through
cognitive and normative mechanisms to the Greek and Turkish elites only.
NATO inability to ameliorate the Greek–Turkish security dilemma and pro-
vide a sense of collective identity between Greece and Turkey is attributed
mainly to the domestic discourse in Greece and Turkey about its role. Specif-
ically, both Greece and Turkey viewed NATO as a strategic instrument to serve
their preconceived national interests, rather than as an institutional platform
to realize their collective security interests.30
It was characteristic in Greek security thinking during the Cold War that
NATO was valued more as constraining Turkey than for contributing to col-
lective security against the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, Greek military expenditures
have always been more influenced by Turkish military spending than by com-
mon alliance defense policy vis-à-vis a common external threat (MacKenzie
1983: 117). The Turkish invasion of Cyprus – an island considered by Greece
as an integral part of “Hellenism” as well as of its borders – in July 1974,
brought about a major change in Greek strategic thinking. For the majority
of the Greek public as well as Greek security analysts and policy makers the
fact that “a NATO member, using NATO weapons, had taken 35,000 troops
out of the NATO structure in order to occupy another democratic European
country” (Moustakis and Sheehan 2000: 96) was ample proof of NATO’s
inability to play the role of guarantor of Greek–Turkish borders in Cyprus.
By implication, Greece in the mid-1970s found that it had neither insti-
tutional nor military safeguards against potential Turkish aggression. Thus,
for the majority of the Greek public, NATO was seen to fail since Cyprus and
the Aegean disputes were regarded as the results of Turkish expansionism
that the West refused to curb (Borowiec 1983: 29–81; Alford 1984: 13).
Greece’s withdrawal from NATO in the wake of the Turkish invasion of
Cyprus in 1974 was a decision taken by the Greek premier Karamanlis for the
appeasement of an infuriated public, which blamed the Alliance for “doing
nothing” to deter Turkish revisionist policies against Greece and Cyprus.
It is worth noting that a certain amount of anti-Americanism, and by
implication of anti-NATOism, seems to be an endemic characteristic of the
Greek political and social discourse, reflected in the reaction of the Greek
public to the Yugoslav wars, the NATO bombing in Kosovo, the terrorist
attacks in New York and on the Pentagon, and more recently during the US
invasion of Iraq. This anti-US and anti-NATO stance seems to be something
that goes much further than the traditional anti-Americanism of the Left and
completely transcends Greece’s political spectrum (Michas 2002).
By exerting regulative and short-term norms to Greece’s elite and by main-
taining an attitude of detached concern, a hands-off policy and impartiality to
the conflict, NATO has reinforced these anti-NATO and anti-US feelings and
attitudes. Neither has it managed to change the Greek elite’s long-standing
assumption that the United States and NATO should be more actively
engaged in its defense and thus be turned into “security-providing” hege-
mons.31 Hence, the participation of Greece in NATO was seen by the Greek
elite to be useful as a deterrent factor, a factor of limitation, or one of allied
mediation, in an eventual Greek–Turkish confrontation (this was precisely the
reason for Greece’s reintegration into the Alliance in 1980) but in no case did
it take the form of mediation for the resolution of Greek–Turkish differences.
Being a military alliance, NATO regulative rules and norms have been
addressed – almost by default – to the military part of the Turkish elite, which
has a constitutionally preponderant status and role in Turkish politics. Inter-
estingly enough, the fact that the socialization of the Turkish elite into the
Western mentality during the Cold War occurred mainly in the military
delayed, if not prevented, the process of democratization in Turkey (Vamvakas
2001). Indeed, almost convinced that the generals would keep Turkey within
the orbit of NATO, while managing more successfully the internal instability,
the United States – the Alliance’s dominant power – co-operated actively
during the Cold War with particular Turkish military regimes and signed
several defense and economic agreements (Oguzlu 2004: 462).
In the post-Cold War era and following an exclusive “socialization from
the outside” strategy of community building, NATO exerted particular con-
stitutive norms by making clear references to democratic principles as well
as to civil dominance over the military. Although the transmission of such
norms has been relatively successful in east and central European states –
where the prospects of membership induced states to undertake democratic
and economic reforms – it played relatively little role in promoting democracy
in Turkey.
Interestingly, for the Turkish elite the internalization of NATO’s post-Cold
War identity, which resembled more a pan-European security organization
rather than a collective defense alliance, appeared as a way to register its
Western, and most importantly, its European identity. As a result Turkey
took part in many NATO-led peacekeeping and peacemaking operations in
and around Europe and became an ardent participant in NATO’s Partner-
ship for Peace. However, this process resulted only in the increase of Turkey’s
bargaining power and significance in the eyes of the US, rather than in the
confirmation of Turkey’s European identity (Oguzlu 2004: 468–72). Hence,
apart from not internalizing the normative ideational elements of the Western
international community, neither did the Turkish elite manage to use NATO
as the institutional platform upon which to prove its “Europeanness.”
Things have seemed to evolve much more positively with regard to the
results produced by the exertion by the EU of strong norms, rules and condi-
tions to the disputants’ elites and society. The good news about the potential
impact of the EU on the transformation and resolution of the Greek–Turkish
conflict is that the EU’s strong norms and positive conditions exerted since
the 1999 EU summit in Helsinki have started producing some promising
results with regard to changes of the disputants’ strategies and interests
towards co-operation and positive identification. The bad news is that this
process seems to have been seriously damaged by the “watering down” of the
norms, rules and conditions related to the resolution of the Greek–Turkish
conflict decided at the 2004 EU summit in Brussels.
As has been illustrated above, the EU impact on the transformation and
resolution of the Greek–Turkish conflict remained parochial until the late
1990s. At the 1999 Helsinki summit the EU put into motion a mix of cogni-
tive, normative, rhetorical, and most importantly, bargaining mechanisms32
for internalizing a set of strong norms and rules in the disputants’ domestic
agenda (Tallberg 2002: 609–43). Thus, apart from agreeing on making the
resolution of the conflict a community principle and providing the Turkish
elite with the strong carrot of candidacy along with a positive conditionality,
the EU also actively promoted Turkey’s democratization by asking it to pro-
ceed with a “small revolution” internally in order for the European acquis to
be internalized.
The new EU policy of “conditional rewards” was received positively by the
Turkish elite, who started reconsidering past views that decisions in the EU
were fully captured by Greece. They were now prepared to accept a comprom-
ise deal for the resolution of Turkey’s long-standing conflict with an EU
member.33 It is worth noting that almost all EU summits and councils’ con-
clusions and decisions from Helsinki onwards have established certain proce-
dures and mechanisms to monitor Turkey’s progress in fulfilling the conditions
set by the EU.34 Moreover, the EU compliance system seemed to be operating
using a combination of enforcement and management mechanisms in apply-
ing norms, which contributed to the EU’s ability to combat detected violations,
thereby reducing non-compliance to a temporal phenomenon. By implication,
the use of carrot and stick by the EU to promote political reforms in Turkey
seemed to be having a multi-pathway impact on the Greek–Turkish conflict.
An examination of Turkey’s internalization of the European acquis after
its EU candidacy in 1999 reveals that a “thorough” adoption of the EU’s
legislation, norms, rules and requirements was put into motion.35 Most
importantly, such a thorough adoption of the acquis took place with the
participation of, and legitimacy provided by, several political and social act-
ors, beyond those in government. More specifically, these normative and
internalization effects of the EU on Turkey took place on a series of levels,
namely on “the domestic institutions” level, the “elite” level and the “societal”
level.
Various EU Council conclusions ask for certain EU norms and rules (in
the form of conditions) to be enmeshed into domestic institutions. Indeed,
from 2001 to 2004 various political reform packages were adopted in order to
fulfill the Copenhagen political criteria that resulted in deepening Turkey’s
Europeanization process (Bac 2003: 21). Turkey has so far taken some big
steps forward in order to fulfill these conditions and has thus managed – inter
alia – to regulate the constitutional role of the National Security Council as
an advisory body and in accordance with the practice of EU member states,36
to fulfil certain economic and legal conditions (e.g., harmonization of the
country’s legislation and practice with the European acquis) and to extend cul-
tural rights of minority groups in practice (allowing mother-tongue broad-
casting and education as well as the liberalization of laws restricting freedom
of speech and association).
At the elite level, the formal conception of norms (the transfer of EU norms
to national laws) had, in turn, certain internalization effects (constitutive
effects) on the basic political actors in Turkey. Especially the civil-military
elite, which appears as the primary “securitizing actor” able to define the
internal and external threats to the state – whose EU membership becomes
the primary objective – has slowly, painfully, but steadily entered a process
of “de-securitization.” It was the EU, especially through the acquis commun-
autaire, that increased the chances of successful de-securitization by providing
a reference point to legitimize conflict-diminishing policies.
One may at this point stress the change in Turkey’s elite interests over the
Cyprus issue due to the EU membership incentive and the EU’s normative
impact on Turkey’s political elite (Tsakonas 2001: 1–40). Indeed, despite
strong reservations about the role of the EU and veiled threats to EU mem-
bers that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) would be either
integrated into Turkey or that Turkey would withdraw its own candidacy if
the Greek-Cypriot administration was accepted as a full member before the
Cyprus problem was solved, nothing happened. Quite the contrary, it seemed
that there was a general understanding among the Turkish elite that the
Cyprus issue had to a great extent been Europeanized and that Turkey would
need to reach acceptable compromises with Greece, the Greek Cypriots and
the European Union should it aspire to join the EU. Particular credit should
be given to the Turkish government, which had firstly neutralized and finally
replaced the intransigent Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in order for
the Greek-Cypriot community to support the Annan Plan for the reunifica-
tion of the island. Ironically, the EU had a less positive impact on the Greek-
Cypriot elite and the Greek-Cypriot public who rejected the UN Secretary
General’s plan for the reunification of the island.
Most importantly, at the societal level, Turkey’s EU membership candidacy
has empowered the domestic actors in both Greece and Turkey who are in
favor of promoting Greek–Turkish co-operation, and allowed them to use the
EU to legitimize their co-operative policies and activities. Indeed, the explicit
link made by the Helsinki Council decisions – between Turkey’s progress on
EU membership and the peaceful resolution of the Greek–Turkish dispute –
has given official and private efforts to promote Greek–Turkish co-operation
significance, urgency, and most importantly, legitimacy. Thus, after 1999 a pro-
EU coalition (benefited by the EU’s mixed strategy of conditions and incen-
tives) emerged, which gradually and steadily gained ground over another vocal
“anti-EU” coalition (Onis 2003: 9–34). In addition, Turkey’s EU membership
candidacy has unleashed funding to civil society efforts directed toward
Greek–Turkish co-operation. The effectiveness of the EU in promoting Greek–
Turkish co-operation has thus stemmed, not so much from its direct interven-
tions, as from the success of various domestic actors in using the EU as a
funder, a symbol and a legitimating handle (Rumelili 2005: 43–54).37
In a general sense, the more democratization has taken root, the more
diverse societal and political groups have challenged the primacy of the
Kemalist understanding of foreign policy. To put it differently, it has gradually
become more difficult for the National Security Council, the Foreign Ministry
and the Chief of the General Staff, the traditional actors in the Turkish foreign
policy-making process, to have the luxury of ignoring what public opinion
thinks on foreign policy issues. It seems therefore that the ongoing democra-
tization process in Turkey is continuously having an impact on the process,
style and content of Turkey’s foreign policy, leading towards a more rational-
ized and multilateralist stance and a gradual re-definition of Turkey’s national
interest that is closer to European rules and norms of behavior.38
An overall assessment of the normative and internalization effects of the
EU on Turkey suggests that the degree of salience or the level of internaliza-
tion could be characterized as “moderate to high.” Indeed, although norms
appearing in the domestic discourse have produced some change in Turkey’s
national agenda as well as in its institutions, they still confront countervailing
institutions, procedures and normative claims. However, although for some
norms and rules the domestic discourse still admits exceptions, reservations
and special conditions, it seems that gradually a legitimization of alternative
policies at the elite level has been taking place and the activities of civil
society and norms retain more and more salience as a guide to behavior and
policy choice.
In the 2004 summit in Brussels, however, there was a setback to the EU’s
willingness to actively contribute to the resolution of the Greek–Turkish con-
flict. As noted above, with Greece’s concession, the EU decided to withdraw
the Helsinki timetable, which had set December 2004 as a deadline for the
resolution of the conflict either through an agreement between the disputants
or via the compulsory reference of the Greek–Turkish dispute to the ICJ. The
2004 Brussels decision thus had certain consequences not only for the cred-
ibility of the EU to be “an active player” in the resolution of the Greek–
Turkish conflict but also for its ability to be viewed “as a framework” with
potential positive effects in the long run.
Indeed, from 1999 to 2004 the EU made the long-term goal of the reso-
lution of the conflict a community principle and exerted clear and strong
rules and norms to the disputants.39 Most importantly, the strength of the
norms the EU exerted after 1999, being supported and transcended by a
mix of cognitive, normative, rhetorical and bargaining mechanisms, man-
aged to achieve a moderate degree of internalization by Turkey, the dispu-
tant whose behavior deviated more from institutional norms. It would seem,
by de-linking progress on Turkey’s membership with the resolution of its
dispute with Greece, the 2004 EU summit decreased both disputants’, espe-
cially Turkey’s, incentives to search for a – solely bilateral – compromise
solution.
Even worse, a series of other developments may further exacerbate the
EU’s ability to constructively intervene and contribute to the resolution of
the Greek–Turkish conflict. Indeed, in the years to come the resolution of the
Greek–Turkish conflict is expected to become even more secondary to the
EU’s priorities in its enlargement policy (Celik and Rumelili 2006: 208).
Moreover, representations of Turkey as “non-European,” especially after the
rejection of the European Constitution by France and The Netherlands, have
resurfaced in many EU countries, Greece included, as the European identity
discourse began to emphasize the “non-European” characteristics of Turkey.
Such developments may move Turkey back to an ambiguous, if not threaten-
ing, institutional position in relation to the EU and thus have detrimental
consequences for the resolution of its conflict with Greece.
Conclusions
The examination of the impact NATO and the EU have had on the manage-
ment, transformation and/or resolution of the Greek–Turkish conflict has
both theoretical value and policy relevance. Building on various theoretical
strands, research – on the effects of NATO and the EU on Greece’s and
Turkey’s strategies toward co-operation and positive identification and, more
specifically, on their conflict transformation – has shown whether and mainly
how these institutions matter.
The relevant literature has so far argued for a parochial role of the Atlantic
Alliance in the Greek–Turkish conflict while a certain amount of optimism
has been expressed, especially after 1999, for a promising EU role in the
transformation of the Greek–Turkish dispute. Through a comparative assess-
ment of the empirical records of NATO and EU roles in the transformation
of the Greek–Turkish conflict, this chapter argues that two interrelated condi-
tions seem to account most for NATO’s perverse role and the EU’s promising
role in the Greek–Turkish conflict.
The first is related to the strength of the norms the two institutions have
exerted on the conflict parties, while the second concerns the “type of social-
ization” and/or the depth of internalization the two institutions’ mechanisms
have produced. Specifically, and in accordance with recent findings, which
argue that compliance crises tend to occur when the implementation of inter-
governmental agreements is not backed by a public discourse at the societal
level (Zurn and Joerges 2005), empirical findings show that in order for a
“thorough” internalization to take place institutional norms should be directed
at both the elite and the public. This chapter also draws attention to the need
for international security institutions that fulfill the aforementioned condi-
tions to be careful to promote the right mix of conditionalities and incentives
to the disputants in order to positively contribute to the transformation and/
or resolution of an inter-state dispute.
Notes
1 Structural realism believes that international institutions matter only at the mar-
gins of international relations, and whatever power they have is derived from the
power of their members (Mearsheimer 1994–5).
2 See the special issue of International Organization on “International Institutions
and Socialization in Europe” (2005).
3 The literature distinguishes between conflict management (regulation of conflict-
ual relations) and conflict transformation (the transformation of subject positions
from incompatibility/antagonism to compatibility/tolerance).
4 We here adopt Keohane’s remark that “alliances are institutions” (Keohane 1988:
74). However, Russett’s and Oneal’s point that “the ways alliances affect interstate
relations will not be the same as the ways that institutions with economic functions
operate” (Russett and Oneal 2001: 166) is also taken into account.
5 Greece and Turkey have been allies in NATO since 1952. They have also been
associate members of the European Community since 1961 and 1963, respectively.
Greece became a full member in 1981, and Turkey became a candidate of the EU
in 1999. However, despite their joint participation in and/or close association with
these institutions, Turkey and Greece have continued to maintain antagonistic
relations. In addition to armed conflict over Cyprus in 1974, Turkey and Greece
have been in numerous near-war situations in 1964, 1967, 1976 and in 1996, over
Cyprus and the continental shelf, airspace and small islets in the Aegean.
6 Greece has in the past vetoed financial protocols in relation to the Association
Agreement with Turkey, and caused a delay in the conclusion of a Customs Union
between Turkey and the EU. Although these issues are now largely settled, many
Turkish politicians see Greece as an enemy inside the EU, causing unfavorable and
unjustified treatment.
7 As Monteagle Stearns has noted: “instead of enabling them to reconcile their
differences by direct negotiation, their [Greece and Turkey] common alliance
with the United States and Western Europe often appears to act as an impediment.
Bilateral disputes acquired multilateral dimension.” See Stearns (1992: 5).
8 After the end of the Cold War, NATO’s policy made provisions for the transfer-
ence of the comparatively more sophisticated weapon systems of certain countries
(e.g., United States, Germany), which had to be reduced under the CFE Treaty,
to those NATO member states that had obsolete weapon systems, in order to
streamline the latter.
9 See Koucik and Kokoski (1994: 36). In accordance with NATO’s Cascade Pro-
gram, Greece received 986 tanks, 350 ACVs and 403 artillery pieces, while Turkey
received 922 tanks, 800 ACVs and 203 artillery pieces.
10 Responding to Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro’s remark that “the literature has
generally been biased toward studying those norms that have affected state pol-
icies” (Kowert and Legro 1996), this chapter deals with an institution whose weak
norms have failed in affecting the policies of two of its members that are in conflict
in a way that would promote the adoption of co-operative strategies.
11 For the distinction between “constitutive” and “regulative” norms, see Dessler
(1989: 454).
12 One of the most recent examples of NATO’s failure to play the role of guarantor
of a particular confidence-building enterprise taking place within the Alliance’s
institutional context was during an Alliance exercise named Destined Glory in
September 2000. During that exercise – whose main goal was to build confidence
between Greece and Turkey – in the Aegean, NATO failed to make clear, espe-
cially to the Turkish side, that any defection of what had been discussed and
agreed within the context of the Alliance would entail certain costs for the party
that decided to defect. However, although none of the participants expressed a
reservation or an objection to the exercise plans during the initial phase of the
planning in NATO Headquarters, Turkey decided some days after the beginning
of the exercise to prohibit the flights of the participating Greek aircraft over the
Greek islands of Lemnos and Ikaria, which according to Turkey should be
demilitarized. Although NATO’s Office of the Legal Adviser rejected Turkish
claims, Turkey insisted on preventing Greek aircraft from executing their NATO
missions by intercepting them while flying above the Greek island of Lemnos. The
closing of Turkish national airspace to Greece’s aircraft participating in the exer-
cise, which Turkey had previously harassed and intercepted, rendered Greece’s
further participation impossible and compelled it firstly to ask for the suspension
of the exercise and then to withdraw from it. It would have been particularly useful
had NATO managed to ensure the participation of all forces in the entire area of
the exercise as well as to conduct the exercise as previously agreed during its
planning phase. Unfortunately, NATO’s mismanagement of the particular exer-
cise sent wrong messages to the party that decided to deviate from the scenario
agreed within the alliance’s institutional context, given that Turkey’s determin-
ation to exploit the conduct of a NATO exercise in order to score politically
against Greece did not entail any costs. Most importantly, it made NATO’s ability
to play the role of guarantor of any confidence-building enterprise between
Greece and Turkey rather questionable.
13 For some analysts this is related to internal power configuration, namely to
NATO’s continuing dependence on US preponderance and sufferance.
14 Gallarotti’s work on “adverse substitution” is very telling about the destabilizing
effects of International Organizations (IOs). According to Gallarotti, an IO is
prone to failure when it – inter alia – serves as a substitute (i.e., a less costly and
less viable multilateral scheme offering short-run and ad hoc solutions) for more
substantive and long-term solutions (i.e., managing the conflict, not resolving it).
In his words: “the institution provides a ‘patch work’ solution that consolidates the
abnormal to both sides’ status quo and thus reduces the incentives for disputants
to find a better way of resolving it.” See Gallarotti (2001: 381–2).
15 Contrary to Tuschoff’s observation regarding the perceived impartiality of NATO
high-level military commanders, which has enabled them to resolve conflicts and
gain national concessions on disputed issues (Tuschoff 1999: 140–61), the Greek–
Turkish case aptly demonstrates that NATO has never been in the position to serve
as a neutral actor in politically charged situations.
16 This did not mean, however, that the Alliance had ceased to be perceived by
successive Greek governments as a potential provider of security against the
“Turkish threat.” See Tsakonas and Tournikiotis (2003). For reference to particular
examples regarding successive Greek governments’ efforts to get a formal security
guarantee, see Dimitras (1985).
17 For these remarks, see Oguzlu (2004: 466).
18 With an increase in the United States’ relative power vis-à-vis the European mem-
bers of the Alliance, in the post-Cold War era NATO has mainly remained a
political instrument of the US Government. Decisions about enlargement, the
definition of the new missions of the Alliance and of the geopolitical boundaries
of the Alliance have mainly reflected the concerns and priorities of the successive
US governments in the 1990s. As such, NATO has gradually turned out to be a
state-centric platform for the US to enlist possible allies in their global-scale secur-
ity initiatives and undertakings. See Layne (2000) and Croft (2000).
19 In the words of one senior Greek official: “Turkey would thus think twice to attack
an EU member state.” See The Economist, 26 July 1975, and The Guardian, 19
May 1976 (as quoted in Valinakis 1997: 279). See also the speeches of the premier,
Constantine Karamanlis, in Kathimerini [Greek daily], 11 April 1978 and 1 January
1981, as quoted in Valinakis (1997: 283).
20 It was not until March 1995 that Greece decided to lift its veto towards the EU-
Turkey Customs Union agreement. In exchange for the removal of the Greek veto
on the Customs Union, accession negotiations between the EU and Cyprus would
begin in March 1998. Cyprus would thus be included in the next round of
enlargement accession negotiations. With regard to Turkey’s European orienta-
tion, decisions made in Luxembourg and Cardiff, in January and June 1998
respectively, further burdened the already tense and fragile Greek–Turkish security
agenda, as the postponement of Turkey’s accession negotiations remained linked
to Greece’s deliberate policy of keeping the doors of the EU closed.
21 In 1986, Greece vetoed the resumption of the Association relationship between
Turkey and EC and the release of frozen aid to Turkey. A year later, when Turkey
applied for EC membership, Greece was the only member that openly opposed
referring the application to the EC Commission for an Opinion. See Guvenc
(1998–9). It is characteristic that even up to the EU-Turkey Association Council in
April 1997, Greece maintained its veto and continued blocking EU aid to Turkey
worth 375 million ECUs. As explained by the then Greek Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Theodoros Pangalos, the veto was to be maintained until Turkey stopped
disputing Greek sovereignty in the Aegean. See Athens News Agency, Daily
Bulletin, 30 April 1997, statement by Foreign Minister Pangalos.
22 Declaration adopted by the Fifteen Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the EU at the
General Affairs Council on 15 July 1996, Brussels, SN 3543/96.
23 Turkey’s eligibility for EU membership after Helsinki depended on resolving two
issues: its border conflict with an EU member-state, Greece, and the Cyprus issue.
With regard to Greek–Turkish relations, Helsinki made it clear to Turkey that it
had four years – until 2004 – to resolve the conflict with neighboring Greece before
the rather critical review that would assess Turkey’s path towards the European
Union took place. Paragraph 4 of the Helsinki European Council Conclusions
states: “[. . .] the European Council stresses the principle of peaceful settlement of
disputes in accordance with the United Nations Charter and urges candidate
States to make every effort to resolve any outstanding border disputes and other
related issues. Failing this they should within a reasonable time bring the dispute
to the International Court of Justice. The European Council will review the situ-
ation relating to any outstanding disputes, in particular concerning the repercus-
sions on the accession process and in order to promote their settlement through
the International Court of Justice, at the latest by the end of 2004.” Regarding the
Cyprus issue, the Helsinki European Council reiterated in Paragraphs 9a and 9b
that although a political settlement of the Cyprus problem would facilitate
Cyprus’s accession to the EU, this very settlement would not be a precondition for
accession. At the same time, the European Council ambiguously stressed that “all
relevant factors” would be taken into account for the final decision on accession.
The fifteen Heads of State and Government of the European Union have sent a
clear message to Turkey that the division of Cyprus must end by the date of the
next EU meeting at the latest. After that date, even a divided Cyprus would
become member of the Union. In that sense, Turkey, which illegally occupies the
northern part of the island, could no longer block the accession of Cyprus to the
European Union. See Helsinki European Council Conclusions, online at http://
www.europa.eu.int/council/off/conclu/dec99_en.htm.
24 Both the Helsinki Conclusions and the provision on Greek–Turkish relations, in the
“medium-term priorities” of the Accession Partnership, do refer to the resolution
of the two states’ outstanding border disputes.
25 For this remark, see Rumelili (2004b: 14). The approach adopted in the Helsinki
Summit is indeed different from past approaches. For example, the EU Council
of Ministers stated in July 1996 (after the Imia crisis) that “the cases of disputes
created by territorial claims, such as the Imia islet issue, should be submitted to the
International Court of Justice.” Similarly, the Luxembourg Council Decisions of
December 1997 urged “the settlement of disputes, in particular, by legal process,
including the ICJ.”
26 Commission discourses also include references to the continuous improvement in
relations between Greece and Turkey. The improvement is sometimes linked with
words like “significantly” (EU Commission Regular Report 2001: 89) or “dramat-
ically” (EU Commission Regular Report 2004: 52). In this context, the Regular
Reports refer to the signing of bilateral agreements that aim to deepen the co-
operation between the two countries (EU Commission Regular Report 2003: 41
and EU Commission Regular Report 2002: 18 and 44), agreement on a number of
confidence-building measures (2004: 2003: 41; 2002: 44; 2001: 31), the exploratory
talks in the Aegean that started in March 2002 (EU Commission Regular Reports
in 2004 and 2002: 18 and 44) as well as symbolic movements such as the “official
visit” of the Turkish PM to Greece and his “private visit to Western Thrace where
he called on the Turkish-speaking Muslim minority to contribute to Greece’s
prosperity” (EU Commission Regular Report 2004) and the public commitments
at the highest level to continued rapprochement (EU Commission Regular Report
2003: 41). In some documents, there have also been references to the Greek–
Turkish rapprochement at the level of civil society (EU Commission Regular
Report 2001: 89). The evolution of Turkish foreign policy and its perception
of security interests towards EU standards has also been recorded, though the
Greek–Turkish dispute remains unresolved (EU Commission Report, October
2004). See Pace (2005).
27 The EU acquis, also known as acquis communautaire, concerns the “legal order”
of the Union.
28 According to the EU Commission discourse, Greek–Turkish conflict appears as
a series of “issue conflicts”: “There are a number of contentious issues in the
Aegean area between Turkey and an EU Member State, Greece, including dis-
putes about the demarcation of the continental shelf. Turkey also challenges sover-
eignty over various islets and rocks. The boundaries of the two territorial waters
and airspace are also problematic” (Regular Report 1998: 51). The European
Commission sees the role of the EU as a forum where the Greek–Turkish dispute
can be discussed in the context of political dialogue (Regular Report 2001: 33)
while the use of carrot and stick to promote political reforms in Turkey could be
seen to have a multi-pathway impact on the Greek–Turkish conflict. See Pace
(2005).
29 The government that emerged from the parliamentary elections in March 2004,
burdened with the rejection of the Annan Plan by the Greek/Cypriots and hesitant
to pay the cost that a compromise settlement with Turkey before the Helsinki
deadline (i.e. the end of 2004) would entail, opted for a transference of the dis-
pute’s resolution to the future. For an analysis of Greece’ “socialization” strategy
vis-à-vis Turkey, see Tsakonas (2007).
30 There is a plethora of examples, both during the Cold War and in the post-Cold
War era, that verify this thesis. Back in mid-1950s Greece argued for the establish-
ment of a NATO patrol-boat base on the island of Leros, which was vetoed by
Turkey because the latter considered that this Dodecanese island – in accordance
with the 1923 Lausanne and 1947 Paris treaties – should remain demilitarized.
See Iatrides (2000: 32–46). By analogy, Turkey was constantly vetoing the inclu-
sion of the island of Lemnos in the planned military exercises of the Alliance in
the region in order to prevent the promotion of Greece’s goals through NATO; see
Karaosmanoglu (1988: 85–118).
31 Several cases during the Cold War and after can be reviewed to illustrate Greece’s
attempts to get from either NATO or the US a formal security guarantee. They
include Premier Andreas Papandreou’s request in 1981 to the Alliance to provide
Greece with a security guarantee against another ally, namely Turkey. The rejec-
tion of such a request by the Alliance led to Papandreou’s refusal to sign the
particular NATO summit final communiqué; the same request was posed again in
1990 to the US government in return for its access to military bases and other
facilities in Greece. See Dimitras (1985); Tsakonas and Tournikiotis (2003).
32 Making use of its bargaining power means that EU conducts policies through
which it addresses primarily the political leadership of the conflict parties. This is
probably the most obvious way through which the EU attempts to exert influence.
In its relations with Turkey the EU has, on the one hand, repeatedly used the
“carrot” of a future membership in order to “convince” the Turkish government not
only to pursue conflict transformation vis-à-vis the Cyprus conflict or the con-
tested border issues with Greece, but also to engage in far-reaching constitutional
and economic reforms. On the other hand, the “stick” of threatening suspension of
financial assistance has in the past been used by the EU to exert political pressure
on Turkey and normative power.
33 On elite receptivity as a factor essential to the socialization process, see Ikenberry
and Kupchan (1990: 284).
34 After Helsinki and in order to prepare for membership, the Accession Partnership
called upon Turkey to prepare a National Program for the Adoption of the Acquis
(NPAA), which should be compatible with the priorities established in the Acces-
sion Partnership. The purpose of the Accession Partnership was to set out the
specific short-term and medium-term priorities and intermediate objectives for
political, economic and legal/administrative reforms in a single framework, and
touch upon Turkey’s internal, as well as external, front. In July 2003, the Turkish
government revised its National Programme on the Adoption of the Acquis in line
with changes and political reforms adopted since 2001.
35 For a good account of the political and legal reforms which have been stimulated
since Turkey’s EU candidacy, see Bac (2003: 17–31).
36 A development that has had certain repercussions for the Turkish military ability
to solely define the issues that concern the country’s national interest.
37 Especially after 1999, again slowly but steadily, one could notice, both within
Turkey and the TRNC, the surfacing of a plethora of political parties, business
associations and civil society organizations which have challenged the “orthodox”
well-established Turkish policy on Cyprus and started demanding that Turkey and
TRNC cease adopting a skeptical view of the EU and the accession of the island
to the EU.
38 Our focus on the institutional effects on Turkey’s foreign policy behavior is mainly
related to the fact that, as theory suggests, convergence effects appear when institu-
tions exert their greatest influence on precisely those states whose behavior devi-
ates substantially from institutional norms. See Martin and Simmons (2001). In
the Greek–Turkish dyad, Turkey is undoubtedly the one of the disputants whose
behavior deviates more from institutional norms. Hence, the assessment of the
EU’s ability to exert its normative and internalization effects on Turkey’s foreign
policy.
39 Based on the observation that the level of internalization of the EU’s norms and
rules on Turkey has been a moderate one, we consider the EU norms and rules as
particularly strong. This assessment follows Cortell and Davis’ remark that “the
strength of a norm is a function of its level of “institutionalization”, namely of
the norm’s tenets in the states’ constitutional, regulative and/or judicial systems.”
See Cortell and Davis (2000: 70).
11 Evaluating multilateral
interventions in civil wars
A comparison of UN and
non-UN peace operations
Nicholas Sambanis and
Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
Introduction
As the prevalence of civil war around the world peaked in the mid-1990s, the
international community responded by increasing the number of peacekeep-
ing operations to end those wars and prevent their recurrence. Both the num-
ber and scope of peacekeeping operations expanded drastically after the end
of the Cold War. The UN took the lead in those efforts, but other regional
organizations and individual countries also engaged in peacekeeping activ-
ities. The UN had some spectacular failures in Somalia and Rwanda, but also
some impressive successes, in Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, and
elsewhere. The record of non-UN peacekeeping is less well-known. Have
peacekeeping operations by organizations other than the UN had the same
overall success rate as UN peace operations? This is the question that we
address in this chapter. The evidence that we present suggests that the UN
has been much more successful in peacekeeping than other organizations.
We analyze that evidence and suggest some possible explanations for this
empirical fact.
UN officials and advocates see the UN’s legitimacy as one of its key vir-
tues. The UN “premium” of international legitimacy as an impartial mediator
is often seen as a critical component of UN peacemaking and peacekeeping.1
Legitimacy is distinct from the organization’s resources and technical cap-
abilities, and derives from its commitment to maintain peace and order in
accordance with the rules of the UN Charter. Thus the UN’s legitimacy is
not necessarily a characteristic of other actors engaged in peacekeeping
(individual countries or regional organizations), even if those actors have the
capabilities to engage in peacekeeping. These assertions, evident in journal-
istic accounts, case studies of UN peacekeeping, and speeches by diplomats
and UN officials, skirt key policy questions. Why might UN operations be
more likely to achieve good peacebuilding results than non-UN operations?
Are the mechanisms behind UN success fundamentally unavailable to non-
UN operations? We address this question in this chapter, by suggesting some
possible explanations. These explanations do not resolve the debate. Rather,
Interventions in civil wars: a comparison 253
they highlight the fact that we do not yet know why there is a difference in the
relative effectiveness of UN and non-UN peacekeeping and point the way to
more research that could resolve this puzzle.
The literature on peace operations has provided several, often conflicting
perspectives on the effectiveness of UN and non-UN peacekeeping. Several
studies describe potential advantages and disadvantages of UN and non-UN
approaches to peacekeeping (see, e.g., Diehl 1993), and case studies offer
detailed accounts of the histories of particular operations (see, e.g., Durch
1996). But a theoretical account of the differences between the two types of
UN missions is in short supply. There are also only a few empirical analyses
of the differences between UN and non-UN missions. Here, the results that
authors have presented are not consistent. Heldt and Wallensteen (2005) have
observed that UN peace operations appear to be more successful than non-
UN operations because the former, while succeeding at the same rate as the
latter, tend to be deployed in more difficult conflict environments. Yet, Heldt
(2004) is cited in the same study, arguing that, controlling for the degree of
mission difficulty, UN and non-UN operations appear not to differ in their
rate of success. Fortna’s (2004a) analysis finds that peace missions (UN and
non-UN missions combined) have had a positive effect on continued peace,
but this result is driven by the effects of UN missions.
We compare the effects of UN and non-UN peace operations by building
on Doyle and Sambanis’ (2000, 2006) ecological model of peacebuilding.
According to the model, there are three main dimensions to the peacebuild-
ing “space” after civil war. Levels of war-related hostility, pre- and post-war
levels of local capacities, and available international capacities interact to
deliver specific post-conflict outcomes. The higher the levels of hostility, and
the lower the local and international capacities, the lower will be the prob-
ability of a successful transition to peace. The main measure of international
capacities in the Doyle and Sambanis model is UN peacekeeping. UN oper-
ations are successful if they respond to the type of co-ordination or co-
operation problem facing parties to the conflict. In other words, not all types
of peace operations work all the time. Their empirical analysis has shown that
UN peace operations have a robust, large and statistically significant positive
effect on the probability of peacebuilding success and that this effect is larger
in the short run. All types of UN mandates can have a positive effect, though
consent-based operations make the larger difference. A central conclusion of
this work that we bring to our analysis is that an operation affects peacebuild-
ing success through its interaction with the characteristics of the conflict.
All types of peace operations should, in principle, have a positive effect if
they offer sufficient international capacities to counteract the negative effects
of hostility and to compensate for deficiencies in local capacities. Thus, on the
basis of Doyle and Sambanis (2000, 2006), our prior belief is that non-
UN operations are no less likely to have a positive effect on peacebuilding than
UN-operations themselves. This is grounded in the more theoretical literature
on external or “third party” intervention, which analyzes intervention in
254 Nicholas Sambanis and Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
conflict abstractly, in contrast to the vast majority of the literature on peace
operations as such. We provide support for this prior belief by offering an
overview of the conventional wisdom on the differences between UN and
non-UN peace operations. Here, we indicate that perceived differences
between the two types in fact vary across both UN and non-UN operations,
such that the two may not necessarily be understood as natural categories.
Note that in contrast to the literature on peace operations as such, more
theoretically orientated studies of external or “third party” interventions in
conflict, whether formal or empirical, apparently proceed based on this
assumption. Historical evidence on pre-UN peace operations also supports
this claim (see Heldt and Wallensteen 2005).
We test our hypothesis about the effectiveness of non-UN operations
empirically, using data from Doyle and Sambanis (2006). We find that the
data do not support our hypothesis and that non-UN operations have no
significant effect on peacebuilding success, in contrast to UN operations,
which have a large significant positive effect. This result is robust across
multiple models employing different operationalizations of the dependent
variable, different controls, and different econometric assumptions. We find
support for the idea that the presence of a non-UN peace operation in the
same conflict may complement the effectiveness of a multidimensional UN
operation.2 We postulate several possible explanations for the result that non-
UN operations have no significant effect on peacebuilding success and we
explore the differences between the outcomes of UN and non-UN peace
operations as a way to analyze the determinants of the composition of a
peace operation.
Literature review
The perceived differences between UN and non-UN peace operations are
many. Non-UN operations, which could range from efforts by regional organ-
izations to multinational undertakings, or potentially even intervention by a
single state, are thought to be subject to problems of impartiality, bias, logis-
tics, vulnerability to domestic politics, and lack of financial, technical and
coercive resources.3 Interestingly enough, the reverse of all of these problems
have also been noted as potential advantages of non-UN operations, as are
some additional characteristics: the potential for operational stability in con-
trast to regularly reviewed and renewed UN mandates, and greater local and
external support based on the ability to incorporate stakeholders (Diehl
1993). These often directly contradictory advantages and disadvantages lead
us to conclude that both UN and non-UN operations vary in their avoidance
of the problems listed above and their provision of the services hypothesized
as needed to build peace. The logic is that falsification of purported regular-
ities in the differences between UN and non-UN peace operations implies
that variation in the characteristics of peace operations exists, regardless of
their source.
Yet while a large body of literature treats abstractly external intervention in
conflict, a category to which peace operations undoubtedly belong, and ana-
lyzes its characteristics and effects as varying in ways that are not inherent to
a particular actor,4 we feel obliged to falsify one additional set of claims
about differences between UN and non-UN operations. Non-UN operations
are held to lack the special kind of “moral authority” the UN confers on its
undertakings (Dorn 1998) or require accountability to the UN itself (Weiss,
Forsythe, and Coate 2004). Some may also see them as lacking the unique
legitimacy of UN operations (Bellamy and Williams 2005). Such analyses
allude to the existence of something like a UN “brand” that enhances peace
operations by its essence, not its characteristics. (We could call this the pri-
mordialist theory of peacekeeping!) Thus, Diehl (2000: 357) concludes that:
A best-case scenario would be a peacekeeping operation organized by the

United Nations, with full support of the major powers and put in place
following a comprehensive peace agreement between two states. Both
protagonists would be strongly supportive of the operation as would any
regional actors. The peacekeeping operation might be assigned monitor-
ing functions and be located along a narrow international border in a
sparsely populated area that would make detection of military and other
movements easy, while not offering opportunities for the peacekeepers
themselves to come under fire.
Such claims for the existence and operational benefits of UN legitimacy

are made regularly and forcefully, not just by UN officials but in debates on
foreign affairs, and are not exclusive to discussions of peace operations but
appear more generally, even in the literature on international institutions.5 In
addition to our skepticism, purely on logical grounds, of treating differences
between UN and non-UN operations as innate, increased scrutiny of intra-
state operations undertaken by the UN particularly from the early 1990s
onward, but also during the Cold War (e.g., ONUC in the Congo), provides
evidence that legitimacy, however defined, varies from one UN operation to
the next. On a general level, depending on the context, individuals may
believe the UN’s actions to be part of a US-sponsored, or at least Western-
sponsored, project, implying lack of legitimacy.6 On a more micro-level, alle-
gations of misconduct also taint the UN.7 The UN still retains substantial
credibility as an impartial mediator, but even impartial UN missions can
have effects that some of the parties to an intra-state conflict can consider to
be biased.8 Hence the legitimacy of UN intervention may not always be a
constant and it may not always explain why UN missions seem to be more
effective than non-UN missions.
Relevant to the debate about the merits of UN and non-UN peace oper-
ations is the pre-UN history of peace interventions. Heldt and Wallensteen
(2005) describe two instances of peace operations under the auspices of the
League of Nations. In the first, following the Versailles Treaty, the League
administered the Saar region of Germany and deployed police there, while
the French controlled security. For a 1935 referendum on the status of the
region, which occurred peacefully, the League deployed a 3,300-strong force
of British, Italian, Dutch and Swedish troops for the period December 1934
to February 1935 because Germany would not accept that the referendum be
held with the French having the security role. In the second case, the League
assisted in verifying the withdrawal of 110,000 to 130,000 foreign troops
from the Spanish Civil War, by organizing an observer mission of 12 mem-
bers, known as the International Military Commission. Finally, Heldt and
Wallensteen (2005) note the peacekeeping use of Swedish and Norwegian
troops in Schleswig in 1849 and 1850 following a war between Denmark and
Germany. They explain that the peacekeepers were “tasked to maintain law
and order . . . until a peace agreement could be established,” which indeed
occurred in July 1850, and was followed by their withdrawal. These examples,
in disparate settings and geopolitical contexts, further illustrate that it need
not be the case that the UN endows peace operations with something that
other actors are fundamentally unable to provide.9
Our argument
Based on an ecological model of peacebuilding, we argue that the effect of
peace operations should not differ across organizations, controlling for the
relevant elements of these operations. The specifics of an operation and how
well it is matched to the characteristics of the conflict should affect peace-
building success. To develop this line of argument further, we specify the
characteristics of conflict to which peace operations should respond in order
to facilitate peacebuilding.
The resolution of conflict is characterized by co-ordination and co-
operation problems, with some conflicts reflecting entirely one or the other,
and others reflecting a mix of the two, either simultaneously or in sequences.
Co-ordination problems have a payoff structure that gives the parties no
incentives to unilaterally move out of equilibrium, once they reach equi-
librium.10 It is well established that the best strategy to resolve co-ordination
problems is information provision and improvement of the level of com-
munication between the parties.11 Communication gives the parties the ability
to form common conjectures about the likely outcomes of their actions.
Without the ability to communicate, they will not choose the most efficient
outcome.
In a game of pure co-ordination, both parties want to pursue compatible
strategies. But if neither knows the rules or what the other party prefers, they
will be tempted to experiment, to try one and then another of the strategies,
and this of course can be costly. Co-ordination can be readily achieved by
credible information on rules, payoffs, and the parties’ compliance with the
rules or stated preferences. Once the rule is known or the other parties’ pref-
erences are clear, co-ordination can be achieved. UN monitors or observers
can assist such communication and help the parties co-ordinate to an efficient
outcome.
One formulation of a co-ordination problem is the “assurance” game. The
classic story (as told by the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean
Jacques Rousseau) is a stag hunt in which catching the stag depends on all the
hunters co-operating. But if a rabbit suddenly appears, some of the hunters
may be tempted to defect in order to catch the rabbit which, though less
desirable than the hunter’s share of the deer, can be caught (in this story) by
one hunter on his own. If all chase the rabbit, they divide the rabbit. Here, if
players A and B can choose between strategies of co-operation and defection,
we get a payoff structure such as the following: mutual co-operation yields an
equal payoff (4, 4) for players A and B, as each gets a half-share of the deer.
When A co-operates and B defects, A gets 0 and B gets 3 (the rabbit); cor-
respondingly when A defects and B co-operates, A gets 3 and B, 0. When both
defect, each gets 1.5 (a half-share of the rabbit). In this case, peacekeeping
needs to be more involved than in the previous co-ordination game. In both
cases communication should be sufficient, but the temptation to defect out of
fear that another hunter will do so first (even though this is rational for
neither) requires more active facilitation and continual reassurance. Informa-
tion alone may not be enough; the peacekeepers may need to provide regular
reports on each party’s compliance, and so reduce the costs of communica-
tion between the parties and allow them to co-ordinate their strategies.12 The
more the peacekeepers need to increase the costs of non-co-operation, the
more we move from a co-ordination game to a game of co-operation.
In the more complicated framework of actual peace processes, many par-
ties that have a “will” to co-ordinate lack the “way.” Co-ordination is promoted
when parties receive assistance in capacity building, demobilizing armies and
transforming themselves from military factions to coherent political parties.
Such assistance permits them to act rationally according to their preferences,
rather than incoherently.
By contrast, co-operation problems create incentives to renege on agree-
ments, particularly if the parties discount the benefits of long-term co-
operation in favor of short-run gain. In one-shot games of co-operation the
parties will try to trick their adversaries into co-operating while they renege
on their promises. A well-known example is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Two
accomplices in police custody are offered a chance to “rat” on their partner.
The first to rat gets off and the “sucker” receives a very heavy sentence. If
neither rats, both receive light sentences (based on circumstantial evidence);
and, if both rat, both receive sentences (but less than the sucker’s penalty).
Even though they would be better off trusting each other by keeping silent,
the temptation to get off and the fear of being the sucker make co-operation
extremely difficult.
Co-operation problems are much more difficult to solve. How can co-
operation failure (defection) be avoided? In the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma
one-shot game, we always end up at double defection (both rat) unless there is
some external enforcement mechanism. Conditions of repeated play (iter-
ation) may produce co-operation in infinite-horizon games even without
external enforcement, but not if there is a visible end to the game.13 Short-term
defection from agreements may even be possible from iterated games if one
of the parties discounts the future severely. Strong third party involvement
would be necessary to support effective co-operation, unless the parties’
agreements are self-enforcing. However, self-enforcement of peace agreements
in internal conflicts may be impossible for at least three reasons.
First, many conflicts are characterized by power asymmetry, which implies
that the costs of co-operating while other parties are defecting may be
extremely large for the weaker party. In internal conflicts, a settlement implies
that the rebels would need to disarm, making themselves vulnerable to an
attack by the state, even if the state can later renege on the agreement. Walter
(1997) argues that this is the “critical barrier” to negotiated settlement in
civil wars. The potential for time-inconsistent behavior by the state makes
the settlement non-credible.
Second, internal conflicts – especially of the ethnic variety – can escalate to
the point where one or more of the groups are eliminated, forcibly displaced,
or weakened to the point of not having any bargaining leverage. This seems to
have been the strategy of the genocidaires in Rwanda, and of the Serbs in the
Bosnian war. This also implies that the potential gains from short-term defec-
tion for the stronger party could be infinite if such defection could eliminate
the weaker party from future bargaining. Thus, the usual long-term benefits
to co-operation in iterated play need not be greater than short-term gains
from defection.
Third, in computer-simulated results of iterated prisoner’s dilemma games
(where the solutions from iterated play come from), players have access to
strategies that cannot be replicated in real life. For example, tit-for-tat
punishment strategies of permanent exclusion of one of the parties may be
feasible in a simulated environment, but are not realistic in actual civil wars.
Parties that defect from peace agreements cannot be permanently excluded
from further negotiation, so reciprocal punishment strategies against defec-
tion are implausible.14 This should increase the discounting of expected
future costs of short-term violations by parties who can expect to be included
in future negotiations regardless of their previous behavior.
Given these enforcement problems, strong peacekeeping is necessary in
internal conflicts resembling co-operation problems to increase the parties’
costs from non-co-operation, or reduce the costs of exploitation, or increase
the benefits from co-operation – and ideally all three at once. Can peacekeep-
ing have such an impact? And if so, how? The literature suggests that peace-
keepers can change the costs and benefits of co-operation by virtue of the
legitimacy of their UN mandate, which induces the parties to co-operate;
by their ability to focus international attention on non-co-operative parties
and condemn transgressions; by their monitoring of and reporting on the
parties’ compliance with agreements; and by their function as a trip-wire that
would force aggressors to go through the UN troops to change the military
status quo.
Ultimate success, however, may depend less on changing the incentives for
existing parties within their preferences and more on transforming prefer-
ences – and even the parties themselves – and thus turning a co-operation
problem into a co-ordination problem. The institution-building aspects of
peacebuilding can be thought of as a revolutionary transformation in which
voters and politicians replace soldiers and generals; armies become political
parties; and war economies, peace economies. Reconciliation, when achieved,
is a label for these changed preferences and capacities. To be sure, the dif-
ficulty of a transformative strategy cannot be overestimated. Most post-war
societies look a great deal like they did prior to the war. However, if, for
example, those who have committed the worst war crimes can be prosecuted,
locked up and thus removed from power, the prospects for peace rise. The
various factions can begin to individualize rather than collectivize their
distrust and hostility. At minimum, the worst individuals are no longer in
control.15
Therefore, even where enforcement is used at the outset, the peace must
eventually become self-sustaining and consent must be won if the peace
enforcers are ever to exit and have their work remain complete. As consensual
peace agreements can rapidly erode, forcing peace enforcers to adjust to the
strategies of “spoilers,” their success or lack of success in doing so tends to
be decisive in whether a sustainable peace follows.
These structural differences between co-operation and co-ordination
problems imply that different peacekeeping strategies should be used in each
case. Strong intervention strategies, such as multidimensional peacekeeping
or enforcement with considerable international authority, are needed to
resolve co-operation problems, whereas weaker peacekeeping strategies,
such as monitoring and traditional peacekeeping, are sufficient to resolve co-
ordination problems. Weak peacekeeping has no enforcement or deterrence
function. Stronger peacekeeping through multidimensional operations can
increase the costs of non-co-operation for the parties and provide positive
inducements by helping rebuild the country and restructure institutions so
that they can support the peace. Enforcement may be necessary to resolve the
toughest co-operation problems.16 Not all civil war transitions are plagued by
co-operation problems. Some wars resemble co-ordination problems, whereas
frequently both types of problems occur, in which case intervention strategies
must be carefully combined or sequenced (Doyle and Sambanis 2006).
Table 11.1 illustrates how peacebuilding strategies can be matched success-
fully with different types of conflict.
In our empirical analysis, we will consider if UN and non-UN peace
operations match the right mandate to the right peacebuilding ecology.
Peacebuilding success would depend on the assignment of the right mandate
to each case. Thus, if we find systematic differences between the UN and
other organizations in the design of appropriate mandates, this could be a
Table 11.1 Matching problem type and strategy type
Peacebuilding strategy
Weak Strong
Conflict type Co-operation Ineffective/counter-productive Best

Co-ordination Best Inefficient
source of difference in the success rates of peace missions from these different
organizations.
Data
The dataset used is from Doyle and Sambanis (2006). It covers all peace
processes after civil war from 1945 until the end of 1999,17 coding 145 civil
wars in that period. Wars that were ongoing as of 31 December 1999 and/or
wars in which there had been no significant peace process prior to that point
were dropped.18 If a peace process started and failed immediately, a failure of
the peace was coded in the first month of the peace process.19 Rules for coding
the start and end of a civil war, including criteria used to separate civil wars
from other forms of political violence and to distinguish bouts of civil war
in the same country are reproduced from Doyle and Sambanis (2006) in
the Appendix, where we also provide a list of civil wars and peace operations.20
Dependent variable
We analyze peacebuilding using several measures. The main dependent vari-
ables are sovereign and participatory peace two years after the end of the war.
These are coded as combinations of four intermediate variables.
Sovereign peace is attained when there is no war recurrence, no residual
violence, and no divided sovereignty. The resumption of civil war in a country
is captured in the Warend variable, with a suffix to indicate the time elapsed
after which this outcome is evaluated. Warend2 indicates whether there is still
peace two years after the end of civil war: it is coded 1 if civil war has not
re-started after two years and 0 otherwise.21 The variable No Residual Vio-
lence (Noviol) codes lower-level, or residual, violence after the war, referring
to what other datasets call intermediate armed conflict – about 200 deaths
per year22 – and the presence of mass violations of human rights, such as
politicide, genocide, widespread extra-judicial killings, torture, and mass
imprisonments of the political opposition. If there is no evidence of these
events two years after the end of the war, then Noviol=1; otherwise it equals 0.
The suffix again indicates the time period of evaluating outcomes (Noviol2
refers to residual violence two years after the war’s end). Finally, the govern-
ment’s ability to exercise its sovereignty throughout the country’s territory is
a component of peacebuilding. If state sovereignty is undivided, then Sover-
eign = 1. If there is de facto or de jure partition or regional autonomy that
obstructs government control of an area of the country, then this criterion
is not satisfied and Sovereign = 0. Thus, sovereign peace two years after the
war (pbs2lr3) is coded 1 if Warend2 = 1, Noviol2 = 1, and Sovereign = 1; and 0
otherwise.
Participatory peace adds a measure of political openness to sovereign peace,
based on the country’s polity score two years after the end of the war (pol2).
This is the difference of the regime’s democratic and autocratic character-
istics.23 The variable ranges from 0 (extreme autocracy) to 20 (maximum
democracy).24 The cutoff point used is a low score of 3 on that scale. Regimes
that fall below this cutoff point are coded as participatory peace failures – we
are effectively coding the “peace of the grave” in completely authoritarian
regimes as peacebuilding failures. All other regimes above this very low
threshold are considered successes, if they also satisfy the sovereign peace
criteria.
These coding rules imply that several cases – those where the UN has not
departed for at least two years before the end of the dataset, December 1999 –
must be excluded from the analysis.25 PB (peacebuilding) outcomes are coded
for 119 cases with non-missing data for any of the explanatory variables.
There are 84 participatory peace failures (69.42 per cent) and 37 successes
(30.58 per cent).26 Achieving sovereign peace is easier, with 68 failures and 53
successes.27
Explanatory variables
The ecological model of peacebuilding posits that the variables that deter-
mine success fall into three categories: level of hostility, local capabilities,
and international capacities. Peace operations are the key measure of inter-
national capacities. We use all the controls from Doyle and Sambanis’ core
model (2006): For level of hostility, we control for the log of the number of
deaths and displacements (Logcost),28 the type of war (ethno-religious or
not) as Wartype,29 the number of factions (Factnum), and whether a peace
treaty was ever signed by the majority of the parties (Treaty).30 For local
capacities, we control for socio-economic development proxied by electricity
consumption per capita (idev1)31 and dependence on natural resources, prox-
ied by primary commodity exports as a percentage of GDP (isxp2) or oil-
dependence (oil). Finally, for international capacities, in addition to UN (and
non-UN missions), we control for foreign economic assistance, proxied by
the amount of net current transfers per capita to the balance of payments of
the country (transpop).32
We describe in more detail only the variables relating to UN and non-UN
peace operations. The variables of interest are the presence and mandate
of peace operations, which are a large portion of the international capacities
in the model. Mandate proxies for the mission’s strength, its technical and
military capabilities, and the level of international commitment.33 Coding
reflects the types of missions:34 fact-finding and mediation (mediate);35 obser-
ver missions (observe); traditional peacekeeping (tradpko); multidimensional
peacekeeping (multipko); and enforcement with or without transitional
administration (enforce). A categorical variable (unmandate) captures the dif-
ferent mandate types. The binary indicator unintrvn identifies all cases of UN
intervention, while the categorical variable unops lumps together monitoring
missions (observer and traditional peacekeeping operations) and the more
intrusive missions (multidimensional, enforcement, and transitional adminis-
tration). Combined multidimensional and enforcement are also grouped
together into a variable labeled strongUN, because strong missions should be
more effective in difficult peacebuilding ecologies. The variable PKO com-
bines all Chapter VI UN peacekeeping missions, excluding observer and
enforcement missions. Finally, the variable Ch6 identifies all missions author-
ized under Chapter VI of the UN Charter (i.e., it excludes enforcement mis-
sions).36 These different versions of the UN’s involvement will allow us to
develop a more nuanced argument about the conditions under which UN is
likely to help build self-sustaining peace. UN mandates were coded based on
a close reading of each operation’s operational guidelines, status of forces
agreements (where available), and a review of UN documents that indicated
how much of the mandate was actually implemented.37
Non-UN peace operations were coded using Heldt (2002) and sup-
plemented in most cases with additional research. There are two versions of a
non-UN peace operation variable. The first, nonunops, is coded exactly as the
unops variable but for non-UN operations, thus distinguishing between
strong and weak operations by grouping observer and traditional non-UN
operations together and grouping multidimensional, enforcement, and tran-
sitional non-UN operations together. The second, nonUN, captures the pres-
ence of any non-UN operation. In order to deal with overlapping UN and
non-UN operations, if bilateral or regional involvement took place in the
context of a UN mandate, then we code a UN peace operation. But in some
cases, both a UN mission and a separate third-party peace operation took
place simultaneously and we code both in those cases.38
Our data include 34 UN peace operations (13 observer missions, 8 trad-
itional peacekeeping missions, 7 multidimensional peacekeeping missions,
and 6 cases of enforcement or transitional administration) and 44 cases of
non-UN peace operations (broken down into 15 observer missions, 12 trad-
itional peacekeeping missions, and 17 peace enforcement or transitional
administration missions).
The effects of UN and non-UN peace operations compared

We estimate the effects of peace operations using logistic regression. First,
we examine participatory peace two years after the war (pbs2s3r3) as the
measure of peacebuilding success. Table 11.2 presents our results.
Table 11.2 The effect of UN and non-UN peace operations on participatory peace
Models
Explanatory variables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Peace operations
Strong UN 3.2456 3.4546 – –
(StrongUN) (1.1108) (1.1755) – –
Any UN – – 2.1809 2.0856
(Unintrvn) – – (0.6532) (0.6570)
Strong non-UN mandate 0.1568 – −0.3569 –
(Nonunops) (0.4191) – (0.4066) –
Any non-UN – 0.6749 – −0.4219
(NonUN) – (0.6904) – (0.6575)
Level of hostilities
Ethnic war −1.5963 −1.5566 −1.6221 −1.6451
(Wartype) (0.5132) (0.5114) (0.4934) (0.4930)
Deaths and displaced −0.3201 −0.3150 −0.3405 −0.3468
Natural log (Logcost) (0.1338) (0.1332) (0.1453) (0.1438)
Number of factions −0.6259 −0.6610 −0.5989 −0.5861
(Factnum) (0.2389) (0.2539) (0.2554) (0.2553)
Signed peace treaty 1.5182 1.4326 1.6933 1.6835
(Treaty) (0.7088) (0.7030) (0.7300) (0.6900)
Local capacities
Electricity consumption with 0.0006 0.0006 0.0004 0.0004
missing values imputed (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003)
(Idev1)
Primary commodity exports/ −7.8379 −7.9091 −7.6404 −7.8397
GDP (Isxp2) (2.2256) (2.2556) (2.1070) (2.1742)
Other international capacities
Net transfers per capita 3.75e–06 3.57e–06 3.15e–06 3.03e–06
(Transpop) (1.25e–06) (1.26e–06) (1.06e–06) (1.07e–06)
Constant 5.3781 5.3388 5.5585 5.6150

(1.5016) (1.5153) (1.6300) (1.6145)
Observations 119 119 119 119
Pseudo-R2 33.68% 34.21% 32.98% 32.50%
Log-likelihood −48.92 −48.53 −49.43 −49.79
Logistic regression; reported are coefficients and robust standard errors in parentheses; bold
indicates significance at the 0.05 level; italics indicate significance at the 0.05 level with one-tailed
test.
Models 1.1 and 1.2 control for the effects of combined multidimensional
and enforcement operations (strongUN ). Here, none of the operationaliza-
tions of non-UN operations – whether presence (nonUN ) or strength (obser-
ver and traditional operations versus multidimensional, enforcement, and
transitional authority operations) – has a statistically significant effect on
participatory peace two years after the war. Models 1.3 and 1.4 control for
the presence of any UN operation (unintrvn). Again, no operationalization of
non-UN operations has a statistically significant effect.
Next, we look at the different components of the participatory peace defin-
ition. We begin by dropping the undivided sovereignty criterion (pbs2s3_no-
sov) and present these results in Table 11.3.
The substantive result of no statistically significant effect of non-UN oper-
ations from Table 11.2 does not change if we use a different concept and
measure of peacebuilding success or if we change the model specification.
But there appears to be an interaction effect between UN and non-UN peace
operations. First, the coefficient on strongUN in Model 2.1 is larger than
the coefficient on strongUN in Model 2.3 (at 2.74 compared to 2.35), the only
difference between the two specifications being that model 2.3 does not con-
trol at all for non-UN operations, whereas Model 2.1 controls for nonunops.
Both strongUN coefficients are statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Simi-
larly, a comparison between Model 2.1 and Model 2.7 indicates that, when
strongUN is controlled for, the coefficient on nonunops is slightly more than
168 per cent of the equivalent result when no controls for UN operations are
in place, at 0.4542 compared to 0.2698, while its standard error decreases,
from 0.3119 to 0.3059, an almost two per cent reduction. Second, this effect
appears to be particular to the relationship between non-UN operations and
the category of multidimensional and enforcement UN operations. A com-
parison between Model 2.1 and Model 2.8 shows that the coefficient on
nonUN, denoting the presence or absence of any kind of non-UN peace
operation, in fact decreases once the strongUN control is added. Additionally,
the point estimates of the non-UN operation coefficients change systematic-
ally from Models 1.3 and 1.4 to Models 2.5 and 2.6. Each of these models
controls for the presence of UN operations only. However, Models 2.5 and
2.6 drop the undivided sovereignty requirement from the coding of the
dependent variable while Models 1.3 and 1.4 include this. These results may
suggest that non-UN operations act to freeze the situation on the ground
rather than re-establishing undivided sovereignty in the country receiving the
intervention.
Models 2.1 and 2.2 look at how changing the control for natural resources
affects the results. Whether we control for the ratio of primary commodity
exports to GDP (isxp2) or oil export dependence (oil), our results are
unaffected. Model 2.3 drops the control for non-UN operations to establish a
baseline with which to compare other results. Models 2.5 and 2.6 use any UN
intervention as a control and consider both operationalizations of non-UN
operations. Finally, Models 2.7 and 2.8 drop the controls for UN operations
and just look at strong non-UN operations or the presence of any non-UN
operation, but non-UN missions do not “soak up” the significance of UN
missions in those regressions. Thus, any interaction between UN and non-
UN missions runs in the direction of non-UN missions enhancing the effects
of UN missions.
Next, we examine different components of participatory peace at the two-
Table 11.3 The effect of UN and non-UN peace operations on participatory peace, without the undivided sovereignty criterion
Models
Explanatory variables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8
Peace operations
Multidim PKO and enforce 2.7395 2.6299 2.3487 – – – – –
(StrongUN) (0.9457) (0.9398) (0.8667)
UN enforcement – – −0.9456 – – – –
(Enforce) (0.8502)
Any UN intervention – – – – 1.9956 1.9843 – –
(Unintrvn) (0.6309) (0.6266)
Strong non-UN 0.4542 0.2702 – 0.0622 0.1353 – 0.2698 –
(Nonunops) (0.3059) (0.3444) (0.3550) (0.2978) – (0.3119)
Any non-UN mission – – – – – 0.4360 – 0.6641
(NonUN) (0.7205) (0.7026)
Level of hostility
Ethnic war −1.0374 −0.9299 −0.9678 −0.8822 −1.0627 −1.0473 −0.9873 −0.9548
(Wartype) (0.4752) (0.4700) (0.4650) (0.4586) (0.4644) (0.4656) (0.4604) (0.4595)
Deaths and displaced −0.2525 −0.2964 −0.2234 −0.2623 −0.2684 −0.2652 0.2182 −0.2111
Log (Logcost) (0.1066) (0.1127) (0.1087) (0.1043) (0.1140) (0.1127) (0.0986) (0.0987)
Number of factions −0.3622 −0.3535 −0.3212 −0.1829 −0.3666 −0.3706 −0.1845 −0.1964
(Factnum) (0.1880) (0.1764) (0.1934) (0.1594) (0.2214) (0.2169) (0.1663) (0.1695)
Signed peace treaty 0.9159 0.8572 1.0263 1.2471 0.9754 0.9443 1.2922 1.2445
(Treaty) (0.6355) (0.6568) (0.6454) (0.6189) (0.6468) (0.6621) (0.5977) (0.6211)
Local capacities
Electricity consumption with 0.0011 0.0014 0.0012 0.0013 0.0010 0.0009 0.0010 0.0010
missing values imputed (Idev1)
(0.0003) (0.0004) (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003)
(Continued overleaf )
Table 11.3 Continued.
Models
Explanatory variables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8
Primary commodity −4.6842 – −4.0516 – −4.5714 −4.5817 −4.7730 −4.7171

Exports/GDP (Isxp2) (1.9025) (1.8604) (1.9612) (1.9226) (1.8035) (1.7189)
Oil export – −2.0626 – −2.1940 – – – –
dependence (Oil) (0.5180) (0.5414)
Net transfers per 3.30e–06 3.78e–06 3.61e–06 3.47e–06 2.70e–06 2.51e–06 2.94e–06 2.71e–06
Capita (Transpop) (1.54e–06) (1.72e–06) (1.46e–06) (1.82e–06) (1.37e–06) (1.47e–06) (1.59e–06) (1.65e–06)
Constant 3.2961 3.4191 2.8671 2.7216 3.5229 3.4774 2.5802 2.5073
(1.2370) (1.2685) (1.2667) (1.1553) (1.4178) (1.3984) (1.1185) (1.1043)
Observations 119 119 119 119 119 119 119 119
Pseudo-R2 27.45% 30.34% 25.75% 25.96% 28.15% 28.35% 22.49% 22.73%
Log-likelihood −56.05 −53.82 −57.37 −57.20 −55.51 −55.36 −59.88 −59.70
Logistic regression; reported are coefficients and robust standard errors in parentheses; bold indicates significance at the 0.05 level; italics indicate significance at
the 0.05 level with one-tailed test.
year evaluation point. We consider war recurrence (warend2) alone, and then
war recurrence and residual violence (warnoviol2). Table 11.4 presents our
results.
Neither UN nor non-UN peace operations have a statistically significant
effect if we look only at war recurrence (Models 3.1 and 3.2). Strong UN
operations, however, have a positive statistically significant effect on no war
recurrence and no residual violence (Models 3.3 and 3.4). Here, the effect
of strong UN operations is significant at the 0.05 level with a single-tailed
test in Model 3.3 and significant at the 0.05 level in Model 3.5. We return
to this result when we look at war recurrence in the longer term, using
survival analysis methods that allow us to account for the right-censoring
effect that is inherent in the coding of our dependent variable in the logit
regressions.
Finally, we consider sovereign peace (pbs2lr) rather than any version of
participatory peace. These results are presented as Table 11.5. Here, as in
Tables 11.2 and 11.3 we see that strong UN operations have a positive, statis-
tically significant effect on peacebuilding (here, sovereign peace). Non-UN
operations, however operationalized, still do not have a statistically signifi-
cant effect on the measure of peacebuilding.
Immediately of note considering all the results is that non-UN peace oper-
ations do not have the effect hypothesized in any of the short-run models. The
coefficients of the three non-UN variables, across all specifications of the
model, are not statistically significant. We have confirmed that non-UN mis-
sions are not significant using alternative estimation methods for the short
run (propensity score matching and selection models) and they also apply to
long-term models (survival models of the duration of the peace).
One complication is that it is often difficult to clearly distinguish biased
military interventions by non-UN actors from peacekeeping interventions. In
the case of UN intervention, the article of the Charter which authorizes those
interventions allows us to make this classification, and the rules of engage-
ment as well as the mandate of the mission are often quite different if the UN
mission is authorized under Chapter VII of the UN Charter as compared to
Chapter VI (no consent is required in the former). In non-UN missions, it is
harder to make this distinction and this is consequential, since partial inter-
vention may well have different effects than impartial intervention. Some
(Regan 2002) have shown that partial military intervention prolongs the dur-
ation of civil war, for example. Sorting out those non-UN peace missions that
had a clear enforcement mandate and could therefore more easily be con-
fused with war-making rather than peacekeeping, we found that the results
on non-UN peace missions did not change and even consent-based non-UN
peacekeeping did not have a significant impact on any of the ways that we
used to code peacebuilding success.
Average numbers of deaths and displacements, levels of development,
numbers of factions, and net current transfers are roughly equal in cases of
UN and non-UN peace missions as compared to the null category in each
Table 11.4 The effect of UN and non-UN peace operations on components of

participatory peace
Dependent variable
No war recurrence No war recurrence or

residual violence
Models
Explanatory variables 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Peace operations
Multidimensional PKO and 1.1891 1.3339 1.8791 2.0805
enforce (StrongUN)
(1.1132) (1.1448) (0.9934) (1.0534)
Strong non-UN (Nonunops) −0.0500 – 0.1619 –
(0.2324) – (0.2366) –
Any non-UN mission – 0.2184 – 0.7066
(NonUN)
– (0.5288) – (0.5626)
Level of hostility
Ethnic war (Wartype) −0.0941 −0.0889 −0.3143 −0.2850
(0.4623) (0.4641) (0.3691) (0.3696)
Deaths and displaced log −0.2303 −0.2368 −0.1289 0.1311
(Logcost)
(0.1343) (0.1348) (0.1044) (0.1027)
Number of factions (Factnum) −0.2400 −0.2572 −0.3542 −0.3819
(0.1308) (0.1253) (0.1395) (0.1297)
Signed peace treaty (Treaty) −0.7356 −0.7879 0.1241 0.0318
(0.5133) (0.5074) (0.4930) (0.5071)
Local capacities
Electricity consumption with 0.0007 0.0006 0.0007 0.0006
missing values imputed (Idev1)
(0.0004) (0.0004) (0.0003) (0.0003)
Primary commodity exports/ −2.6247 −2.6752 −2.6838 −2.7680
GDP (Isxp2)
(1.2698) (1.2884) (1.7769) (1.8438)
Oil export dependence (Oil) – – – –
– – – –
Net transfers per capita 4.33e–06 4.13e–06 5.82e–06 5.43e–06
(Transpop)
(2.81e–06) (2.69e–06) (4.91e–05) (4.45e–06)
Constant 4.7218 4.8116 2.5196 2.5815
(1.6954) (1.7033) (1.0952) (1.0806)
Observations 119 119 119 119
Pseudo-R2 18.79% 18.86% 17.05% 17.78%
Log-likelihood −58.54 −58.49 −68.41 −67.82
test.
Table 11.5 The effect of UN and non-UN peace operations on sovereign peace
Models
Explanatory variables 4.1 4.2
Peace operations
Multidim. PKO and enforce (StrongUN) 2.1437 2.3773
(1.0448) (1.0907)
Any UN (Unintrvn) – –
– –
Strong non-UN (Nonunops) −0.2149 –
(0.2908) –
Any non-UN (NonUN) – 0.1518
– (0.5184)
Ethnic war (Wartype) −0.8230 −0.8245
(0.4408) (0.4439)
Deaths and displaced natural log (Logcost) −0.1751 −0.1817
(0.1071) (0.1039)
Number of factions (Factnum) −0.5652 −0.5884
(0.1823) (0.1807)
Signed peace treaty (Treaty) 0.7204 0.6181
(0.5326) (0.5329)
Local capacities
Electricity consumption with missing values 0.0002 0.0002
imputed (Idev1)
(0.0003) (0.0003)
Primary commodity exports/GDP (Isxp2) −4.5695 −4.7591
(2.9392) (3.0470)
Net transfers per capita (Transpop) 4.57e–06 4.29e–06
(2.14e–06) (2.17e–06)
Constant 4.1604 4.2488
(1.1313) (1.1034)
Observations 119 119
Pseudo-R2 22.87% 22.55%
Log-likelihood −63.07 −63.33
test.
case; and non-UN missions are no more likely than UN missions to intervene
in harder-to-resolve ethno-religious wars or in wars with more factions. So, it
does not seem to be the case that the relative ineffectiveness of non-UN
peacekeeping is because non-UN missions become involved in harder con-
flicts, with a lower ex ante probability of success.39 Also, comparing mean
values of the other covariates for strong peace missions only again does
not reveal any systematic difference between UN and non-UN missions. For
example, average levels of development and primary commodity export
dependence are about the same in cases of UN and non-UN enforcement.40
Some indicators of the levels of hostility point to a harder peacebuilding
ecology in cases of non-UN enforcement. For example, deaths and displace-
ments are somewhat higher for non-UN enforcement cases. But other hostil-
ity indicators point in the opposite direction: the number of factions, for
example, is not significantly different in UN and non-UN cases; and UN
enforcement has been used exclusively in ethno-religious wars, which are
harder to resolve, while the same is not true for non-UN peace missions.
Thus, in terms of our earlier theoretical discussion, summarized in Table
11.1, it is not clear that the reason for the differential effectiveness of UN and
non-UN missions is any major difference in assigning the right mandate to
the right case. This comparison, however, is complicated by the fact that non-
UN missions do not field multidimensional missions, so we are left with
comparing enforcement missions here (and we could do the same for observer
missions). But the fact that non-UN missions are missing this valuable com-
bination of limited enforcement and civilian administration that we find in
UN multidimensional missions can by itself help explain at least part of the
difference in the relative effectiveness of UN and non-UN missions. Since
that multidimensional mandate is judged to be necessary in some conditions
– where local capacities are low and hostility is high, while a peace treaty
forges some degree of local consent for international assistance – the fact that
non-UN peace missions have not responded with such a multidimensional
mandate can be considered a strategic failure that could explain at least par-
tially the results that we have presented here.
We should return, however, to our earlier discussion of a possible inter-
action effect between non-UN and UN operations (see discussion of Table
11.3). We looked more closely at that by separating non-UN missions in
which advanced industrialized countries and/or countries with advanced
militaries participated, and all others. “Advanced” country missions include
missions with troops from the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, and CIS countries; 25 out of 44 non-UN missions are from the
group of “advanced” countries. If we replace our control for non-UN mis-
sions with one that counts only those 25, we find no substantive change in the
results with respect to participatory peace, which is not surprising because
those missions typically focused on monitoring and/or enforcement and not
on building capacities for self-sustaining peace (see Table 11.6, Model 5.1).
With respect to war recurrence alone, those missions are also non-significant
(p-value is 0.105), but they are much more significant than UN missions and
have double the coefficient (Model 5.2).
When we turn to a longer-term analysis of war recurrence using survival
models, we find that UN missions are in fact effective in preventing war
recurrence (see Table 11.7, Model 6.1) whereas non-UN missions are not (p-
value = 0.11; Model 6.2). But, when we add both together, they become much
more significant both jointly and individually (Model 6.3). The reason that
Table 11.6 Non-UN operations involving the participation of advanced militaries

and peacebuilding
Models
Participatory peace War recurrence

Explanatory variables 5.1 5.2
Peace operations
Any UN (Unintrvn) 1.8324 0.7857
(0.7657) (0.6967)
Militarily advanced non-UN (nonUNdev) 0.3878 1.4785
(0.8725) (0.9122)
Ethnic war (Wartype) −1.6237 −0.1498
(0.5454) (0.4904)
Deaths and displaced natural log (Logcost) −0.3423 −0.2754
(0.1288 (0.1207)
Number of factions (Factnum) −0.5598 −0.2531
(0.2559) (0.1530)
Signed peace treaty (Treaty) 1.6460 −0.6548
(0.6391) (0.5450)
Local capacities
Electricity consumption with missing values 0.0004 0.0004
imputed (Idev1)
(0.0004) (0.0005)
Primary commodity exports/GDP (Isxp2) −7.8817 −3.1213
(3.0456) (1.5620)
Net transfers per capita (Transpop) 2.72e–06 3.64e–06
(1.82e–06) (2.75e–06)
Constant 5.4456 5.2836
(1.6263) (1.5271)
Observations 119 119
Pseudo-R2 32.36% 20.57%
Log-likelihood −49.89 −57.26
test.
non-UN missions seem to have no effect may well be because regional

peacekeeping that is led by less developed countries has had a very poor
performance record, with about half of those missions ending in peacebuild-
ing failure. By contrast, in three out of four non-UN missions from
“advanced” states, the peace had not failed at the end of our analysis time. It is
also the case that there was a slightly higher chance that a UN mission with a
substantial mandate (enforcement missions or peacekeeping) would be pres-
ent in cases where the non-UN mission was fielded by advanced states, so the
combined presence of UN and non-UN missions would have both expanded
Table 11.7 Non-UN operations involving the participation of advanced militaries

and war recurrence (survival model of peace duration)
Models
6.1 6.2 6.3
Peace operations
Any UN (Unintrvn) 0.4746 – 0.4122
(0.1527) – (0.1273)
Militarily advanced non-UN – 0.4127 0.3548
(nonUNdev)
– (0.2277) (0.1975)
Ethnic war (Wartype) 1.4318 1.3090 1.2702
(0.3841) (0.3262) (0.3045)
Deaths and displaced natural log 1.1111 1.1248 1.1362
(Logcost)
(0.0698) (0.0735) (0.0752)
Number of factions (Factnum) 1.0808 1.0673 1.1135
(0.0915) (0.0943) (0.0783)
Signed peace treaty (Treaty) 1.1596 0.9553 1.2377
(0.3438) (0.2170) (0.2853)
Local capacities
Annual rate of growth of GDP 0.9602 0.9594 0.9566
(gdpgrof1) (0.0111) (0.0101) (0.0112)
Electricity consumption with missing 0.9995 0.9996 0.9997)

values imputed (Idev1) (0.0002) (0.0003) (0.0002)
Primary commodity exports/GDP 4.9813 3.1924 5.2200
(Isxp2) (2.3920) (1.2118) (2.4227)
Net transfers per capita (Transpop) 0.1000 0.1000 0.1000
(1.00e–06) (1.19e–06) (1.21e–06)
Wald χ2 68.91 69.29 70.68
Observations: 129 129 129
Log-likelihood: −270.72 −270.52 −268.06
Cox regression; reported are hazard ratios and robust standard errors clustered by country in
parentheses; bold indicates significance at the 0.05 level; italics indicate significance at the 0.05
level with one-tailed test.
the technical capacity and enforcement potential of the mission and would
have given a clear signal of international interest, which could help explain
why success was more likely in those cases.
So we see more evidence in favor of a mutually reinforcing relationship
between UN and non-UN missions, if those missions come from countries
with the resources and technical capacities to keep the peace. The fact that the
effects of non-UN missions are restricted to preventing a resumption of
violence and do not extend to higher-order, participatory peace leads us to
conclude that there should be a division of labor in peacebuilding missions,
with the UN performing the capacity-building functions while enforcement
and policing are delegated to missions from advanced countries.
Conclusion: an empirical result and a new research question

The sharp difference in the results for UN and non-UN missions is instructive
and worth further study. Critics of non-UN operations might contend that
they appear to be much more ineffective in lending support to peacebuilding
if non-UN actors are the primary agents for two widely cited reasons: non-
UN operations lack impartiality and do not have adequate resources or tech-
nical capabilities (including training and organizational knowledge). We have
not yet been able to determine why non-UN missions are less effective than
UN missions, though our results that non-UN missions from advanced coun-
tries tend to do better than other non-UN regional peacekeeping would sug-
gest that differences in the peacekeepers’ technical capacities, resources, and
military training are part of the answer. (As was the case with our analysis in
Tables 11.2 to 11.5, excluding the cases of non-UN enforcement and keeping
only cases of consent-based non-UN peacekeeping did not change the results
substantively.)
There are other candidate explanations that our data do not allow us to
fully evaluate. One common conjecture is that non-UN missions do not
benefit from the UN’s legitimacy premium and suffer because they are not
perceived as impartial and thus fail to reassure the parties at critical junctures
of the peace process. The key question remains, however, what the effect of
controlling for perceived impartiality would be in our models. There have
been non-UN missions that have been perceived as being at least as impartial
as some UN missions, so if we were able to measure and control for this in
our analysis, it is possible that the significance and magnitude of the effects of
non-UN operations could increase. Controlling for perceived impartiality
could also affect the significance and magnitude of the coefficients for UN
operations. However, measuring perceived impartiality of a UN mission may
be too difficult if not impossible.41
Studies of the relative merits of UN and non-UN peace operations have
been asking the wrong question. It is not whether UN and non-UN peace
operations have different impacts empirically – our results show that they
undoubtedly do – but why the composition of non-UN peace operations and
their suitability to the task of peacebuilding differs in the aggregate from
these characteristics of UN operations. Framing the debate between the two
“types” of operations in this way is important from a theoretical and policy
perspective. As we have argued in this chapter, the logic employed by pro-
ponents of innate differences between UN and non-UN peace operations is
not clear. While there may well exist a legitimacy premium for UN missions, it
is far from evident that this alone can account for the sharp differences that
we have found. Rather than assume that the UN’s legitimacy explains these
differences, a better approach would be to isolate at a high level of detail
those aspects of peace operations that are important for success and to ensure
that whatever the originating organization or state, a peace operation pos-
sessed these characteristics.
Doyle and Sambanis’ (2006) ecological model of peacebuilding provided
the basis for our analysis in this chapter. We have argued that expanding that
model to incorporate factors that explain the gap between UN and non-UN
operations would enhance its explanatory power. By explaining why there are
differences between UN and non-UN peace operations, we could learn more
about what explains the UN’s success at peacebuilding. This will have
important implications for the peacebuilding literature more generally.
Understanding that certain peace operations are more successful than others
is a critical first step, and that is the step that we have made in this chapter.
Pursuing this line of research further promises to generate policy recom-
mendations on how to design any type of peace operation for the maximum
positive impact on peacebuilding. Still, indicating only how peace operations
can be improved begs the question of why such change has not already
occurred. A new challenge for analysts of peacekeeping and policymakers is
to grasp the political process by which peace operations are created and
fielded. If not all peace operations have the characteristics that allow them to
achieve peacebuilding success, we need to understand the origins of this
deficiency.
Notes
1 Bellamy and Williams (2005); see also United Nations (2005).
2 See the results of our Models 2.1, 2.9 and 2.10.
3 See Diehl (1993) for an excellent summary of these concerns in the case of regional
and multi-national operations and also Weiss, Forsythe, and Coate (2004).
4 For examples, see Mason and Fett (1996); Regan (1996, 2000, 2002); Balch-
Lindsay and Enterline (2000); Elbadawi and Sambanis (2000); Siquiera (2003);
and A. Smith and Stam (2003).
5 See Barnett (1997) and Claude (1966).
6 See Paris (2002) for a discussion of understanding the UN in this light.
7 See, for example, complaints about sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in Burundi,
Congo, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (C. Lynch, “Offi-
cials Acknowledge ‘Swamp’ of Problems and Pledge Fixes Amid New Allega-
tions in Africa, Haiti.” Washington Post, 13 March 2005, p. A22) and complaints
about organizational malfeasance at headquarters during the Rwandan genocide
(Gourevitch 1998).
8 A good example is given by several UN missions where a consent-based mandate
was eventually transformed into an enforcement mandate due to the parties’ lack
of co-operation, which often stemmed from the parties’ realization that the UN
would be an obstacle to their aims (since, if the UN maintains the status quo in a
situation where one of the parties believes that it can change the status quo
through the use of force, then it follows that the UN’s impact is not “impartial” in
the ordinary sense of the term since it benefits the parties that are more committed
to the peace). There are also other examples where the UN’s motives for interven-
ing are doubted by one or more of the parties. For accounts of Patrice Lumumba’s
accusations that ONUC was acting on behalf of the CIA, see Doyle and Sambanis
(2006).
9 A test of the proposition that UN operations are more effective because they carry
greater legitimacy is difficult because we cannot measure the legitimacy of the
intervening party directly. A conceivable test of this proposition would be to con-
sider legitimacy as the residual category. We would then need to be able to capture
all other differences between UN and non-UN operations. If a difference in the
efficacy of UN and non-UN operations persists, we might then be able to attribute
it to legitimacy.
10 See Morrow (1994) and Kreps (1990) for a precise definition of co-ordination and
collaboration games.
11 For a summary see Keohane and Axelrod (1986).
12 Regional powers can play this role, if organized by an impartial party with broad
legitimacy. See Doyle, Johnstone and Orr (1997) for a discussion of the role played
by the “Friends of the Secretary-General” in the El Salvador negotiations.
13 By contrast, even in finite, yet multiple-iteration games, if the timing of the game’s
end is not known, players can be expected to play as if they were engaged in an
infinite horizon game. But if the endgame is visible, then finite game strategies will
be used.
14 As an impartial third party, the UN cannot formally exclude parties from negoti-
ations. The inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in the negotiations leading to the Paris
Accords over the Cambodian civil war is a case in point. Moreover, exclusion of
parties from the terms of the settlement can generate grievances that lead to
renewed fighting.
15 See Bass (2000); and, for the difficulties, Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003–4).
16 Strong peacekeeping is different from peace enforcement. Strong peacekeeping can
only deter or punish occasional violations. If the violations are systematic and
large-scale, a no-consent enforcement operation might be necessary.
17 One civil war in the dataset started in 1944, but all peace processes started after
1945.
18 In a few cases, a war was ongoing in 1999, but a serious peace effort had taken
place earlier (and obviously failed). Those cases are included, but the analysis
remains robust if they are dropped.
19 These are cases where a military victory fails to end the war (e.g., Afghanistan in
1992) or where the UN intervenes to end the fighting, but fails (e.g., Angola; Sierra
Leone; Somalia). We do not include any peace processes that started after 31
December 1999 and this causes us to lose a few UN missions (e.g., UNAMA in
Afghanistan; MONUC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC);
UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone).
20 Sambanis (2004) contains an extensive discussion of the definition of civil war
used in these data.
21 Details on the coding of war resumption are given for each country in the online
supplement to Doyle and Sambanis (2006) and in comments inserted in their
dataset.
22 See, e.g., Gleditsch et al. (2001).
23 This uses the Polity dataset (version 2000). For the years in which Polity scores are
missing (i.e., they indicate regime transition or war in the country), scores are
interpolated. The “Polity2” series of the 2002 version of the database is already
interpolated by the Polity database coders (Marshall and Jaggers 2004).
24 This is computed as democracy (ranging from 0 to 10) plus 10 minus autocracy
(also ranging from 0 to 10).
25 These are all cases where the UN has not yet failed by any of the criteria. So,
dropping them from the analysis should make it harder to find significant effects
for UN missions.
26 Two of these cases are dropped due to missing data in our models, but can be
included in other specifications if imputed values are used for some of the
covariates.
27 Using a five-year cutoff point, there would be 74 participatory peace failures and
35 successes; and 58 sovereign failures and 51 successes. Doyle and Sambanis
(2006) also code an alternative version of PBS, where all ambiguous cases are
either dropped (if the criteria for coding a civil war may not be met) or re-coded as
the opposite outcome (if the initial coding of PB outcome was questionable). For
participatory peace two years after the war, the alternative version has 78 failures
and 25 successes (for a total of 103 observations).
28 Since there is a large variance in this variable, the natural log is used. Deaths and
displacements are combined. Doyle and Sambanis (2006) provide comments and
sources for the coding of each case in their online supplement in the document
labeled “Civil War coding” and as comments in the spreadsheet and single-record
version of their dataset.
29 See Sambanis (2002). There is not much documentation in the literature for the
classification of wars into “ethnic” or “non-ethnic” varieties. Doyle and Sambanis
(2006) use their own coding, based on a set of detailed notes on each conflict, to test
the robustness of the original Wartype variable used in Doyle and Sambanis (2000).
30 Doyle and Sambanis (2006) post supplementary information online, including a
comparison of the coding of Treaty across several datasets for cases shared in
common. The definition of treaty is different from that in Doyle and Sambanis
(2000). Where coding differs from the coding of other authors, they provide a
summary explanation, including a description of the case and excerpts from the
actual treaty text.
31 This measure is highly correlated with income: 77.67 per cent with Fearon and
Laitin’s (2003) income series (gdpen) and 79.78 per cent with the income series
(aclplvs) in Przeworski et al. (2000).
32 This variable is sometimes measured several years away from the war’s start or
end. Doyle and Sambanis (2006) used data from the IMF’s International Finan-
cial Statistics to code this variable. See IMF (various years).
33 Mandates should be correlated with numbers of troops and budgets for UN mis-
sions. Sometimes they are not, which indicates planning failure at the level of the
Security Council.
34 Unmandate includes peacekeeping and enforcement mandates as well as serious
efforts at peacemaking and mediation that are not followed up by a peacekeeping
operation. The variable untype excludes cases of mediation.
35 These were cases of UN mediation or peacemaking without, however, a follow-up
peacekeeping mission.
36 There is little ambiguity about the coding of UN mandate types. Doyle and Sam-
banis (2006) discuss this issue in detail in their supplement. The results are robust
to recoding several cases according to suggestions made by other scholars or in
cases where Doyle and Sambanis (2006) thought the mandate was ambiguous, and
are sometimes better.
37 See the online supplement for Doyle and Sambanis (2006) for a list of supporting
documents, including summaries of the mandate, list of functions actually per-
formed by each mission, information on changes in mission mandate over time,
and copies of relevant UN documents.
38 The cases of non-UN third-party peace operations and information on these mis-
sions (names, deployment dates, departure dates, and mandates) are given in the
online supplement to Doyle and Sambanis (2006).
39 This is evident by comparing the results of equality of means tests for all the
variables in the model, sorted by UN intervention and then by non-UN
intervention.
40 There are only a few cases to compare: the average (with 6 cases) for UN missions
is .17 while for non-UN (17 cases) it is .18. Electricity consumption per capita
levels are also about the same (608 versus 633 kWh).
41 For an interesting effort, see Heldt (2001), who coded whether the force com-
mander of a UN operation was from the same ethnic group as the majority of the
population in the war-affected country. The difficulty here would be to ascertain if
the selection effect is overcome by coding the identity of the force commander. In
some cases, such high-level assignments may be random, yet in others they may
well reflect an assessment at headquarters of the likely effect of the force com-
mander’s identity on the prospects for successful discharge of the peacekeepers’
mandate.
A: Coding criteria for civil wars (from Doyle and Sambanis 2006)
An armed conflict is classified as a civil war if:
a. The war takes place within the territory of a state that is a member of the
international systemi with a population of 500,000 or greater.ii
b. The parties are politically and militarily organized and they have publicly-
stated political objectives.iii
c. The government (through its military or militias) must be a principal com-
batant. If there is no functioning government, then the party representing
the government internationally and/or claiming the state domestically
must be involved as a combatant.iv
i This includes states that are occupying foreign territories that are claiming independence
(e.g., West Bank and Gaza in Israel, and Western Sahara in Morocco). A strict application
of this coding rule could drop those cases where the international community (through the
UN) rejects the state’s claims of sovereignty on the occupied territories.
ii Countries could be included after their population reaches the 500,000 mark, or from the
start of the period if population exceeds the 500,000 mark at some point in the country series.
If a civil war occurs in a country with population below the threshold, we could include it and
flag it as a marginal case. Cases of civil war close to the 500,000 mark are Cyprus in 1963
(578,000 population) and Djibouti in 1991 (450,000 population). Use of a per capita death
threshold to code civil war would allow the population threshold to be relaxed.
iii This should apply to the majority of the parties in the conflict. This criterion distinguishes
insurgent groups and political parties from criminal gangs and riotous mobs. But the dis-
tinction between criminal and political violence may fade in some countries (e.g., Colombia
after 1993). “Terrorist” organizations would qualify as insurgent groups according to this
coding rule, if they caused violence at the required levels for war (see other criteria). Non-
combatant populations that are often victimized in civil wars are not considered a “party” to
the war if they are not organized in a militia or other such form, able to apply violence in
pursuit of their political objectives.
iv Extensive indirect support (monetary, organizational, or military) by the government to
militias might also satisfy this criterion (an example is Kenya during the ethnic clashes in the
Rift Valley). However, in such cases it becomes harder to distinguish civil war from com-
munal violence. In other cases, where the state has collapsed, it may not be possible to identify
parties representing the state as all parties may be claiming the state and these conflicts will
also be hard to distinguish from inter-communal violence (e.g., Somalia after 1991).
d. The main insurgent organization(s) must be locally represented and must
recruit locally. Additional external involvement and recruitment need not
imply that the war is not intra-state.v Insurgent groups may operate from
neighboring countries, but they must also have some territorial control
(bases) in the civil war country and/or the rebels must reside in the civil
war country.vi
e. The start year of the war is the first year that the conflict causes at least
500–1,000 deaths.vii If the conflict has not caused 500 deaths or more in the
first year, the war is coded as having started in that year only if cumula-
tive deaths in the next three years reach 1,000.viii
f. Throughout its duration, the conflict must be characterized by sustained
violence at least at the minor or intermediate level. There should be no
three-year period during which the conflict causes fewer than 500 deaths.ix
g. Throughout the war, the weaker party must be able to mount effective
resistance. Effective resistance is measured by at least 100 deaths inflicted
on the stronger party. A substantial number of these deaths must occur
in the first year of the war.x But if the violence becomes effectively one-
v Intra-state war can be taking place at the same time as inter-state war.
vi This rule weeds out entirely inter-state conflicts with no local participation. The Bay of Pigs,
for example, would be excluded as a civil war because the rebels did not have a base in Cuba
prior to the invasion. Some cases stretch the limits of this definitional criterion: e.g., Rwanda
in the late 1990s, where ex-FAR recruits with bases in the DRC engaged in incursions and
border clashes against government army and civilians. If this is a civil war, then so is the
conflict between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel (assuming the other criteria are met).
vii This rule can be relaxed to a range of 100–1,000 since fighting might start late in the year (cf.
Senegal or Peru). Given the lack of high-quality data to accurately code civil war onset, if
no good estimate of deaths is available for the first year, onset can be coded at the first year
of reported large-scale armed conflict provided that violence continues or escalates in the
following years. Note that in the dataset, start/end month is also coded where possible. In
some cases, coding rules can be used to identify the start month (e.g., in cases where the war
causes 1,000 deaths in the first month of armed conflict). But in most cases, the month only
indicates the start of major armed conflict or the signing of a peace agreement, which can
gives a point of reference for the start/end of the war, respectively.
viii This rule also suggests when to code war termination if the three-year average does not add up
to 500. In such a case, the end of the war can be coded at the last year with more than 100
deaths unless one of the other rules applies (e.g., if there is a peace treaty that is followed by
more than six months of peace).
ix This criterion makes coding very difficult, as data on deaths throughout the duration of a
conflict are hard to find. However, such a coding rule is necessary to prevent one from
coding too many war starts in the same conflict or coding an ongoing civil war for years
after the violence has ended. Three years is an arbitrary cut-off point, but is consistent with
other thresholds found in the literature. Data notes (see online supplement to Doyle and
Sambanis 2006) give several examples of cases where the coding of war termination has
been determined by this criterion. A more lenient version would be a five-year threshold
with fewer than 500 deaths.
x This criterion must be proportional to the war’s intensity in the first years of the war. If the
war’s onset is coded the first year with only 100 deaths (as often happens in low-intensity
conflicts), then it would not be possible to observe effective resistance in the first year of the
war if effective resistance was defined as 100 deaths suffered by the state.
sided, even if the aggregate effective resistance threshold of 100 deaths
has already been met, the civil war must be coded as having ended and a
politicide or other form of one-sided violence must be coded as having
started.xi
h. A peace treaty that produces at least six months of peace marks an end to
the war.xii
i. A decisive military victory by the rebels that produces a new regime should
mark the end of the war.xiii Since civil war is understood as an armed
conflict against the government, continuing armed conflict against a new
government implies a new civil war.xiv If the government wins the war, a
period of peace longer than six months must persist before we code a new
war (see also criterion k).
j. A ceasefire, truce, or simply an end to fighting mark the end of a civil war
if they result in at least two years of peace.xv The period of peace must be
longer than what is required in the case of a peace agreement, as we do
not have clear signals of the parties’ intent to negotiate an agreement in
the case of a truce/ceasefire.xvi
xi This criterion distinguishes cases in which insurgent violence was limited to the outbreak of
the war and, for the remainder of the conflict, the government engaged in one-sided violence.
A hypothetical example is a case where insurgents inflicted 100 deaths on the government
during the first week of fighting and then the government defeated the insurgents and
engaged in pogroms and politicide for several years with no or few deaths on the govern-
ment’s side. If it is not possible to apply this rule consistently to all cases (due to data
limitations), then periods of politicide at the start or end of the war should be combined with
war periods. This implies that civil wars will often be observationally equivalent to coups that
are followed by politicide, or other such sequences of different forms of political violence.
xii Treaties that do not stop the fighting are not considered (e.g., the Islamabad Accords of 1993
in Afghanistan’s war; the December 1997 agreement among Somali clan leaders). If several
insurgent groups are engaged in the war, the majority of groups must sign. This criterion is
useful for the study of peace transitions, but may not be as important if researchers are
interested in studying, for example, civil war duration.
xiii Thus, in secessionist wars that are won by the rebels who establish a new state, if a war erupts
immediately in the new state, a new war onset would be coded in the new state (an example
is Croatia in 1992–5), even if the violence is closely related to the preceding war. A continu-
ation of the old conflict between the old parties could now count as an inter-state war, as in
the case of Ethiopia and Eritrea who fought a war in 1998–2000, after Eritrea’s successful
secession from Ethiopia in 1993.
xiv This criterion allows researchers to study the stability of military victories. Analysis of the
stability of civil war outcomes would be biased if an end to civil war through military
victory was coded only when the victory was followed by a prolonged period of peace. This
would bias the results in favor of finding a positive correlation between military out-
comes and peace duration. This criterion is important to analyze war recurrence, but not
necessarily war prevalence.
xv Peace implies no battle-related deaths, or, in a lenient version of this criterion, fewer deaths
than the lowest threshold of deaths used to code war onset – i.e., fewer than 100 deaths
per year.
xvi These situations are different from those where there is no violence as a result of armies
standing down without a ceasefire agreement, which would fall under criterion f.
k. If new parties enter the war over new issues, a new war onset should be
coded, subject to the same operational criteria.xvii If the same parties return
to war over the same issues we generally code the continuation of the old
war, unless any of the above criteria for coding a war end apply for the
period before the resurgence of fighting.
Using these coding rules, Doyle and Sambanis (2006) code 145 civil war
starts from 1944 to 1999 (2.08 per cent of 6,966 non-missing observations in
an annual frequency time-series cross-sectional dataset, covering 161 coun-
tries). Without coding new war onsets in countries with already ongoing civil
wars, the number of civil wars is 119 (1.93 per cent of 6,153 non-missing
observations). Out of these cases, 20 may be called “ambiguous” – that is, they
may not meet one or more of the coding rules. Doyle and Sambanis (2006) con-
sider these as sufficiently close to the concept of civil war as to include them
in the analysis.
xvii These incompatibilities must be significantly different or the wars must be fought by different
groups in different regions of the country. For example, three partially overlapping wars
would be coded in Ethiopia (Tigrean, Eritrean, Oromo) from the 1970s to the 1990s. New
issues alone should not be sufficient to code a new war, as there is no “issue-based” classifica-
tion in the definition of civil war. Such a rule could be applied if civil wars were classified
into categories – e.g., secessionist wars versus revolutions over control of the state. In
addition to having new issues, most parties must also be new before a new war onset can be
coded.
B: Civil wars starting in 1945–1999 and short-run peacebuilding outcomes*
Country War start War end Sovereign Participatory Type of UN operation Type of non-UN
peace peace operation
Afghanistan 1978 1992 Failure Failure None None

Afghanistan 1992 1996 Failure Failure None None
Afghanistan 1996 2001 · · None Enforcement
Algeria 1962 1963 Success Failure None None
Algeria 1992 · · · None None
Angola 1975 1991 Failure Failure Observer mission None
Angola 1992 1994 Failure Failure Traditional PKO None
Angola 1997 2002 Failure Failure Traditional PKO None
Angola 1994 1999 · · None None
Argentina 1955 1955 Success Success None None
Argentina 1975 1977 Failure Failure None None
Azerbaijan 1991 1994 Failure Failure None Observer mission
Bangladesh 1974 1997 Success Success None None
Bolivia 1952 1952 Success Success None None
Bosnia 1992 1995 · · Enforcement Enforcement
Burundi 1965 1969 Failure Failure None None
Burundi 1972 1972 Success Failure None None
Burundi 1988 1988 Failure Failure None None
Burundi 1991 · · · None Observer
Cambodia 1970 1975 Failure Failure None None
B: Civil wars starting in 1945–1999 and short-run peacebuilding outcomes* (Continued)
Cambodia 1975 1991 Success Success Multidimensional PKO None

Central African Republic 1996 1997 · · Multidimensional PKO Traditional PKO
Chad 1965 1979 Failure Failure None Traditional PKO
Chad 1980 1994 Failure Failure None Traditional PKO
Chad 1994 1997 Success Success None None
China 1946 1949 Failure Failure None None
China 1947 1947 Success Failure None None
Colombia 1948 1966 Failure Failure None None
Colombia 1978 · Failure Failure None None
Congo (Brazzaville) 1993 1997 Failure Failure None None
Congo (Brazzaville) 1998 1999 · · None None
Congo-Zaire 1960 1965 Failure Failure Enforcement None
Congo-Zaire 1967 1967 Success Failure None None
Congo-Zaire 1977 1978 Failure Failure None None
Congo-Zaire 1996 1997 Failure Failure None None
Congo-Zaire 1998 2001 · · Observer mission Observer mission
Costa Rica 1948 1948 Success Success None Observer mission
Croatia 1992 1995 Success Success Enforcement Observer mission
Cuba 1958 1959 Failure Failure None None
Cyprus 1963 1967 Failure Failure Traditional PKO Traditional PKO
Cyprus 1974 1974 Failure Failure Traditional PKO None
Djibouti 1991 1994 Success Success None Traditional PKO
Dominican Republic 1965 1965 Success Success Observer mission Traditional PKO
El Salvador 1979 1992 Success Success Multidimensional PKO None
Egypt 1994 1997 Success Success None None
Ethiopia 1974 1991 Success Success None None
Ethiopia 1978 1991 Success Success None None
Ethiopia 1976 1988 Failure Failure None None
Georgia 1991 1992 Failure Failure None Traditional PKO
Georgia 1992 1994 Failure Failure Observer mission Enforcement
Greece 1944 1949 Success Success Observer mission Traditional PKO
Guatemala 1966 1972 Failure Failure None None
Guatemala 1978 1994 Success Success Multidimensional PKO None
Guinea-Bissau 1998 1999 · · None Traditional PKO
Haiti 1991 1995 · · Multidimensional PKO Enforcement
India 1989 · Failure Failure None None
India 1984 1993 Success Success None None
India 1989 · · · None None
India 1990 · · · None None
India 1946 1948 Success Success None None
Indonesia 1950 1950 Failure Failure None None
Indonesia 1975 1999 · · Enforcement Enforcement

Indonesia 1999 2002 · · None None
Iran 1978 1979 Failure Failure None None
Iran 1979 1984 Failure Failure None None
Iraq 1959 1959 Failure Failure None None
Iraq 1961 1970 Success Failure None None
Iraq 1974 1975 Failure Failure None None
Iraq 1985 1996 Failure Failure None Enforcement
Iraq 1991 1993 Failure Failure None Enforcement
Israel 1987 1997 Success Success None None
Israel 2000 · · · None None
Jordan 1970 1971 Success Failure None Observer mission
Kenya 1963 1967 Success Failure None None
Kenya 1991 1993 Failure Failure None None
Korea 1948 1949 Success Success None None
Laos 1960 1973 Failure Failure None Observer mission
Lebanon 1958 1958 Success Success Observer mission Traditional PKO
Lebanon 1975 1991 Failure Failure Traditional PKO Enforcement
Liberia 1989 1990 Failure Failure None Enforcement
Liberia 1992 1997 Failure Failure Observer mission Enforcement
Liberia 1999 · · · None Enforcement
Mali 1990 1995 Success Success None None
Moldova 1991 1992 Failure Failure None Traditional PKO
Morocco/Western Sahara 1975 1991 Failure Failure Observer mission None
Mozambique 1976 1992 Success Success Multidimensional PKO None
Myanmar/Burma 1948 1951 Failure Failure None None
Namibia 1973 1989 Success Success Multidimensional PKO None
Nepal 1996 · · · None None
Nicaragua 1978 1979 Failure Failure None None
Nicaragua 1981 1990 Success Success Observer mission Observer mission
Nigeria 1967 1970 Success Failure None None
Nigeria 1980 1985 Failure Failure None None
Oman 1971 1975 Success Failure None None
Pakistan 1971 1971 Success Success None None
Pakistan 1973 1977 Failure Failure None None
Pakistan 1994 1999 · · None None
Papua New Guinea 1988 1998 · · None Traditional PKO
Paraguay 1947 1947 Success Success None None
Peru 1980 1996 Failure Failure None None
Philippines 1950 1952 Success Success None None
Philippines 1972 1992 Failure Failure None None
Philippines 1971 · Failure Failure None None
Russia 1994 1996 Failure Failure None None
Russia 1999 · · · None None

Rwanda 1963 1964 Failure Failure None None
Rwanda 1990 1993 Failure Failure Traditional PKO Observer mission
Rwanda 1994 1994 Success Success Observer mission Enforcement
Senegal 1989 1999 · · None None
Sierra Leone 1991 1996 Failure Failure None Enforcement
Sierra Leone 1997 2001 Failure Failure Traditional PKO Enforcement
Somalia 1988 1991 Failure Failure None None
Somalia 1991 · Failure Failure Enforcement None
South Africa 1976 1994 Success Success Observer mission Observer mission
Sri Lanka 1971 1971 Success Success None None
Sri Lanka 1983 2002 Failure Failure None Enforcement
Sri Lanka 1987 1989 Success Success None None
Sudan 1963 1972 Success Failure None None
Sudan 1983 2002 Failure Failure None Observer mission
Syria 1979 1982 Success Failure None None
Tajikistan 1992 1997 · · Observer mission Enforcement
Thailand 1966 1982 Success Success None None
Turkey 1984 1999 · · None None
Uganda 1966 1966 Success Success None None
Uganda 1978 1979 Failure Failure None None
Uganda 1995 · · · None None
United Kingdom 1971 1998 · · None None
USSR 1944 1948 · · None None
Vietnam 1960 1975 Success Failure None Observer mission
Yemen Arab Republic 1948 1948 Success Success None None
Yemen 1994 1994 Success Success None Observer mission
Yemen Arab Republic 1962 1970 Success Success Observer mission Observer mission
Yemen Peoples Rep. 1986 1986 Success Failure None None
Yugoslavia 1991 1991 Failure Failure Traditional PKO None
Yugoslavia 1998 1999 · · Enforcement Enforcement
Zimbabwe 1972 1979 Failure Failure None None
Zimbabwe 1983 1987 Success Success None .
* Note: This list includes some cases that are not included in the analysis. Ongoing wars, for example, are excluded. The USSR wars are excluded due to missing
data in several of our variables, and because they started before the start of our analysis period. There are some differences between our civil war list and some
others in the literature.
12 Why no UN Security
Council reform?
Lessons for and from
institutionalist theory
Erik Voeten
This chapter is based on the premise that institutional reform and the absence
thereof are revealing about the effects of institutional design on outcomes, or
at least how governments perceive these effects to be. In the past fifteen years,
we have witnessed major institutional reforms and innovations in the inter-
national arena. The EU broadened, deepened, and moved increasingly
towards a supranational decision-making structure. NATO accepted ten new
member states and modernized its military command structure. The inter-
national trade system was transformed fundamentally by the replacement of
GATT with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its highly legalized
dispute-resolution mechanism. The World Bank responded to pressure by
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others to formally incorporate
environmental issues into their decision-making procedures (Nielson and
Tierney 2003). And, the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC)
and the Kyoto Protocol, while not embraced universally, signal that there
is considerable appetite in many parts of the globe for new and extended
institutional solutions to global issues.
At the same time, some institutional configurations have remained remark-
ably stable. The UN Security Council (UNSC) is an important example.
What makes the UNSC’s institutional persistence so interesting is that its
activities have changed rather dramatically with the Cold War’s ending. The
Council has not only initiated many more sanctions and peacekeeping
missions, but it has also broadened the scope of what it can do – at times not
shying away from authorizing the use of force to topple regimes. Moreover,
states, including great powers, are paying more attention to the UNSC than
ever before. Whereas the absence or presence of UN authorization had little
bearing on the use of force in the Cold War period, the absence of such
authorization is now widely lamented and appears to affect the depth and
breadth of multilateral co-operation in a non-trivial manner (Voeten 2005).
This upsurge in activity has not been paired with a “constitutive moment”
similar to what occurred at the ends of World Wars I and II. At those
junctures, multilateral security institutions were purposively designed by the
Why no UN Security Council reform? 289
victors of the latest grand war, perhaps with the objective to “lock in”
favorable institutional structures that would outlast the immediate power
advantages that resulted from the last war (Ikenberry 2001). The UNSC is the
quintessential example of this: it granted permanent membership and veto
power to the five “victors” of World War II, while excluding the defeated
powers1 and raising an entry barrier for potential rising powers.
The antiquated nature of the UNSC’s institutional structure has invited
incessant calls for institutional reform,2 varying from carefully crafted diplo-
matic proposals to Thomas Friedman’s cavalier suggestion that veto powers
ought to be elected by the fans of the UN such that France could be “voted
off the island”.3 Discussing the latest reform effort, the December 2004 report
by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change (hereafter: the
High-Level Panel), UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued that this is
“most decisive moment for the international system since the UN was founded
in 1945.”4 Yet, while governments have expressed consensus support to make
the UNSC “more representative, efficient and transparent” in numerous
anniversary UNGA (General Assembly) resolutions,5 the issue has barely
advanced beyond discussions by blue-ribbon committees and low-level dip-
lomats.6 Bruce Russett captures the general sentiment well: “been there and
not done that” (Russett 2005: 155).
Why has the activity of the UNSC increased so much, but its institutional
structure changed so little? The typical answers are that the end of the Cold
War allowed the UNSC to become more active, while the persistence of the
UNSC’s institutional structure can be attributed to institutional “stickiness.”
These accounts are not entirely inaccurate. Yet, they are limited. Most
importantly, if institutional design matters, then it is problematic to rely on a
theory that privileges continuity to explain institutional design while singling
out a massive exogenous shock as the explanation for increased activity. Insti-
tutionalists argue that fundamental institutional change generally occurs
in response to an exogenous shock that undermines the mechanisms that
generate continuity (e.g., Pierson 2000). The end of the Cold War represents
precisely the kind of external shock that could be expected to lead to a
“critical juncture” for institutional change (Ikenberry 2001). Moreover, the
very same factors that created an increased demand for multilateralism are
likely to also create a demand for institutional adjustments. If the relevance
of the end of the Cold War resides in a normative shift towards a set of global
liberal norms that generate new demand for multilateralism, then we would
surely expect this normative shift to be reflected in institutional changes. If
the end of the Cold War is relevant primarily for the shift in the balance of
power (or threats), then we would expect the institutional structure of the
UNSC to be adjusted to that new power structure.
In this chapter, I evaluate various plausible explanations for the UNSC’s
institutional persistence in the context of its increased activity. I argue that in
order to understand these issues, we need a fuller appreciation of how the
UNSC fits in its strategic environment. Strategic explanations should fare
290 Erik Voeten
well in the context of the UNSC: there are relatively few actors, with well-
defined interests, bargaining over high stakes. Yet, analyses of the UN tend to
assume away strategic behavior7 and/or look at the UN in isolation from the
outside world. As Stanley Hoffmann put it:
It has always been a problem that specialists of international politics

dealing primarily with the diplomatic and strategic scene dismissed the
UN from their analyses, whereas lawyers and political scientists special-
ized in the study of the UN’s political functions tended to lock them-
selves up, so to speak, within the UN and to look at the world outside
only dimly, as it was filtered into and through the UN.
(Hoffmann 1998: 179)
I argue that the UNSC forms an institutional solution to two sets of prob-
lems that arise from the incompleteness of any contract that seeks to regulate
uses of force, while not outright forbidding them. The UNSC is asked to
make decisions on whether particular uses of force by states are appropriate
and if (and how much) collective action should be produced in response to
threats to international peace and security. From the perspective of insti-
tutional design, this solution is sub-optimal. The task of determining the
appropriateness of interventions is best delegated to an independent (neutral)
institution, such as a court, and the determination of public good production
to a majoritarian (political) institution. Yet, the optimality of such a dual
institutional solution collapses once we take into account the problem of
enforcement: the UNSC cannot actually prevent individual states from going
it alone in the absence of its blessing. Moreover, the willingness of individual
states to go it alone can sometimes be critical for the production of collective
goods.
I show how this availability of outside options profoundly affects issues of
institutional design, and thus, reform. Perhaps most importantly, it curtails
the extent to which formal institutional power translates into “real world”
power. Analyses of formal bargaining power in the UNSC typically conclude
that the veto players distribute the gains equally among themselves and that
non-permanent members are virtually powerless (e.g., O’Neill 1997; Winter
1996). If this were true, there would be little reason for non-permanent
members to abide by UNSC decisions and help finance peacekeeping oper-
ations. Moreover, veto powers that possess more outside options have greater
bargaining power than veto powers that have fewer resources, despite equal
institutional status. Hence, in practice, informal decision-making practices
reflect asymmetric capabilities, even if these are not reflected in the UNSC’s
formal institutional structure. This chapter then, points to the limits of the
expected effects of formal institutions, and thus institutional reform, in the
context of enforcement problems.
The chapter proceeds with a brief sketch of the increase in UNSC activity
following the end of the Cold War or, perhaps more accurately, the start of
the first Gulf War. It then discusses various common explanations for insti-
tutional persistence. The following sections introduce the issues that arise in
delegating decisions regarding uses of force to an international institution
and provide some simple illustrations of how outside power affects bargain-
ing in an institution such as the UNSC. The chapter concludes with some
implications for institutionalist theory, as well as for the debates surrounding
UNSC reform.
The post-gulf war explosion in UNSC activity

Figure 12.1 plots temporal variation in an important indicator of institutional
activity: the occurrence of Chapter VII resolutions between 1946 and 2004.
Chapter VII resolutions have the unique property among UN decisions that
they are binding upon all member states of the United Nations, regardless of
whether they have a seat at the UNSC. The UNSC can invoke Chapter VII in
response to the “existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or
act of aggression” (UN Charter, Article 39). Chapter VII resolutions are used
to authorize sanctions as well as uses of force by UN troops, regional organ-
izations, or individual member states. Hence, they can reasonably be under-
stood as the most important decisions that the UNSC takes.
Between 1946 and 1990, the UNSC adopted only 22 resolutions under
Chapter VII. The two most important cases were the Congo peacekeeping
force (ONUC) and the Korean War (1950). In the latter case, authorization
was possible only due to the temporary absence of the USSR in protest at the
exclusion of the People’s Republic of China from the Council. In anticipation
of deadlock when the USSR would retake its seat, the UNGA adopted the
Figure 12.1 Annual number of Chapter VII resolutions, 1946–2004.

292 Erik Voeten
1950 “Uniting for Peace Resolution,” which allowed the UNGA to take
responsibility in security affairs if the SC were unable to act. It has been
invoked ten times, most notably in 1956 to order the French and British to
stop their military intervention in the Suez Canal and to create the UN
Emergency Force to provide a buffer between Egyptian and Israeli forces.
UN involvement in important international crises became increasingly rare
after the late 1960s, a development that Ernst Haas labeled “regime decay”
(Haas 1983). The UN had little or no say in the major Cold War interven-
tions, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US military action
in Vietnam, nor in smaller interventions, such as the US military actions in
Grenada and Panama. Between 1977 and the start of the Gulf War, the
UNSC adopted only two resolutions under Chapter VII. By contrast,
between 1990 and 2004, the Council approved 304 Chapter VII resolutions.
Moreover, these resolutions carried actual consequences. The main objectives
of most of the Cold War “first-generation” peacekeeping missions were to
maintain a neutral position and monitor a situation. Many of the peacekeep-
ing missions of the 1990s had much more ambitious mandates and operated
in much more difficult environments. During the Cold War, there was only
one UN-commanded mission that used force beyond traditional peacekeep-
ing principles (Congo) and one in which the UNSC authorized interested
parties to exercise force (Korea). Between 1990 and 2001, the UNSC author-
ized such extensive uses of force in 17 different countries across all continents
(Jakobsen 2002).
Explanations for institutional persistence

Why did the UNSC suddenly became so active without adjusting its decision-
making structure? Most accounts, explaining why suboptimal institutional
configurations persist, rely in some way on the notion of path dependence:
the idea that the path of previous outcomes matters in determining current
and future outcomes (e.g., Hall and Taylor 1996; Page 2006; Pierson 2000).
The most frequently-used argument along these lines is that the UN’s cre-
ators sought to lock-in institutional arrangements by raising a high barrier
for change in the Charter (e.g., Russett 2005). Yet, on closer inspection, these
institutional barriers are mild relative to most other international institutions.
Charter amendments require approval from two-thirds of the members of the
UNGA and ratification by two-thirds of the members of the UN, including
the permanent members of the Security Council (UN Charter, Article 108).
Virtually all international governmental organizations require unanimous
ratification for amending their founding treaties. This includes the IOs, such
as the WTO, that have been successfully reformed or created since the end of
the Cold War. Yet, there are only five states that can individually block the
ratification of an amendment to the UN Charter.
Moreover, the lessons from the 1963 Charter reform, which expanded
ECOSOC and the Council, illustrate that the dynamics of the ratification
process can pressurize the permanent members. France and the Soviet Union
voted against Council expansion in the UNGA, whereas the US and UK
abstained. China abstained on the second part of the proposed amendment
that expanded ECOSOC. Thus, all five permanent members expressed reser-
vations during the Assembly votes. Nevertheless, all five veto powers had
ratified the amendments within two years of these votes, presumably in
response to pressures from the non-aligned states whose allegiance in the
Cold War conflict was at stake (Bourantonis 2005; Luck 2003).
One may counter that institutional obstacles make certain reforms unlikely,
if not impossible, in particular reform of the veto. Yet, veto power only
transfers to real world influence to the extent that countries that do not
possess it attach value to the UNSC’s decisions. UNSC reform poses a prob-
lem of co-ordination: if the rest of the world agreed on a single proposal, it
would be very difficult to refuse for the five veto powers, as long as the
proposal remained within some boundaries that maintain the utility of
the UNSC to the permanent members (see also Axelrod 1998). Although
the permanent five are powerful, other states have considerable potential
leverage. Japan and Germany could cease paying the UN’s bill; India, Brazil,
and South Africa could co-opt developing nations to ignore UNSC decisions.
In response to such actions or the threat thereof, the UNSC’s authority
would decline rapidly, and with it the value of veto power.
Yet, we do not observe meaningful threats to discontinue co-operation
with the UNSC in the absence of reform nor meaningful attempts at co-
ordinating reform proposals. Instead, the leading aspirant members have
largely relegated the issue to blue-ribbon committees and low-level diplomats
(Urquhart 2005). Some leaders publicly claim aspirations to permanent
member status, while privately admitting that the issue is not pushed or even
that they perceive more downsides than upsides to permanent membership.8
The second and third largest contributors to the UN (Japan and Germany)
continue to contribute to the UN and maintain laws that insist on UN
authorization as a condition for active military participation in interventions,
despite their exclusion from permanent membership.9 Thus, even though the
institutional barriers to reform are real, we still need to explain why outsiders
continue to value the UNSC’s decisions and make only tepid attempts to
reform the institution.
A second theoretical argument is that institutions tend to generate increas-
ing returns, which in turn raise the cost of institutional adjustments (e.g.,
Pierson 2000). For example, Wallander argues that in the process of “keeping
the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” NATO also
developed a set of general assets that could be mobilized to deal with new
security missions (Wallander 2000). These assets were not optimal, in the
sense that the United States and the Europeans would probably have devised
a different institutional structure had they designed one from scratch after the
Cold War, but their availability helped ensure the preservation of NATO.
While the UN developed some assets during the Cold War that were useful
294 Erik Voeten
afterwards, especially in the area of peacekeeping, it is difficult to see how
these would foreclose changes in the decision-making rules that control the
use of these assets.
A third, and more persuasive, line of reasoning follows from the path
dependence literature’s focus on issues of timing and sequencing (Pierson
2000). The concept of path dependence implies that individual incidents may
turn out to be formative moments that shape a path of institutional develop-
ment, while foreclosing others. It is plausible that the first Gulf War had a
considerable influence on expectations about the role of the UNSC in the
post-Cold War world. It is important to appreciate how sudden the shift was.
When the United States invaded Panama in December 1989, it did not even
consider asking for UNSC approval. A UNGA resolution deploring the
intervention had no discernible impact on domestic public or elite support for
the intervention, and neither did a UNSC resolution that the US vetoed
(Luck 2002: 64). After the Gulf War, the UNSC became, as former US
Secretary of State James Baker put it, the “natural first stop for coalition
building” (Baker 1995: 278). Ex ante, the first Gulf War was highly contro-
versial. Ex post, the war was widely cited as the most successful multilateral
effort ever.10
It is thus conceivable that the Gulf War experience made the UNSC the
focal point for future collaborative actions (Voeten 2005). Moreover, the
event may have impressed upon elites and citizens that satisfactory multi-
lateral solutions are possible even with unsatisfactory decision-making pro-
cedures. Nevertheless, we still need to explain why this institution could
perform this role. The next section explores this issue, starting with the
question why states would delegate authority to the UNSC in the first
place?
Enforcement and optimal institutional design

Rationalist explanations of institutional design usually build on some ver-
sion of contract theory. This is the branch of economic theory concerned
with explaining why, when, and how authority relations emerge in a specific
type of anarchical environment: markets (for an overview, see Bolton and
Dewatripont 2005).11 Contract theorists start with the observation that
uncertainty, hidden information or more broadly “transaction costs” pre-
vent otherwise beneficial co-operation (trade) from occurring. These
inefficiencies occur in part because authority, generally defined as “the right
to pick a decision in an allowed set of decisions” (Simon 1951), is not
appropriately allocated. In response, actors may create contracts that define
authority relationships and compensation schemes that provide incentives
for improved levels of exchange. Questions of institutional design arise
because parties to a long-term contract generally cannot anticipate all future
states of the world to which the contract may apply and/or cannot agree on
a common description of the complete state space. This implies that at the
contract stage, parties have to decide how control rights, decision-making
rules, discretion, and so on should be distributed among the contracting
parties.
When states contemplate how to regulate future uses of force, they cannot
anticipate all future instances in which the exercise of force may serve the
purposes of the contracting parties. Thus, although the UN Charter explicitly
forbids the use or threat of force “against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state, or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes
of the United Nations” (UN Charter Article 2, para. 4), the Charter also
explicitly recognizes two general circumstances under which the use of force
does serve the purposes of the UN: when it is exercised as individual or
collective self-defense against armed attacks (Article 51) or when it otherwise
constitutes a collective action against the “existence of any threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” (Article 39). To continue the
economic analogy, the exceptions allow the use of force to protect property
rights (sovereignty) and to produce public goods (peace).
The UNSC can be understood as an institutional solution that addresses
the inherent conflicts of interests that arise in interpreting these exceptions.
The remainder of this section explores the demands on such an institutional
solution.
Collective actions to preserve the peace

How do states determine that a threat to the peace warrants a collective
response? Chapter VII of the Charter explicitly grants the Council authority
over this. Article 39 states that “The Security Council shall determine the
existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression
and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken
[. . .] to maintain or restore international peace and security.” UNSC decisions
can authorize uses of force by regional organizations or “coalitions of the
willing,”12 and they can authorize peacekeeping missions executed and
financed by the members of the UN. Such missions deliver public goods, in
that they produce something (peace/stability) that is non-excludable and
enjoyed by most or all status-quo powers, although some benefit more than
others in individual cases (Bennett et al. 1994).
Models of public good provision predict that poor nations will be able to
free-ride off the contributions of wealthier nations and that the public good
will be underprovided because contributors do not take into account the
spillover benefits that their support confers to others.13 The UNSC may help
alleviate underprovision and free-riding in three ways. First, the fixed burden-
sharing mechanism for peacekeeping operations provides an institutional
solution that helps reduce risks of bargaining failures and lessens transaction
costs.14 Second, the delegation of decision-making authority to a small num-
ber of states may facilitate compromise on the amount of public good that
ought to be produced (Martin 1992: 773). Third, the UNSC helps states pool
296 Erik Voeten
resources (Abbott and Snidal 1998). The existence of selective incentives
induces some states to incur more than their required share of the peace-
keeping burden. For example, Kuwait paid two-thirds of the bill for the
UN Iraq–Kuwait Observation Mission through voluntary contributions.
Australia proved willing to shoulder a disproportionate share of the peace-
keeping burden in East Timor. States are more likely to make such contribu-
tions when these add to the efforts of others in a predictable manner.
From the perspective of contract theory, the main question of institutional
design is: what decision-making rule yields the optimal level of public goods?
A general result is that some form of (qualified) majority rule is ex ante
Pareto efficient (e.g., Bolton and DeWatripont 2005). Before knowing pre-
cisely what issues will arise, participants have an incentive not to insist on
veto rights. Under very general conditions, each actor is better off occasion-
ally contributing to public goods that the actor would not have approved than
to absorb the underprovision of public goods that would result from granting
each actor veto power. The delegation of authority to an institution governed
by (qualified) majority voting rules helps solve the time inconsistency prob-
lems that prevent actors from realizing this trade-off.
The ex ante efficiency of majority rule collapses, however, when insti-
tutional decisions are not enforceable (see Maggi and Morelli 2003). The
intuition is that, in the absence of enforcement, the time inconsistency issue is
not resolved: states may act upon their incentives to undermine individual
unfavorable decisions. Expectations regarding such behavior undermine the
willingness of other states to contribute more than they would under a volun-
tary scheme in the hope that the long-term benefits of co-operation exceed
the short-term benefits of shirking. In the shadow of enforcement issues,
the Pareto efficient solution is therefore to grant veto rights to those with the
ability to undermine the institutions’ decisions.
Two points are especially relevant. First, this argument implies not just that
permanent members are unlikely to give up their veto power, but also that a
more majoritarian or inclusive institution may not be better at producing
public goods. The history of the “Uniting for Peace” procedure is illustrative.
As mentioned before, the Western powers used the temporary absence of the
USSR in 1950 to grant the UNGA authority to take measures to preserve
international peace and security if the UNSC were deadlocked. This pro-
cedure was invoked on ten different occasions. It could no longer be used
effectively after the early 1960s, when the US and the West lost their near-
automatic majority in the UNGA. After that, the UNGA still passed many
resolutions related to security, but they were routinely ignored and produced
few public goods. For example, US President Ronald Reagan famously
claimed that the 1983 UNGA resolution condemning the United States for its
intervention in Grenada “didn’t upset his breakfast at all” (quoted in Luck
2002: 63).
Second, it is important to appreciate that enforcement problems are the key
to the limited effectiveness of majoritarian institutions in the international
system. As enforcement problems were solved, veto rights could be and have
been lifted. For example, the EU has switched from unanimity to qualified
majority rule on many issues where strong enforcement procedures of EU
decisions have been realized, for instance through the ECJ, whereas unani-
mity rule is preserved on those issues where the institution has few enforcement
capabilities, most notably issues of immigration and security.15
These arguments should not be taken to imply that the precise design of
the UNSC is optimal from the perspective of public good production. The
UNSC’s voting rules contains clear inefficiencies from the perspective of an
institution that produces public goods. The UNSC grants veto power to actors
that should not have it. For example, China has temporarily blocked peace-
keeping missions in Guatemala and Macedonia for the simple reason that
government officials in those countries had interactions with, or made state-
ments about, Taiwan. From an efficiency standpoint, China should not have
the ability to single-handedly block those efforts given that it contributes very
little to peacekeeping efforts. Similarly, Japan and Germany should be given
more incentives to help produce public goods by granting them greater
responsibilities.
If the UNSC was truly just about producing public goods, reforms along
the lines suggested above should not be terribly controversial and could mar-
ginally improve institutional performance. However, the determination of
whether force can and should be used also deals with considerable distri-
butional conflict over the extent to which the missions are indeed in the public
interest or reflect the needs and wants of a set of countries and/or govern-
ments. Those issues, discussed in the following sections, complicate matters
considerably.
Self-defense
The self-defense exception is open to ex post opportunism: states may and
frequently do resort to expanded conceptions of self-defense in attempts to
justify unilateral uses of force (Schachter 1989). This issue could potentially
be resolved by assigning an independent institution, such as a court, the task
to evaluate the validity of the claims for self-defense. This has not occurred.
There is little impetus in the High-Level Panel Report16 or elsewhere to grant
the ICJ a greater role in this regard nor does the Panel favor rewriting
Article 51 to identify more precisely when uses of self-defense are permitted.
The Panel’s treatment of the issue (paragraphs 188–192) pertains mostly to
the question of whether preventive uses of force could be justified under
Article 51, which the Panel rejects. The discussion is a thinly disguised judg-
ment that the US invasion of Iraq was illegal. The Panel is clearly worried
about the erosion of a norm (“allowing one to so act is to allow all”) but
offers no suggestion for institutional reform other than to point to the neces-
sity of UNSC authorization for such actions.
The UNSC has little formal authority on this matter. States must report
298 Erik Voeten
self-defense uses of force to the UN – something that they have not always
done (Schachter 1989). The Council is not, however, assigned the task of
assessing the legitimacy of self-defense claims. In practice, however, states do
behave “as if ” Council authorization makes questionable uses of the self-
defense concept more acceptable, as illustrated by Resolution 1373, which
reaffirms the right of the United States to act forcefully in its self-defense
against terrorist activities and de facto legitimized the US military action in
Afghanistan.17
Presumably, governments care about UNSC resolutions authorizing force
in the name of self-defense because they are concerned about their general
reputation for upholding norms and rules that regulate uses of force. They
may do so out of an inherent appreciation for these norms, to please domestic
publics, or because they believe that others are more likely to co-operate with
states that show a general inclination to comply with rules and norms. One
should be aware, however, that the judgment whether a particular use of self-
defense is permitted is ultimately a political one and not subject to judicial
review. Thus, one should not expect judgments that are independent or con-
sistent from a legal perspective and it is not entirely clear what the value is of
lamenting the lack of such consistency – though it is a prominent theme in
the legal literature.18
It is also unclear what the value would be of reforms that seek to insti-
tutionalize new rules for the use of force, given the necessary incompleteness
of such rules and the absence of independent arbitration. Such rules will be
upheld only if they become generally accepted norms outside the insti-
tutional setting of the UNSC (i.e., they must be self-enforcing). Any new
institutional adoption of rules for the use of force will likely reflect, rather
than instigate, such norm acceptance.
The fact that the acceptance or rejection of self-defense claims is ultim-
ately determined through a political process also implies that some states
will be more likely than others to obtain the blessing of a multilateral
institution. To understand more precisely how this affects the functioning of
the institution, we need to turn to an analysis of how the outside power of
states interacts with formal institutional rules, an exercise that will be
undertaken in the next section. Such an analysis is also important to better
understand the manner in which the authorization of collective actions and
the evaluation of appropriate unilateral uses of force are related. Collective
action authorized by the UNSC has been most extensive and effective when
there has been a strong lead state, such as Australia in East Timor or the
United States in the first Gulf War (e.g., Fearon and Laitin 2004). The
willingness of a state to “go it alone” helps solve the free-rider problem in
the production of public goods. Yet, generally states are only willing to do
this if they are granted leeway in executing the intervention. As such,
the UNSC cannot simultaneously restrict military interventions by outside
actors to unambiguous uses of self-defense and be effective at maintaining
international peace and security.
Outside power and formal institutions
Institutionalists generally claim that power is “important,” but they rarely
explicitly model its consequences for institutional behavior or design (see also
Brooks and Wohlforth 2005 and Voeten 2001). This omission results at least
partly from the perception that the toolkit of institutional analysis is unsuit-
able for the analysis of power asymmetries. For example, in a special issue on
the rational design of institutions published in International Organization, the
motivation for de-emphasizing the role of power was the absence of “compel-
ling results” in the formal literature (Koremenos et al. 2001b: 1067).
Here I will use insights from a very simple bargaining model to shed light
on this issue (see also Voeten 2001). The illustration is based on a fairly
straightforward situation of heterogeneous preferences over outcomes, as
depicted in Figure 12.2. One of the permanent members, typically the United
States, prefers to act militarily in response to some situation. At least one
other veto power prefers a milder response, such as sanctions, or even no
response. This describes the basic strategic dilemma that states faced for
example in Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the removal of Aristide from power in
Haiti, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, or Iraq’s failure to comply with weapons
inspections. When there is distributional conflict among the veto powers, no
multilateral agreement exists that defeats the status quo (no action). Hence,
any proposal between the ideal points of powers 1 and 3 will be vetoed, and
stalemate is the result.19
Now suppose that veto power 1 has the ability to act unilaterally or with a
few allies. In that case, she could just act alone and not bother with a multi-
lateral institution at all. However, veto power 1 may have some incentive to
sway others to co-operate. UNSC authorization may encourage burden-
sharing, it may decrease the perception among citizens at home and abroad
that the military action is threatening or it may in some other way enable the
continuance of beneficial co-operation (see Voeten 2005).
Suppose for the moment that the benefit of UNSC authorization is
exogenous and in utility terms equivalent to a policy compromise at point
M. This assumption implies that everything else being equal, veto power 1
prefers to have UNSC authorization rather than not have it.20 If this is
true, then there exists a point along the continuum in Figure 12.2 where
Power 1 is indifferent between the disutility of a compromise and the absence
Figure 12.2 Bargaining with heterogeneous preferences: the effects of outside options.
300 Erik Voeten
of multilateral agreement. That is: Power 1 prefers any multilateral action
between her ideal point and point M to going at it alone. Similarly, veto
powers 2 and 3 prefer these multilateral agreements to unilateral action by
Power 1, which would create a (from their perspectives) undesirable military
intervention over which they would have no influence. Thus, the presence of a
credible outside option and some incentive for co-operation combine to cre-
ate a bargaining range where none exists in the absence of the outside option.
This very simple analysis has a few relevant implications. First, it points to
a straightforward way in which the end of the Cold War increased UNSC
activity. Two characteristics of the Cold War were that there were two veto
powers that both had extensive outside options and who were reliably on
opposite sides of the spectrum (like powers 1 and 3 in Figure 12.2). It is easy
to see that in such a scenario UNSC action can do little but help maintain a
status quo (first-generation peacekeeping), even if there were some inherent
advantages to multilateralism. Asymmetric outside options, however, create
the possibility that the UNSC can act in the absence of harmony among the
five veto powers.
This is exactly the opposite conclusion from those who argue that uni-
polarity has killed the UNSC (e.g., Glennon 2003). The bargaining perspec-
tive suggests that unipolarity made multilateral actions possible in cases
where bipolarity did not. The evidence for the latter view is that the most
extensive UN authorizations of force were almost all in cases where the US
either implicitly or explicitly threatened to act outside the Council. This is
certainly true for the first Gulf War, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia,21 Kosovo,22 and
Afghanistan.
Second, the current UNSC is not just a forum based around great power
consent for collective actions, but it has also become an institution that offers
states the possibility of imposing some measure of constraint on a super-
power. This is a rather different purpose than originally intended by the
Charter. The value of veto power to individual states in exercising the latter
task is at best mixed. In the world sketched by Figure 12.2, the policy prefer-
ences of a new veto power affect outcomes only under rare circumstances.23
The new permanent member could potentially use its leverage to obtain some
side-payments. But there might also be downsides to having the formal power
to veto a multilateral initiative. For example, in the lead-up to the Iraq war,
Gerhard Schröder was able to acquire the domestic benefits of opposing
the war, while much of the US ire was directed at France, the country with the
power to block UNSC authorization of the mission. Most states will want
some measure of constraint on the US but few states will want to be in the
position to apply that constraint. To current UNSC members, veto power
confers some measure of status and influence that is difficult to give up,24 but
that status may not be sufficiently valuable to outsiders in comparison to the
resources that would be necessary to acquire it.
Third, in the absence of bargaining failures, institutional reforms would be
irrelevant. In the simple world of Figure 12.2, states would always be able to
achieve a multilateral compromise at point M and avoid unilateral actions. In
reality, bargaining failures prevent this from occurring. The argument is
essentially identical to rationalist explanations for war (Fearon 1995). Given
that war is costly, there always exists some Pareto improving agreement that
does not result in war. Similarly, if unilateralism is costly, then there should
be some multilateral solution that benefits all.
Bargaining failures can have many causes. I discuss two. First, states
may have asymmetric information.25 For example, veto power 1 may know
how much it is willing to compromise in exchange for UNSC authorization,
but others may not. Player 1 will have difficulties credibly communicating
her willingness to compromise, given that she has incentives to under-report
her willingness to do so. Second, domestic politics may interfere. For example,
the rise of nationalism made it virtually impossible for Russia to publicly
agree to the Kosovo intervention. At the same time, Russia worked hard to
avoid an intervention over which it had no say. Russia’s foreign minister Igor
Ivanov traveled to Belgrade on 12 March to try to persuade Milosevic to
accept a peacekeeping force – the same force the Russians had been objecting
to so far in the UNSC.26 Some newspaper reports even suggested that Russia
effectively participated in the NATO force by allowing its vessels to transport
military supplies.27
A similar story applies to French opposition over the Iraq war. A French
general met with General Command staff on 16 December 2002 to discuss
the details of a French contribution of 10,000 to 15,000 troops and French
President Jacques Chirac told his troops to prepare for action in a speech at
the Ecole Militaire on 7 January 2003 (Cantaloube and Vernet 2004; Cogan
2003). Clearly there was room for a compromise, but things changed, appar-
ently at least in part for domestic political reasons.
Given that bargaining failures are likely, adding more states with veto
power would surely make the UNSC less able to act. Similarly, reforms
that enhance the transparency of UNSC debates may increase stalemate.
Public speeches in formal settings tend to raise the cost of withdrawing
from a position, while generally having only minimal persuasive impact.
There is some value to negotiating behind closed doors (Goldstein and
Martin 2000).
Conclusions
What does all this tell us about the extent to which institutional reform
could make the UNSC perform better? One major hindrance to improving
the UNSC is that the institution is called upon to solve two rather distinct
political problems: the initiation of collective actions to produce public goods
(e.g., Sudan) and the imposition of some measure of constraint on the exercise
of force by a superpower (e.g., Iraq). From an efficiency perspective, the
two tasks pose different demands on institutional design. Moreover, the
extent to which an individual use of force fits either case is a matter of
302 Erik Voeten
fierce contestation. Hence, there is no straightforward way to redesign the
institutional structure that would address the concerns separately.
First, consider the case of the Sudan (Darfur). The UNSC’s failure here
is its inability to produce an extensive response that potentially could have
prevented genocide. To a large extent, this failure results from a lack of
willingness among the great powers to contribute resources. We could, how-
ever, redesign the UNSC to marginally improve the incentives for participa-
tion. For example, a country with a low general willingness to contribute to
global public goods should not be able to block resolutions out of private
concerns (China). Also, giving wealthy countries such as Japan and Germany
positions of responsibility could plausibly enhance their perceived interest in
attempting to stop genocide far away.
In the case of the latest Iraq war, it is much less clear if and how the
UNSC has failed. To some, the UNSC has failed in that it did not prevent
the US intervention. More realistically, the UNSC can achieve two things in
a case like Iraq. First, if a multilateral solution fails, this failure should be
perceived as costly by the offending state. If this is so, then it raises the cost
of future unilateral actions. From this perspective, the UNSC may not
have failed at all. Second, a multilateral compromise could have been
achieved that would have given other states more control over the interven-
tion. Depending on the outcome, this might have been perceived as a failure
or as a success. Regardless of this, the demands on institutional design are
clearly different from the Sudan case. For example, whereas China has, des-
pite some recent changes, not been a major contributor to collective actions,
it is obviously a necessary participant in evaluating the political expedience of
an intervention.
What institutional reform is necessary, then, depends strongly on what
function we expect the UNSC to perform. One could argue, for instance, that
a body that decides by weighted majority rule and that would consist of only
democratic states, would be respected more in the US and hence could
impose greater constraints on it (greater value of M in Figure 12.2). Yet, it is
unclear why we would expect such a body to respond more effectively to
global crises. Moreover, a majoritarian body runs the risk of making itself
irrelevant by making decisions that are not enforceable.
The main implication for the institutionalist literature is the need to go
beyond the “power also matters” approach towards institutional design. If
power matters, then it should be modeled explicitly, rather than separated
from the effects of institutions. This chapter has illustrated some extremely
simple ways to do this. I would contend that the toolkit of formal models is
very suitable to explicitly model the impact of power asymmetries. In game
theoretic terms, power resides in the ability to commit oneself. This is not
mere “cleverness” (Krasner 1991), but may stem from having the military
capacity to pursue interventions unilaterally. At the same time, power does
have other sources, such as the ability to raise audience costs, ability to delay,
and specific institutional features such as agenda-setting or veto power. How
formal institutional power transfers into actual bargaining power should be
higher on the agenda of institutionalist research.
More generally, the analysis points to the limits of the impact that insti-
tutional reform and design have when decisions need to be self-enforcing and
non-institutionalized power asymmetries matter. When we take into account
the interaction with its external environment, the stakes for institutional
reform appear to be much lower than when we lock ourselves up inside the
UNSC. This may explain, for instance, why the push for institutional reform
comes primarily from high-level bureaucrats within the foreign ministries of
countries such as Germany and Japan, rather than from the executives of
those countries. The bureaucracies may care a great deal about the prestige
attached to formal membership, while the executives care more about actual
influence and may be wary of the additional responsibilities attached to per-
manent membership.
While the impact of institutional design is constrained, the particularities
of formal institutions are certainly not completely irrelevant. Outcomes real-
ized through multilateral institutions look different from outcomes that are
not, though not in ways that we can understand without a proper analysis
of power asymmetries and enforcement problems. Moreover, the current
decision-making procedures do contain certain inefficiencies that increase
the chance for bargaining failures and lead to an underproduction of public
goods (peace). Nevertheless, the benefits of clever constitutional engineering
will likely be relatively small both for the production of public goods as well
as for the private interests of individual states.
Notes
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the workshop Assessing Multilateral-
ism in the Security Domain, Delphi, 3–5 June 2005. I thank the participants at that
workshop, especially Dimitris Bourantonis and Arturo Sotomayor, for useful com-
ments and suggestions.
1 This exclusion was formalized in the Charter through the so-called Enemy
Clauses, which have never been repealed.
2 For extensive analyses of the history of UN reform, see Bourantonis (2005) and
Luck (2003).
3 Friedman, T. (2003) “Vote France off the Island,” New York Times, 9 February
2003.
4 These precise words are from a speech given at the Banqueting House, Whitehall,
London, 10 February 2005 (http://www.una-uk.org/10feb05/sgspeech.html) and
refer explicitly to a similar statement in his 4 December 2003 UNGA speech in
which he installed the Panel.
5 See the 2005 World Summit Outcome, the 2000 Millennium Declaration, and the
Declaration on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations from
1995. The 2005 text reads (point 153): “We support early reform of the Security
Council – an essential element of our overall effort to reform the United Nations –
in order to make it more broadly representative, efficient and transparent and thus
to further enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy and implementation of its
304 Erik Voeten
decisions. We commit ourselves to continuing our efforts to achieve a decision to
this end and request the General Assembly to review progress on the reform set out
above by the end of 2005.”
6 As Brian Urquhart writes, on the High-Level Panel report: “In the past many
excellent and forward-looking ideas have died a dismal death being torn to pieces
by junior diplomats in the committees of the General Assembly” (Urquhart 2005:
185). From the UNGA session following the 2005 World Summit, there is little
evidence the High-Level Panel report will experience a different fate.
7 For example, by assuming that states engage in “role-oriented” behavior and hence
are not opportunistic (Frederking 2003).
8 This statement is based on conversations with various long-time participants in
negotiations over UN reform. The latter part of the statement holds especially for
countries such as Mexico and Argentina, who would prefer not to have Brazil
become their permanent representative but at the same time see little benefit in
obtaining an institutional position that would likely bring them into unwanted
conflict with the US, given that domestic public opinion would likely force these
countries to frequently offer resistance to US initiatives.
9 For Japan, see Law Concerning Co-operation for United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations and Other Operations (the International Peace Co-operation Law)
originally passed in June 1992. For Germany, see especially the ruling by the
Bundesverfassungsgericht [Federal Constitutional Court] 90, 286, 12 July 1994.
10 For instance, having voted against the war became a serious liability for 2004
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
11 Even though the nature of the anarchical environment in international politics
differs from that of a market, international relations theorists have long recog-
nized that the existence of transaction costs and asymmetric information provide a
compelling raison d’être for international institutions (for an overview, see Martin
and Simmons 1998). As such, scholars have used the tools of contract theory, in
particular principal–agent theory, to explore if, when, why, and how states delegate
authority to IOs (e.g., Pollack 1997; Nielson and Tierney 2003).
12 There is some debate as to the legal standing of this (Blokker 2000).
13 This paragraph is adopted from Voeten (2005).
14 A fixed burden-sharing system was put in place in 1973 by UNGA Resolution 310.
15 I have taken some liberties in interpreting Maggi and Morelli, who argue that the
EU uses qualified majority rule on issues that are less “important.” I believe that
the enforcement interpretation more accurately reflects their formal results and
the data.
16 The ICJ receives one mention, on page 12, acknowledging that “disputes were
remedied under the International Court of Justice.”
17 UNSC Resolution 1373, 28 September 2001.
18 For example, on the application of the self-defense concept in Resolution 1373,
see Farer (2002).
19 For a discussion of how vote buying may alter this, see Voeten (n.d.).
20 We may show how this benefit arises endogenously either from domestic inter-
actions or from reputation effects through repeated interactions, but such an
analysis would contribute little to the issues at stake here and unnecessarily com-
plicate matters.
21 The most forceful UN resolutions were adopted only after the US threatened
to unilaterally lift the arms embargo against Bosnian Muslims (see Christopher
1998).
22 The authorization of KFOR after the intervention had taken place. This is a
somewhat different case from the others.
23 They only matter if the new veto power’s ideal point is smaller than M. For more,
see Voeten (2001).
24 For example on Russia, see Bourantonis and Panagiotou (2004).
25 For a formal analysis of this argument, see Voeten (2001).
26 “Igor Ivanov rectifies mistakes of Americans,” Izvestia, 12 March 1999.
27 “Russia is already participating in NATO operations in Balkans,” Izvestia, 10
March 1999.
13 The reform and efficiency of
the UN Security Council
A veto players analysis
Aris Alexopoulos and
Dimitris Bourantonis
Introduction
Since the beginning of the 1990s, we observe a growing number of proposals
to increase the representativeness of the UNSC. The reasoning behind these
proposals is that in this way the UNSC will improve its efficiency in the
implementation of its decisions. However, there are counter-arguments, which
tend to dominate the debate, that a potential enlargement or a more demand-
ing decision rule almost by definition will reduce the decision capacity of the
body. Most scholarly accounts of UNSC reform, while in favor of UNSC
enlargement, take it as a self-evident truth that its bigger size would weaken
its decision-making capacity and in other words its ability to act swiftly and
effectively. Russett (2005: 161) for instance, argues that “anything . . . that
increases the number of players that have leverage in its [i.e., the UNSC]
negotiations throws one more bucket of sand into the wheels of rapid and
decisive action by the Council.” Reviewing the history of UNSC reform
Sutterlin (1987: 4) has underlined that “to be an effective body in dealing with
threats to the peace, the Council had to be small and capable of quick
decisions.” In the same line of reasoning, Wallensteen (1997: 106), Weiss
(2003: 149), Caron (1993: 567), the members of the UN Secretary-General’s
High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and others1 have called
for a trade-off between better representation through Council enlargement
and efficiency. Their convictions that “concern for efficiency argues for a
relatively small Council,” or that “a Security Council of 21 or 25 members
would hardly improve effectiveness” or “the number of members must be
kept small for the sake of efficient argument” as such sound like axioms or
arbitrary judgments. With this work we examine various scenarios of reform
of the UNSC, based on enlargement and change in the decision rule, and
obtain that a reduced decision capacity is not always the case. We will show
that there are types of reform that may lead in the opposite direction, to
increase the decision capacity of the body.
The central element in the decision structure of the UNSC is the veto
power, which either institutionally or positionally the involved players
hold. It is this reason, which drives us to apply, by analogy, to such an
UN Security Council: a veto players analysis 307
international decision structure, the work of Tsebelis (2002) on the role of
veto players in decision-making games, a theory produced to explain the
functioning of domestic political institutions. To do so, the chapter is organ-
ized in three sections. Firstly, we introduce the tools of Tsebelis’s veto players
theory needed in the analysis of the various reform scenarios. Secondly, based
on the main findings we analyze the current functioning of the UNSC.
Thirdly, we discuss the decision capacity of the system under alternative
reform scenarios on the membership and institutional arrangements of the
future UNSC.
The veto players theory and its implications on international

decision-making
According to Tsebelis’ theory, veto players are individual or collective deci-
sion makers whose agreement is necessary for the change of the status quo
(SQ). In his book, following spatial analysis, Tsebelis arrives at the key prop-
osition that the SQ is preserved as the number of veto players increases, and
at the same time the diversity of their policy preferences over the policy at
stake increases as well.
This argument is drawn upon the complementary analytic concepts of
winset and core of a decision-making system. Tsebelis defines as the core of a
political system the set of points that cannot be defeated by any other point
of the space within which decision makers choose over policies (Tsebelis
2002: 21–6). If the status quo of a policy belongs to this set, then it is unde-
featable and the decision makers cannot agree to replace it with a new policy
output. Equally, if the core of a political system is an empty set, then
decisions over changing the SQ are possible. All the points that can defeat the
SQ belong to its winset. The larger the winset, the easier it is for the veto
players of the system to agree upon a change of the status quo. Additionally,
since the variety of policy alternatives is wider, the possibility for the decision
makers to agree upon a policy outcome in far distance from the SQ is also
greater. Therefore, the decision capacity of a political system can be meas-
ured either with the winset or with the core. The larger the winset, the
larger is the decision capacity; or, equivalently, the smaller the core, the larger
is the decision capacity of the system. For our analysis, in order to measure
the decision capacity of the UNSC for each of the reform scenarios, we will
use the concept of core. The size of the core depends on the decision rule, the
number and the location on space of the ideal points of the veto players of
the system.
Tsebelis shows in his theory that the core expands as the majority rule
becomes more demanding, starting from simple to qualified majority and
unanimity (Tsebelis 2002: 39–41). The core also expands, the more distant the
veto players’ ideal policy points are. The increased number of veto players
does not necessarily lead to the increase of the core. If these veto players are
located closer among them than their fewer predecessors, then the core is
308 Aris Alexopoulos and Dimitris Bourantonis
smaller. Tsebelis (2002: 30–2) shows that a core of three decision-makers can
by greater than a core of five, if the five players are located inside the core of
the three.
We can observe this possibility in Figure 13.1, where we locate two decision
bodies, one with three members (A1, A2, A3), which compose the triangle
A1A2A3 on the two-dimension policy plane, and the other body with five
members (B1, B2, B3, B4, B5), which compose the pentagon B1B2B3B4B5.
The pentagon is contained within the triangle. The core of the first body is the
triangle, so if the SQ is located within this triangle the members A1, A2 and
A3 cannot reach an agreement to change it. All points inside the triangle
cannot be defeated by unanimity among the three veto players of the decision
body A. Under the same reasoning, the five members of the decision body B
cannot reach by unanimity an agreement to change the SQ if this is located
within the pentagon B1B2B3B4B5. Since the pentagon is contained within
the triangle, it is also smaller than A1A2A3. As we earlier discussed, the core
is a measurement of the decision capacity of the correspondent decision
body. The smaller the core, the greater the capacity of the decision body, since
there are more points of the space outside the core over which the veto
players may agree by unanimity to replace the status quo. In our case, the
decision capacity under unanimity of A1, A2, A3 is smaller than the decision
capacity of the larger set of B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 though closer located veto
players.
The reader can also verify that the same number of decision makers, when
located with a greater distance between them than the first time, produce a
Figure 13.1 Three- and five-member unanimity cores in two dimensions, where five
members can reach a decision more easily than a three-member decision
body that is more distant.
greater core. The important element is the location of the ideal preference
points of the players in the decision game, and not the number of the players.
Applying the above-mentioned theoretical propositions on the functioning
of the UNSC, we compose the following argument for the proposed reform
scenarios: The increase of the membership of the UNSC does not necessarily
correspond to a reduced capacity to make decisions. The key element is the
location of the policy preferences of the new members in the policy space
regarding the SQ. Hence, it is not the increase of the members of the UNSC
alone, but its combination with the divergence of the decision makers’ secur-
ity policy preferences in the UNSC that produces less collective action for the
promotion of the international security.
In the following parts we will examine in more detail the current function-
ing and various reform scenarios of the UNSC, in terms of their decision
capacity, based on the argument raised above, about the number and the
location of veto players, incorporating in our analysis specific alternative
member states. We will show that the important element to produce a more
efficient UNSC is not the number of veto players in the decision process but
the distance of their preferences over two distinct forms of enforcement
actions that are available to the UNSC under Chapter VII of the UN Charter
(i.e., sanctions or use of armed force) and their economic development
agenda.
Analyzing the current structure of the UNSC

Statistical evaluation by different scholars (Kim and Russett 1996; Voeten
2000) of the roll-call votes in the UNGA has produced conflicting evidence
over the dimensionality of the voting behavior of the states.2 Further examin-
ation with more data from the post-Cold War era remains to be done in order
to produce more consistent results. Due to the lack of this empirical evidence
and taking into account the long-lasting debate in the scholarship over the
sources of conflict in international politics, we decide to work on a two-
dimensional space, although unidimensionality could provide simplicity in
our analysis.3 But this simplicity comes at the cost of generalizability of the
results. For example, while in a single dimension there is always a median
voter, in more than one dimension a median voter rarely exists; actually the
probability of existence of such a voter is 0 (zero).
These generalizability restrictions do not apply to our two-dimensional
representation. In addition, this representation of the decision-making of the
UNSC allows us to incorporate trade-offs in the players’ security policy
preferences without losing clarity in the presentation of the arguments. We
choose to represent the decision-making of the UNSC by a system of two
axes, where across the horizontal axis we measure the economic agenda of a
member of the UNSC. To be more specific, we examine whether it pursues
the restructuring of its external debt with the advice of the IMF4 and the
World Bank, whether it tries to expand into new foreign markets, or whether
it is embarked upon environmental protection negotiation at a world level.
We assume that the economic agenda of the states is related to their level of
development. We pick as an indicator for the development level the exten-
sively used GDP per capita despite its shortcomings in representing the real
level of development.5 The reason is that we adopt the position that the
economic agenda of governments abroad is very closely related to the living
standards of their citizens. What the states pursue in international fora
mirrors the need of their voters for employment, consumption, free time, and
quality of life in general. Along the vertical axis we measure whether the
member state of the UNSC prefers sanctions or the use of armed force to
safeguard peace. With these two variables we try to bridge the liberal and
realist traditions in international relations literature. The foreign economic
policy agenda is formed according to liberal intergovernmentalism arguments
(Moravscik 1997) for representing domestic political and economic interests
abroad. We assume that a two-stage game (Putnam 1988) occurs, in which the
economic agenda of the state players is formed domestically at first and then
negotiated abroad. Despite the increased possibility that, in general, domestic
actors, governments and international organizations may be engaged in a
super game, which takes place simultaneously in two nested arenas, the
domestic and the international (Tsebelis 1990), we believe that this is not very
probable in the case of decision making within the Security Council structure.
Here, the countries come to negotiate having already fixed their economic
policy preferences. The security agenda of the states is formed according to
realist assumptions for geopolitical interest formation. In the third part of
the paper we will try to locate, on the produced two-dimensional policy space,
the members of the UNSC according to these variables.
Let us now turn to the decision rule of the UNSC. In the current structure
of the UNSC, what is needed for a decision to be validated is not only to
reach a qualified majority, around 60 per cent (9/15), but also that none of the
permanent members uses its veto privilege in order to block the decision. In
other words a decision at the UNSC can be reached when two conditions
occur simultaneously: (1) qualified majority with a threshold at 60 per cent,
and (2) no use of veto by any of the current five permanent members, namely
US, UK, France, China and Russia.
Translating the above decision conditions in the language of veto players
theory, the core of the decision system of the UNSC is the convexification of
two cores – “the unanimity core” consisting of the five permanent members
and “the 60 per cent qualified majority core” of the whole UNSC. Since we
have already discussed the way the unanimity core is identified, it is now time
to do the same for the qualified majority core and also discuss the convexifi-
cation of the two cores in a UNSC-like decision body.
In Figure 13.2 we select any 15 points, which correspond to the members of
the current composition of the UNSC. Any selection (say 8 . . . 12) of five
points could play the role of the five permanent members of the UNSC,
which hold the privilege of veto power. The 8 . . . 12 pentagon composed of
Figure 13.2 A fifteen-member decision body in a two-dimensional policy space.
these points constitutes “the unanimity 5/5 core” of this set of decision-
makers. We can also divide the fifteen members several times, picking 9 out of
15 points and creating 9/15 majorities. The lines, such as the one drawn
through the points 1 and 8, which can leave 9 points on the one side of them,
including 1 and 8, are called “9/15 qualified majority dividers” (q-dividers in
Tsebelis 2002: 52). We draw all the possible q-dividers, creating each time an
enneagon (say the 1, 8, 9 . . . 15). Anywhere within each enneagon the
correspondent veto players cannot unanimously (9/9) agree to change the SQ
if the last is located within the enneagon. This enneagon constitutes the
unanimity core of the nine selected players. If we now select all possible
enneagons, their intersection constitutes the area within which no point
can be defeated by any 9/15 majority. This intersection is the hatched small
polygon in Figure 13.2 and represents the “9/15 qualified majority core” of
the fifteen-player decision-making body.
In the case of the UNSC, if the status quo on a peace crisis is laid within the
five permanent members’ unanimity core, no matter whether it is not con-
tained within the “60 per cent qualified majority” core, no draft resolution can
be adopted by the UNSC, since it will be vetoed as less preferred by at least
one of the permanent members. If the SQ lies outside the five permanent
members’ unanimity core and within the “60 per cent qualified majority” core
of the fifteen members of the UNSC, it again cannot be defeated by any other
draft resolution since it will not be supported by at least 9/15 votes. If the SQ
lies outside both cores, but within the area contained by the straight lines that
connect the extreme points of the unanimity and the 9/15 core, it again cannot
be defeated. Actually, if the draft resolution is closer to one of the two cores,
then it will be vetoed by the members of the other core since the draft proposal
moves things away from their ideal policy preferences. Therefore, the core of
the UNSC is the area that covers and connects the two cores and represents
their convexification – the hatched and shaded areas in Figure 13.3.
The greater the differences between the permanent and the non-permanent
members of the UNSC and the greater the preference dispersion (less homo-
geneous) inside these two groups, the greater is the size of the core of the
UNSC, and, hence, the greater the possibility for unilateral or (let us say)
non-collective actions under UNSC auspices. In the case of non-decision for
the UNSC, there are two possible policy outcomes: either mostly unilateral
Figure 13.3 The core of the UNSC.

actions occur outside the UNSC or peace violation remains bleeding. The
core of the UNSC could serve as a measure of multilateralism in the collect-
ive security agenda. The larger the core, the fewer multilateral actions take
place under UNSC auspices.
We should mention here, based on Greenberg’s theorem,6 that “the 9/15
qualified majority core” does not always exist in a two-dimensional policy
space, since 9/15<2/(2+1). If the preferences of the fifteen members of the
decision body are homogeneous enough, the “9/15 qualified majority core”
may shrink and disappear. In this case, only within the “five permanent mem-
bers’ unanimity core” is the SQ security case unbeatable. Outside this area we
can form draft resolutions, which can be voted for both by the five permanent
members and by a combination of nine of the total fifteen members of the
UNSC.
Analyzing the main UNSC reform scenarios

In order to obtain a complete picture of the various implications of the
above-presented theoretical arguments for the location of the ideal preference
points of the member states and the potential changes of the current decision
rule to the decision capacity of the UNSC, we are going to examine the
following reform scenarios. Firstly, we examine two cases in both of which
the potential new members hold veto power. In one case, the new members
belong to the developed economies and in the other to the developing ones. In
turn, we compose the scenario where none of the new permanent members
has individual veto power. In this case, we examine the impact of the new
members on the rest of the tripartite decision core, the qualified majority core
and the area between the two cores. Thirdly, we examine the scenario where,
although no change occurs in the current composition of the permanent
members of the UNSC, we allow the relocation of its permanent members on
our preference map. Finally, we examine the decision capacity of the UNSC
under a potential change of its decision rule, with the presentation of a
scenario where the required qualified majority becomes more demanding.
We start our discussion on the various reform scenarios trying to locate
both the permanent and the candidate members of the UNSC on the two-
dimensional space according to their ideal policy preferences. As mentioned
above, the two dimensions are, on the vertical axis, the type of enforcement
measures (i.e., the imposition of sanctions or the use of armed force) pre-
ferred by states supporting the UNSC actions under Chapter VII of the UN
Charter and, on the horizontal axis, states’ GDP per capita as an index of
their international economic policy preference. Without losing in generaliz-
ability, we indicatively choose to quantify coercion on a scale from 0 to 120,
where zero stands for the preference of economic sanctions and 120 for the
use of military force to deal with threats to the peace, breaches of the peace
and acts of aggression. A mix of economic sanctions and threat of using
military force lies in between the two extremes.
Figure 13.4 The UNSC’s preference mapping.
We start our mapping exercise by locating on our policy space the perman-
ent members of the UNSC. What matters in this picture is not the absolute
mark but the relative distance between the states. The US, being the most
active and taking initiatives for peacemaking, holds the highest score on the
scale favoring military force. The UK is the closest to US ideal position;
however, in our measurement exercise it obtains a slightly lower score due to
segments of domestic pacifists’ constraints incorporated into the governing
Labor party. Because of both pacifist constraints in the French political sys-
tem and the anti-US legacy in foreign policy, we locate France close to US but
even lower than the UK. Russia, in most of the cases discussed in the UNSC,
usually votes in favor of respect for national sovereignty and blocs proposals
for the use of military force; for this reason, it takes a much lower grade in
our scale. China is in line with Russia, but much more in favor of respect for
national sovereignty and against the use of military force, so it takes the
lowest grade.
New permanent members with veto power

We now turn our examination on how a reform scenario works by adding, as
new permanent members of the UNSC, Germany and Japan – which hold a
high probability of becoming the new members of the body. Germany’s ideal
point on our space is very close to France and the UK. Its GDP per capita
and its security policy preference after its post-Cold War transformation
resemble those of its major European allies. Actually, Germany for years came
close to resembling a civilian power acting with self-imposed constraints in its
foreign and security policy. Since the emergence of a new security environ-
ment, in the aftermath of the Cold War, the foreign and security policy of
Germany has been under a process of change, normalization and emancipa-
tion, indicating the country’s willingness to display less of a profile of a
civilian power and more of a profile of a normal state. Its growing self-image
as a great power and its resistance to the US vision of a unipolar world has
led Germany to assume more responsibility on the international stage, while
continuing to give prominence to multilateralism, especially through the con-
text of the UN and NATO. To this end, Germany has progressively accepted
the necessity of taking part in international military operations around the
globe. However, in line with the pacifist sentiments of the German public, as
four out of five Germans believe that the UN endorsement should be secured
before the use of coercive means to deal with international threats or breaches
of the peace (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2004), Berlin recognizes force as a
last resort. Germany would support the use of force under a UNSC mandate
only if its major European partners agreed to participate in such a multi-
lateral action. Based on the above analysis we locate Germany inside or
marginally outside the unanimity core of the five permanent members of the
current UNSC.
The other front-runner for taking a permanent post at the UNSC is Japan.
Japan’s traditional pacifism led the state to pursue for many years the role
of a global civilian power. However, in the wake of the 11 September terror-
ist attacks and the rising threat perceptions of North Korea (and China),
pacifist and isolationist sentiments have been significantly weakened and a
new political and military posture has emerged. This posture drives Japan
to become “a global ordinary power” by two means: firstly, by enhancing its
military capability for its self-defense in response to feared external threats,
as Japan is already one of the world’s largest spenders on national defense,
and secondly, by assuming a more active role in international security activ-
ities. With Japanese policy-making deriving less from ideology than from
more pragmatic considerations, the main partisan disagreements among
the various political parties competing for power have eased and there is
an emerging consensus on foreign and security policy issues, based on
two main pillars: alliances with Western countries, principally with the US,
and pro-UN orientation. However, differences between the major political
parties over these two pillars “are likely to be a question of emphasis
with regard to each pillar, rather than disputes over fundamental issues”
(Inoguchi and Bacon 2006: 17). As far as Japan’s policy vis-à-vis the UN is
concerned, there is a shift away from a stance that would tolerate no change
in its role as passive observer or an actor engaged only in “checkbook
diplomacy” by simply contributing money to the UN, towards assuming
“international responsibilities” which permanent membership in the UNSC
entails. After Japan’s involvement in the war against Afghanistan and its
military support for the US-led war against Iraq in 2003, the clamor in
Japan is pervasive for pushing its policy preferences toward playing a more
active role in UN affairs, including the endorsement of the use of force. To
this end, the major Japanese political forces are prone to make revisions to
the pacifist contribution and more specifically to the so-called no-war clause
of Article 9, which, according to 1992 Diet legislation, allows the participa-
tion of Japan in peacekeeping operations, but still prohibits the country
from taking part in military operations under Chapter VII of the UN Char-
ter. For this reason, we believe that in the near future the ideal point
of Japan will also be inside or on the borders of the current unanimity
UNSC core.
Hence, our analysis drives us to the conclusion that a potential enlarge-
ment of the UNSC with Germany and Japan as its new permanent members
that would also hold the privilege of institutional veto, will not change the
decision capacity of the Council, since the ideal points of the new members
are within the current unanimity core of the five old members.
Other candidates, however, with a much lower GDP per capita are India,
Brazil, Egypt and South Africa. New members from the pool of developing
economies spread to a significant degree the ideal points of the members of
the UNSC across the foreign economic policy variable in our preference
mapping exercise. This is enough to drive us to the conclusion that, contrary
to the case of Japan and Germany, a potential enlargement of the UNSC
with developing countries holding veto power increases the size of the
unanimity core and reduces its decision capacity.
New permanent members without veto power

We move our discussion to the examination of the most popular reform
scenarios. These reform proposals (see the scenarios of the High-Level Panel)
do not propose the expansion of veto to new members, so the unanimity core
in the new decision structure remains unchanged. In this case, the proposed
new members, no matter whether they hold a permanent or a non-permanent
post, will affect the rest of the tripartite decision core, the qualified majority
core and the area between the two cores. In order to examine the impact of
the above-mentioned developing states as permanent members and speculate
on the implications of such an enlargement for the UNSC’s decision capacity,
we need to locate their ideal points not only according to their GDP per
capita but also across the security policy dimension. We do this exercise by
examining India, South Africa, Brazil and Egypt, which so far have shown
greater probability of becoming the new permanent members, without,
however, any veto power in a potential UNSC reform.
In the interest of realpolitik and national interest, India attempted from the
early 1990s onward to redefine its foreign policy, in order to suit the require-
ments of a greatly altered international order. Its commitment to the Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM) – a guiding factor in its foreign policy – eased as
its foreign policy began to shift towards more pragmatism and its increasing
self-awareness that it has the potential to emerge, due to its strategic import-
ance and its military capability, as a great power in its own right. As a result,
India has underplayed the role of the leader of the NAM, it has come closer
to the West, especially to US, and has discarded the anti-great power impulses
that shaped its foreign policy during the Cold War. India, as an ardent
supporter of multilateralism through the UN, is expected to develop as
a permanent member of the UNSC a stronger sense of international respon-
sibility, as part of its great-power ambitions, and give its vote for the
imposition of sanctions in cases that fall within Chapter VII of the UN
Charter. However, as far as the tension between the old and the new direc-
tions remains an enduring one in India’s foreign policy, doubts are thrown
upon India’s ability to push its preferences still further to endorse the use of
force. Such ability will depend on the nature of the issue and the circum-
stances prevailing in India’s domestic politics at the particular time when an
issue is being considered by the UNSC. The above analysis leads us to locate
India closer to the pacifist side with a moderate inclination to the use of force
to invade countries and we mark its ideal security preference somewhere close
to that of Russia.
Regarding the case of South Africa, mainly due to its recent transform-
ation to a democratic system of governance, this state has shown a lack of
ability to articulate a coherent foreign policy agenda that would enable it to
establish a distinctive niche for itself in world affairs. As a middle power, it is
characterized by a tendency to pursue multilateral approaches to world
issues, a tendency to embrace compromise positions in international disputes
and a willingness to maintain a degree of autonomy in relation to major
powers (Cilliers 1999). As an African state, it has been too assertive of
“African renaissance,” which has become a central element of the country’s
international objectives. Being very active in grappling with the continent’s
problems and having a leadership role within the African Union and the
NAM (Hamill and Lee 2001: 37), where it acts as a champion of the under-
dog on the basis of anti-North bias, South Africa is committed to non-
interference and to solution of conflicts by political rather than coercive
means. Evidence of this can be found in the leading role it played towards the
adoption by the African Union of the “Ezulwini Consensus,” a document
that contains the African position on UN issues.7 The document is highly
critical even of the imposition of sanctions, which according to the African
states could be decided by the UNSC only if a strict set of conditions was
met. Taking all this into account, one can assume that South Africa as a
permanent member of the UNSC would hardly go further to endorse the use
of force, so its mark on our scale is the lowest.
Egypt now views its international role as a mediator, particularly in solv-
ing disputes between various Arab states in an effort to shape the norms of
intra-Arab relations and trying to advance the peace process between Israel
and the Arabs. Its mediating role in intra-Arab disputes has been welcomed
by most Arab states, which have given credence to Egypt playing that role,
viewing it as entirely consistent with the notion of “Arabness” (Alterman
2005: 359). As a bridge to the Arab world and as a broker in the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, Egypt has enhanced its value to the US, the relationship
with which remains a keystone of Egypt’s foreign policy. As has been
pointed out, sometimes Egypt exploits its role as a broker and “frequently
helps frame an agenda that is much more to U.S. liking than would other-
wise be the case” (Alterman 2003: 4). In all probability, Egypt, as a perman-
ent member of the UNSC, in which most of the issues concern Middle East
and Africa, would do its outmost to sustain the profile of mediator. It seems
unlikely to support the use of force under a UN mandate except in acts of
aggression that constitute blatant violations of the principle of non-
intervention similar to that the Arab region experienced in 1990 when Iraq
invaded Kuwait.8 Should Egypt have supported the use of force under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it might have undermined its ability to
maintain, internally and externally, its profile of mediator. Egypt, which
along with the other NAM countries has accused the UNSC of “increas-
ingly resorting to Chapter VII of the UN Charter as an umbrella for
addressing issues that do not necessarily pose a threat to international peace
and security,”9 is against the imposition of any “preventive” sanctions.10
This drives us to argue that Egypt is in favor of “targeted” sanctions as a last
resort under strict conditions and only after all means of peaceful settlement
have been exhausted. Therefore, we give to Egypt the same mark as South
Africa.
At last, we try to locate Brazil on our map. In recent years, Brazil’s foreign
policy has departed from its traditional tendencies of aloofness, that was
mainly due to the serious domestic (political and economic) problems it had
to address, toward developing a more assertive and pragmatic role in its
region and even broadly in the wider international context. Despite the fact
that Brazil maintains a strong notion of sovereignty and is guided in the
conduct of its international relations by the principles of non-intervention,
non-interference and the peaceful solution of disputes, enshrined in the
1988 Constitution, it has in practice employed double standards in its policy
vis-à-vis enforcement actions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. It
seeks to play the dominant role in regional crisis management without
resorting to the use of sanctions or armed force. For instance, Brazil, as
non-permanent member of the UNSC, did not vote for UNSC Resolution
940 of 1994, which authorized the member states to “use all necessary
means to facilitate the departure from Haiti of the military leadership.”11 At
the broader international level, Brazil has maintained that the UNSC can
make use of its powers under Chapter VII “in clear exceptional circum-
stances” as in Somalia in 1994 and Iraq in 1991.12 Brazil voted in favour of
UNSC Resolution 897 of 1994, which reaffirmed the obligation of states
to fully implement the embargo imposed by Resolution 733 of 1992. It
also supported Resolution 678 of 1990 during the Gulf War by using the
argument that it was about an invasion that took place outside the Latin
American region.13 Based on the above evidence we give Brazil the same mark
as Russia and India.
Based on the above comparative evaluation, we observe that, despite the
dominant impression within the security policy community and also within
wider public opinion, the security policy preference of these less developed
countries converges with the ideal points of the current permanent members
from the pool of the developed economies (see Figure 13.4 on page 314).
More specifically, we observe this trend of convergence in contrast to diver-
gence across the economic variable of our mapping exercise. This may lead us
to assert that the size of the qualified majority core and its distance from the
unchanged unanimity core will change only marginally. So it is reasonable
to argue that, even with the addition of this type of countries to the bundle
of permanent members, the decision capacity of the UNSC might stay
unchanged and in any case would not be reduced dramatically.
The potential relocation of the current permanent members of

the UNSC
Another aspect we want to examine, in order to obtain a complete picture of
the various implications of the location of member states’ ideal preference
points for the decision capacity of the UNSC, is the potential relocation of the
current permanent members on our preference map. Suppose we take a
hypothetical, but realistic scenario for the decision capacity of the UNSC 20
to 25 years from now without any reform in its current function. The new
element that will change drastically the size of the unanimity core of the
UNSC is the transfer of Russia and China to the bundle of developed
countries. Both are fast-growing economies, especially China, which has
taken off and perhaps in less than 30 years’ time will land close to the
average GPD per capita of western European economies such as Germany,
France, and the UK. This development would make the unanimity core of
much smaller size and, therefore, the decision capacity of the UNSC would
increase accordingly. In this case, the blocking role of non-permanent mem-
bers from the less developed states would be increased. The location of the
ideal preference points of these countries might influence the qualified
majority core and the area between the two cores (see Figure 13.3 on page
312) in such a way that the total core of the UNSC might be larger than the
current core, which includes a larger unanimity core. The loss in unbeatable
points in the unanimity core, due to the convergence of China and Russia
with the rest of the current permanent members, could be compensated by
new points in the two other parts of the total UNSC core. However, we must
not forget that these states may be located on our space in such a way that
the q-core (the small polygon in Figure 13.3) is empty. In this case these
countries have no impact on the decision capacity of the UNSC. If the five
permanent members reach an agreement on a draft proposal outside their
unanimity core they will also obtain a majority of 9/15 to make it a UNSC
resolution.
A scenario with a more demanding decision rule

Let us now examine another element in a potential reform proposal. What
happens to the qualified majority core if we change the decision rule and
make it more demanding by moving it, let us say, from 9/15 to 10/15?
It is easy to verify14 that the shaded polygon representing the 9/15-majority
core in Figure 13.2 will also expand. This drives us to the conclusion that the
decision capacity of the fifteen-member body, with its composition remaining
unchanged, will be reduced. We can also see, as in the case of any unanimity
core (see Figure 13.1), that if the ideal points of the members change by
moving apart from their current position, then the “9/15 core” will expand too.
However, we can observe a smaller 10/15 than a 9/15 “qualified majority core”
by adding new members in the decision body which hold ideal points on our
two-dimensional space in such a way that makes the initial 9/15 core to
shrink. Hence, we cannot predict whether the decision capacity of the UNSC
will decrease if we just enlarge it and make its decision rule more demanding.
Figure 13.5 The UNSC’s preference mapping in 25 years: a hypothetical scenario.

Figure 13.6 A fifteen-member decision body in a two-dimensional policy space, with

majority core 10/15 (compared with a majority core 9/15).
The knowledge of the new size of the body is not enough to drive us to a safe
inference. In order to determine the outcome of such an exercise we also need
to know the exact position of the ideal preference points of all the members
of our modified decision body.
Concluding remarks
Our discussion may be summarized as follows. According to Tsebelis’ veto
players theory, the important element for the decision capacity of the UNSC
is not its size but the location of the ideal preference points of its members
and the decision rule according to which these members vote for the
proposed draft resolutions. We have shown that it is misleading to connect,
as many used to do, enlargement with less decision capacity in the UNSC.
We have shown that we could have a UNSC larger than the current one,
with more permanent members equipped with institutional veto power,
which could however arrive at a decision with less difficulty than the current,
smaller UNSC. We examined the various reform scenarios based on the main
analytical tool provided by the veto players theory, according to which, the
larger the core is, the smaller is the decision capacity of a decision body. We
have found that the three parts of the core of the UNSC may be reshaped in
various and many times opposite directions, which make prediction of its
decision capacity an extremely demanding exercise. However, we managed to
show that the key element in the solution of this puzzle is the positioning of
the member states on the decision space, and not the size of the decision
body.
Finally, we want to exclusively state that our motivation to do this work
was not to embark upon a normative discussion of the future of the UNSC.
On the contrary, we tried to limit ourselves to positive discussion, locating
our arguments on the same side as those who believe that the fruitful way to
do social science is not to mix the two cognitive worlds. We also share the
opinion that positive evidence may help a better normative discussion based
on feasible goals and more efficient means. If the goal is a more efficient
UNSC, we have shown that this has nothing to do with its size. If the goal is
to increase the legitimacy of the decisions of the UNSC, and we want to do
this based on input legitimacy, we could increase its size in order to make it
more representative without losing in efficiency. On the contrary, the effi-
ciency might be improved if we chose, as new members, states with ideal
preference points over security and foreign economic policy located in such a
way as to drive the current decision core to shrink.
Notes
1 See Laurenti (1997: 11); Russett et al. (1997: 155); Blum (2005: 632); Zacher (2003:
11), Reisman (1993: 96).
2 Kim and Russett (1996) arrived at the conclusion that there are two significant,
underlined factors in the voting behavior of states: the issue of self-determination
of states and the promotion of political rights in domestic politics. Some years
later, with the same data set, Voeten (2000) showed these results of factor analysis
were false, with an alternative method called nominate model and concluded that
the post-Cold War voting behavior of states in the UNGA is one-dimensional,
according to hegemonic or antihegemonic preference of the states in the world
security system.
3 For arguments in favor of unidimentionality, see also Frieden (2004).
4 Dreher, Sturm and Vreeland (2006) argue and provide evidence that there is a
positive correlation between a country’s participation in IMF programmes and the
coincidence of this country being a member of the UNSC. The IMF loans pro-
vided to these countries increased during their service on the UNSC and decreased
before and after the service.
5 Kim and Russett (1996: 648) in their statistical evaluation of the roll-call votes of
the UNGA find strong correlation between the first dimension produced by factor
analyzing the data, the self-determination dimension, and GNP per capita, with a
coefficient of very high negative value (−7.5). For indicative arguments in favor of
or against the use of GDP for measuring the power and influence of countries on
foreign affairs, see also the discussion in Fearon (2005).
6 According to Greenberg (1979), a core always exists if q<n/(n+1), where q is the
decision rule and n the dimensionality of the policy space.
7 See “The Common Position of the Proposed Reform of the United Nations:
The Ezulwini Consensus,” African Union, Executive Council, 7th Extraordinary
Session, 7–8 March 2005.
8 During the Gulf War of 1991, Egypt supported the use of force under the terms of
Resolution 678 of the UNSC.
9 See “Comments of the Non-Aligned Movement on the Observations and Recom-
mendations Contained in the Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Chal-
lenges and Change,” UN Doc. A/59/565 and A/59/565 CORR.1, 28 February
2005, p. 6.
10 Ibid., p. 17.
11 See Resolution 940 adopted by the UNSC on 31 July 1994.
12 See the remarks of Mr Castro, Permanent Represntative of Brazil to the UN, in
UN Doc. S/PV.3334, 4 February 1994, pp. 27–8.
13 See the remarks of Mr Sardenberg, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the
UN, in UN Doc. S/PV.3413, 31 July 1994, p. 9.
14 Tsebelis and Yataganas show the same for a seven-member decision body and a 5/7
decision rule. See G. Tsebelis and X. Yataganas (2005) “The Treaty of Nice, the
Convention Proposal, and the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe: A
Veto Players Analysis”, European Constitutional Law Review 1(3): 429–51.
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Index
Note: italic page numbers denote references to Figures/Tables.
Abu Grahib 79 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 129

accountability 57–8, 207–8 ASEAN Security Community (ASC) 123
Acharya, A. 134n9 Ashdown, P. 202, 210–11, 212, 213, 218,
Acheson, Dean 34, 36 220
adverse substitution 247n14 Asia-Pacific region 36, 129–30
Afghanistan 3, 4, 6; bilateral aid 147; Asia-US relations 28, 30–1
Islamabad Accords 279nxii; Japanese Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation
involvement 315; NATO 14, 185, 191, (APEC) 21, 31, 35, 36, 37
192, 194, 195, 198; Northern Alliance Asmus, R. 88–9
53–4; peacebuilding 171–2, 175, 176, Association of Southeast Asian Nations
177, 177, 281; Soviet invasion of 292; (ASEAN) 114, 117–18, 122–3, 125,
transatlantic security co-operation 128–30, 133
80–1; unilateralism 168; US military “assurance” game 257
action in 43, 298, 300; US threats to “Atlanticists” 97, 98
NGOs in 148 atrocities 49–51, 53, 56, 57
African Union (AU) 195, 317 Aufses, A.H. 62
al-Qaeda 3, 198 Australia 37, 168, 296, 298
Albania 54, 187 autonomy 24, 40–1, 103, 108
Albanian Force (AFOR) 154 Azerbaijan 281
Albright, Madeleine 45
Alexopoulos, Aris 16–17, 306–23 Baker, J.A. 36, 294
Algeria 281 Balkans 6, 85, 169, 202–22; ethnic
alliances 110, 111 cleansing 14; international socialization
Altmann, F.L. 211 14, 15; peacebuilding 172, 173, 175, 177;
amity 109, 111–12, 113, 114, 126, 131, security concerns 233; transatlantic
132–3 security co-operation 80–1; see also
amnesties 50, 54, 55, 56 Bosnia and Herzegovina; Kosovo;
Amnesty International 49 Yugoslavia, former
anarchy 102, 128, 163 Bangladesh 281
Anderson, Benedict 117 bargaining failures 300–1, 303
Angola 147, 157, 177, 281 Barnett, Michael 11, 136–62, 164
Annan, Kofi 46, 152, 289 Batt, J. 204
anti-Americanism 87, 91, 241 Belarus 187
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty 38, bilateral agreements 9–10, 30–1, 60;
63–4, 84 executive agreements versus treaties
Arab states 317–18 68–72, 76; multilateral versus bilateral
Argentina 281, 304n8 agreements 72–5, 76
arms control 64, 67, 68 bilateral aid 146, 155
ASEAN +3 129 Bin Laden, Osama 85
360 Index
Blair, Tony 97, 161n33 enlargement 203–4, 220; NATO 36–7,
Bobbitt, Phillip 102 183, 186–7, 190, 191–2, 196, 197–8, 232;
Bolivia 281 transmission of democratic norms 241
Bose, S. 208 central Asia 114, 115, 116–17, 120–2, 121,
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) 15, 125–8, 126
202–22, 281, 300; complexity and Chad 282
co-ordination 210–12; contextual Chayes, A. 207
framework 208–10; credibility and Checkel, J.T. 205
consistency 214–17; genocide strategy Cheney, Dick 92
258; humanitarian intervention 140, China 58, 282; ASEAN relations with
143, 150; interaction and socialization 128–9; defense expenditure 134n7;
217–19; Kosovo comparison 152, 154; Shanghai Co-operation Organization
NATO intervention 184, 191, 192–3, 114, 116, 117, 120–2, 127; UN Security
195–6, 197, 198, 199–200; peacebuilding Council 291, 293, 297, 302, 314, 319
171, 175, 176–7, 177, 178; refugees 156; Chirac, Jacques 301
weak consensus 168; see also Balkans; Chopra, Jarat 174
Yugoslavia, former Churchill, Winston 33
Bourantonis, Dimitris 1–17, 306–23 civil peace 166–7, 174, 176
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros 141 civil wars 252–87
Brahimi, Lakhdar 51 civilianized security community 112,
Brazil 293, 304n8, 316, 318–19 113–14, 133
Brecke, Peter 56 Clark, Wesley 193
Brown, Gordon 97 Clinton, Bill 36, 37, 152; multilateral
Brunei 114 agreements 74–5; national interest 119;
Brunell, Thomas 124 NATO co-operation 200; transatlantic
Brussels European Council Summit disagreement 81
(2004) 238–9, 242, 244–5 “coalitions of the willing” 81, 90, 91, 97,
Brussels Pact 34 99, 191
Burma see Myanmar coercion 23, 202, 207; see also military
Burt, Richard 93 force
Burundi 43, 48, 281 Cold War 1, 39, 85, 136; arms race 92; end
Bush, George Sr. 36, 74 of 7–8, 78, 81, 130, 139, 288, 289;
Bush, George W. 6, 21, 38, 43, 44, 65; European conflict resolution 234; India
aversion to multilateralism 72; national 317; multilateral agreements 72; NATO
interest 119; National Security Strategy 131, 186, 233, 240; peacekeeping
45, 80, 97; NATO co-operation 200; missions 292; threats to peace 140; UN
neo-conservatives 92–3; opposition to assets 293–4; UN Security Council 293,
78, 79, 87, 89; Reagan comparison 91–2; 300
religious vote 86–7 collective action 290, 295–7, 298, 301
collective defense 110, 111, 113, 130–2,
Cambodia: ASEAN 114; Paris Accords 133, 185–6; see also collective security
275n14; peace operations 169, 173, 177, collective identity: European Union 132;
252, 281–2 institutions 226; NATO 130, 227,
capacity building 207, 257, 273 231–2; southeast Asia 117, 129; state
capitalism 92, 94 interests 105; transatlantic relationship
Caplan, R. 206 79, 84–9, 91, 98; see also identity
Care International 150 collective security 110, 111, 113; European
Caron, D. 306 Union 133; institutions 226; League of
Carothers, Thomas 48 Nations 31; NATO 223, 240; UN
Carter, James 74 Security Council 313; see also collective
Cascade Program 228 defense
ceasefires 279 Colombia 282
censorship 47 Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) 183,
Central African Republic 282 186
central and eastern European countries Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CEECs): Balkans comparison 203; EU (CFSP) 124, 234
Index 361
“complex humanitarian emergencies” 142 crime: Bosnia and Herzegovina 209, 210,
concerts 110–13, 111, 129–30, 132 214, 216; transnational 1, 124–5
conditionality 205, 246; Bosnia and crisis management 4
Herzegovina accession to the EU 217, critical theory 164
219, 220; Turkey accession to the EU Croatia 52, 187, 279nxiii, 282
236, 237, 242 Crozier, Michael 25
Conference on Security Co-operation in Cuba 282
Europe (CSCE) 36 Cyprus: civil war classification 277nii;
conflict resolution: co-operation problems Greek-Turkish conflict 233, 234, 240–1,
256, 257–9, 260; co-ordination 243–4, 246n5, 249n23, 251n37; peace
problems 256–7, 259, 260; European operations 283
Union 132; Greek–Turkish conflict 232,
234, 235, 238, 239, 242, 245; Darfur: NATO 14, 185, 191, 192, 194–5,
humanitarianism 144; institutional role 198, 199; UN Security Council failure
225–6; regulation 108 302; see also Sudan
Congo (Brazzaville) 282 Davis, W.J. 251n39
Congo (Zaire): humanitarian funding 147, Dayton Agreement (1995) 193, 203, 206,
157; peacebuilding 177; relief agencies 208, 210, 212
154; UN missions 282, 291, 292 “de-securitization” 243
Congress 61, 62, 63, 70, 73, 99 decision-making: institutional reforms
conservatives 92–4, 95, 97, 98, 99 288; UN Security Council 15–16, 290,
constitutional peace 166, 176 292–3, 295–7, 302, 306, 309–13, 316,
constructivism 12, 15, 41n1, 205; civil 319–22; veto-player analysis 306–9,
peace 167; Greek-Turkish conflict 229; 310–13, 321–2
humanitarianism 158; institutions 223, Deering, C.J. 62
226, 227, 230; interstate conflict 231; democracy 31, 32, 44, 46, 57, 134n1;
liberal peace 164; NATO 196–7, 200; Bosnia and Herzegovina 203, 219;
normative change 45, 46, 51–2, 54; compliance with institutional norms
social learning 202, 207 226; Copenhagen criteria 221n2;
contract theory 294–5, 296, 304n11 enlargement doctrine 36; European
Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) policy elites 96; humanitarianism 137,
Treaty 228, 247n8 160; liberal peace 168; National
co-operation: central Asia 116; contract Security Strategy 45; NATO norms 37,
theory 294; Greek-Turkish conflict 227, 231–2; promotion of 47–9, 99, 120, 197;
229, 230, 244, 245; institutional bargain Turkey 234; US/European values 85;
25, 26; liberal peace 167, 170; US neo-conservatives 92, 94
multilateralism definition 7; NATO 14, democratic peace hypothesis 102
186–7, 189–90, 191–200, 201; democratization 4, 48–9, 165; Bosnia and
neo-institutionalism 12; peace Herzegovina 216; EU accession
operations 256, 257–9, 260; conditions 237; EU resolution of
peacebuilding consensus 168; interstate conflicts 229; liberal peace
post-Westphalian state 133; state 164, 169, 170; Turkey 241, 242, 244
identity 105; UN Security Council 299, Democrats 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 94, 96
300; US institution building 31 Derrida, Jacques 160n2
co-operative security 110, 111, 128 deterrence 110, 186, 188, 189
Copenhagen criteria 203, 204, 214, 216, Deutsch, Karl W. 84
219, 243 developing countries 2
core concept 307–9, 310–13, 319–20 development 143–4, 149, 160, 170
corruption 165, 209, 216, 219 Diehl, P.F. 255
Cortell, P.A. 251n39 dispute resolution 110, 238, 248n23;
cosmopolitanism 137, 143, 164 see also conflict resolution
Costa Rica 282 Djibouti 277nii, 283
Cox, M. 208, 209, 212 doctrine of full interchangeability 61
credibility 60, 214, 220; European Union domestic politics: bargaining failures 301;
230, 235, 236; NATO 230, 233; United Europe 95–8; international institutions
Nations 255 and interstate conflict 230; United
362 Index
States 60, 61, 64, 69–70, 91–5; see also European Defence Community (EDC) 34
political factors European Parliament 235, 238
Dominican Republic 283 European Peoples’ Party (EPP) 217–18
Donais, T. 216 European Security and Defence Identity
Doyle, M. 253, 254, 260, 261, 274, 277–80 (ESDI) 183, 186
Dreher, A. 322n4 European Security and Defence Policy
drug trafficking 1, 2, 4 (ESDP) 234
Duffield, J. 8, 13 European Union (EU) 119, 202, 288;
Duffield, M. 142 Bosnia and Herzegovina 203, 205,
Dunant, Henry 158 206–7, 208–11, 212–21; defense
expenditures 135n11; enforcement
earmarking of funds 146–7, 148 procedures 297; enlargement 43, 203–4,
East Timor 43, 48, 53, 118; Australia role 221, 236–7; Greek-Turkish conflict 15,
168, 296, 298; peacebuilding 169, 173–4, 223, 224–5, 229–31, 233–9, 240, 242–6;
175, 176–7, 177 as “neutral mutant” 103; post-
eastern Europe see central and eastern Westphalian states 114; security
European countries multilateralism 125, 126, 132–3;
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) socialization 14; transatlantic
292–3 relationship 10, 80; see also Europe
economic development 309, 310 European Union Force (EUFOR) 203,
economic power 82 214
economic relations 80, 89–90 evasion hypothesis 62–3, 69–70, 71
Edwards, Geoffrey 14–15, 202–22 Everts, P. 88–9
Egypt 49, 283, 292, 316, 317–18 executive agreements 60–77; multilateral
Eisenstadt, S.N. 85 versus bilateral agreements 72–5, 76;
El Salvador 50, 55, 177, 252, 283 theoretical framework 61–7; treaties
Elster, J. 221 versus 67–72, 76
emotion 56–7
enforcement 202, 207, 302, 303; NATO Finnemore, Martha 51–2, 54, 57, 164, 202
188–9; peace operations 258, 259, 262, Fleishman, J.L. 62
263, 270, 273; UN Security Council 290, flexibility 185–91, 196
296–7, 309, 313; see also military force force see military force
enmity 109, 110, 111, 113; central Asia Fortna, V.P. 253
126, 127; southeast Asia 126, 129 France: defense expenditure 135n11;
environmental issues 1, 2, 81 “Gaullists” 96–7; Iraq war 195, 300, 301;
Eritrea 279nxiii military force 120; NATO 33, 186, 193;
Ethiopia 279nxiii, 280nxvii, 283 public attitudes towards the United
ethnic cleansing 14, 53, 185, 197, 203; States 87; UN Security Council 293,
Kosovo 153, 155, 299; relief agencies 314; US institution building 29
150 free markets 164, 168; see also market
ethnic conflict 48, 57, 269, 270 economy
Europe: immigration 3; NATO 130–1, free speech 47, 48
188–90, 199; post-Westphalian free trade 32, 94
hypothesis 102, 103; security policy Friedman, Thomas 289
orientation 26; state attributes 114, 115; Fuchs, Peter 162n46
system properties 121, 123–5; fused security community 112, 114
transatlantic relationship 10, 28–9, 30,
32–5, 78–100, 188–9; see also central Gallarotti, G. 247n14
and eastern European countries; Gardner, Lloyd 35
European Union “Gaullists” 96–7, 98
European Central Bank (ECB) 119, 124 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
European Commission 204, 210, 220, 235, (GATT) 288
238, 249n26, 249n28 genocide 49, 52, 53, 150, 258, 302
European Community (EC) 234–5 Georgia 283
European Court of Justice (ECJ) 124, 132, Germ Weapons Convention 38
297 Germany 29, 78, 81, 119, 133;
Index 363
“Atlanticists” 97; defense expenditure 226; Copenhagen criteria 221n2; EU
135n11; division of 30; League of accession conditions 237; European
Nations peace operation 256; NATO policy elites 96; humanitarianism 137,
33, 34; public attitudes towards the 138, 140, 142, 143–4, 150, 160; justice
United States 87; UN funding 293; UN for perpetrators of atrocities 49–51, 52,
Security Council 297, 302, 303, 314–15, 53–4, 55, 57; liberal peace 164, 168, 169,
316 170; Turkey 234; US/European values
Giesen, B. 85 85, 197
governance: East Timor 173–4; peace Human Rights Watch 49, 156
169–70 human security 139, 164
governmentality 170 humanitarianism 11, 85, 136–62, 171;
Great Britain: “Atlanticists” 97; defense classical versus solidarist 144, 144;
expenditure 135n11; NATO 33, 193; definition of 136; humanized
power 58; public attitudes towards the multilateralism 137–8, 139–41, 145;
United States 87, 91; US institution Kosovo intervention 151–7;
building 29; see also United Kingdom organizational culture 150–1;
Greece: anti-Americanism 241; human politicization of 137–8, 139, 142–5, 151,
rights trials 55; peace operations 283; 155, 156–7, 159; principal-agent
Turkey conflict 15, 223–51 analysis 145–8; sociological
Greenberg, J. 313, 323n6 institutionalism 148–9; see also peace
Grenada 292, 296 operations
Guantanamo Bay 79 humanity 137, 139, 143, 150
Guatemala 177, 283, 297
Guinea-Bissau 283 identity 104–5, 105, 115, 164; Bosnia and
Gulf War (1991) 6, 85, 140; Brazil support Herzegovina 203; central Asia 115, 116,
for 318–19; UN Security Council 292, 127; European 115, 118–19, 132, 245;
294, 298, 300 fused security community 114; NATO
Gusmao, Xanana 174 115, 118–19, 130, 131, 199, 201, 223;
security referent 108; southeast Asia
Haas, Ernst 292 115, 117, 128, 129; Turkey 242; see also
Habermas, Jürgen 78 collective identity
Hadžipašić, Ahmet 208, 209, 222n11 Ifantis, Kostas 1–17
Haiti 177, 283, 299, 300, 318 Ignatieff, M. 172
Hassner, P. 92 Ikenberry, G. John 9, 21–42, 82
Havel, Vaclav 161n33 immigration 1, 2, 3
hegemony 30–1, 82–3, 164, 171, 200 impartiality: humanitarian intervention
Heldt, B. 253, 255–6, 262 137, 138, 143, 144, 148, 156–7, 162n40;
Helsinki European Council Summit peace operations 273
(1999) 224, 237–8, 242, 244, 248n23, imperialism 82–3, 117
249n25 impermanent alliances 110, 111
Herz, John 102 Implementation Force (IFOR) 193, 194,
Hezbollah 278nvi 203
Higgins, Tory 50 independence 137, 138, 148
High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges India 58, 120, 283, 293, 316–17
and Change 289, 297, 304n6, 306 Indonesia 55, 114, 117, 122, 128, 283–4
High Representative (HR) 205–6, 207, “information model” 228
213, 215, 216, 219 institutional peace 166, 176
Hitler, Adolf 85 institutionalism 11, 12; Greek-Turkish
Hoffmann, Stanley 290 conflict 227, 228–9; institutional change
Holbrooke, Richard 39 289; interstate conflicts 230, 231; liberal
Holsti, Kal 134n1 166, 167; neo-liberal 23, 158, 226; power
Howell, W.G. 62 299, 302, 303; sociological 138, 145,
Hull, Cordell 32 148–9, 151, 158, 196–7; United States
human rights 46, 48, 136; Afghanistan 29, 31–2; see also international
172; Bosnia and Herzegovina 203; institutions
compliance with institutional norms insurgent groups 277niii, 278
364 Index
interaction context 109 184, 300, 301; peacebuilding 171, 172,
interdependence 84, 89–90; Europe 119; 175, 176, 177, 177, 284; political
southeast Asia 118, 129 polarization 49; preventive attack 45;
interests 105, 105, 106–7, 109, 109, 115; regime change 92; strategic dilemma
central Asia 115, 117; Europe 115, 299; transatlantic relationship 91, 98,
119–20, 132; southeast Asia 115, 118, 99; UN Security Council 302;
129; United States 115, 119, 131 unilateralism 168; US promotion of
international civil society 109–10, 112 international change 43; US threats to
International Committee of the Red Cross NGOs in 148; see also Gulf War
(ICRC) 53, 143, 158 Ireland 85–6
International Court of Justice (ICJ) 235, Isernia, P. 88–9
238, 239, 249n23, 297 Islamic public opinion 48–9
International Criminal Court (ICC) 43, Israel 146, 278nvi, 284, 292, 317–18
52, 56, 288; European support for 80; Italy 135n11
transatlantic disagreement 81; US Ivanic, Mladen 208–9, 217, 220–1, 222n12
rejection of 21, 38, 49
International Criminal Tribunal for Japan: APEC 37; ASEAN relations with
Yugoslavia (ICTY) 49, 52–3, 54, 206, 128–9; UN funding 293; UN Security
210, 211–12, 214, 217 Council 297, 302, 303, 314, 315–16; US
international financial institutions (IFIs) institution building 29, 30
164, 172, 173 Jervis, Robert 44–5
International Force for East Timor Jordan 284
(INTERFET) 168 justice 46, 164, 165; liberal peace 169;
international institutions 7–8, 11–13; perpetrators of atrocities 49–51, 52–4,
Bosnia and Herzegovina 208; 55–6, 57
enforcement issues 296–7; interstate Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) 124
conflicts 15, 224, 225–6, 230–1, 246;
security community concept 84; Kagan, R. 78, 82, 88
transatlantic relationship 90–1; see also Kantianism 96
international organizations Karzai, Hamid 51
international law 5, 31, 149; civilianized Katzenstein, Peter 30–1
security community 113; interstate Kazakhstan 114, 116, 134n7
disputes 235; nation-state sovereignty Keck, M. 204
78 Kennan, George 34
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 211, Kenya 284
309, 322n4 Keohane, Robert 17n1, 246n4
international organizations (IOs) 83, 88, Kerry, John 86, 304n10
163; adverse substitution 247n14; Kim, S.Y. 322n2, 323n5
amendment to founding treaties 292; Korea 284
conditionality 205; liberal peace 168; Korean War 291–2
principal-agent analysis 145–6; vertical Kosovo 4, 43, 45, 85, 300; criminal trials
multilateralism 165, 172; see also 52; ethnic cleansing 53; EU/US
international institutions; non- differences 211; Greek anti-
governmental organizations Americanism 241; humanitarianism 11,
international relations 44, 45, 46, 81, 101, 138, 146, 151–7, 159; NATO
163 intervention 184, 191, 192, 193–4, 195,
International Stabilization and Assistance 196, 200; peacebuilding 171, 175, 176–7,
Force (ISAF) 184, 194 177, 178; Russian domestic pressures
Iran 43, 49, 79, 284 301; strategic dilemma 299; UN mission
Iraq 3, 6, 7; bilateral aid 146; censorship 173; weak consensus 168
47; geopolitical and oil interests 196; Kosovo Force (KFOR) 186, 194
Greek anti-Americanism 241; illegality Kowert, Paul 247n10
of US invasion 297; invasion of Kuwait Krasner, Stephen 103
318; Japanese involvement 315–16; Kupchan, C. 99, 100
NATO 14, 185, 191, 192, 195, 197, 198; Kurds 140
opposition to war against 78, 84, 87, 89, Kuwait 296, 299, 318
Index 365
Kyoto Protocol 21, 38, 288 315; National Security Strategy 94; self-
Kyrgyzstan 114, 116, 117, 120, 134n7 defense 297–8; southeast Asia 115, 118;
state attributes 105, 105, 106, 115; UN
Lake, Anthony 36, 191–2 Charter 295; UN Security Council 291,
Laos 114, 129, 284 301, 310, 313–14, 320, 321; United
League of Nations 21, 28, 31, 255–6 States 88–9, 115, 299
Lebanon 284 Milosevic, Slobodan 151, 193, 209, 220,
legalism 52, 54, 71, 72 301; ethnic cleansing 153, 155; Hitler
legitimacy: Greek–Turkish conflict 244; comparison 85; trial of 43, 52–3
humanitarian intervention 139, 140, Mitrany, D. 167, 174
151; international norms 231; Mladić, Ratko 210
multilateralism as source of 7; NATO modernization theory 57, 58
199, 200; sociological institutionalism Moe, Terry 23, 25, 62
138; UN Security Council 322; United Moldova 285
Nations 252, 255, 273–4, 275n9; United Morocco 285
States 82, 99 Mozambique 50, 177, 252, 285
Legro, Jeffrey 247n10 multilateralism: critique of 9, 43–4;
Lehne, S. 210 definitions of 139, 184, 187; European
liberal democracies 83, 85 policy elites 96, 97; European Security
liberal institutionalism 166, 167 Strategy 80; executive agreements
liberal internationalists 43, 44, 46, 96, 166 versus treaties 68–72, 76; forms of
liberal peace 163–79; see also peace security multilateralism 108–14,
liberalism 40, 96, 163, 167 125–33; Germany 315; horizontal 11,
Liberia 284–5 164–5, 168, 171, 172–3, 176, 178;
“light footprint approach” 171, 172 humanization of 11, 137–8, 139–41,
logic of appropriateness 50, 51–4, 57, 108, 145, 157, 158, 159; India 317;
149, 219, 239 institutional bargain 22, 23–7, 32–5,
logic of consequences 50, 51, 54–6, 57, 239 39–40; institutional change 289;
logic of emotions 50, 56–7 “instrumental” 79; multilateral versus
Long, William 56 bilateral agreements 72–5, 76; NATO
co-operation 14, 185, 191–200, 201;
Macedonia 54, 153, 187, 297 non-state actors 164; peace 165–7,
Madrid Declaration (1997) 236 169–70, 171–7, 178–9; peacebuilding
Malaysia 114, 117, 118, 129 168–9; security institutions 7–8; state
Mali 285 attributes 10–11, 101, 104–6, 114–20;
Maltzman, F.M. 62 state system properties 101, 106–7,
management theorists 202, 207 120–5; traditional notions of 163, 164;
Mansfield, Edward 134n1 UN Security Council 299–300, 302,
March, James 54 313; United States 5–6, 9–10, 21–3,
market economy 85, 96, 119, 232; see also 27–41; vertical 11, 164–5, 167, 168, 169,
free markets 171–5, 176, 178–9
Marshall Plan 34, 35 Myanmar 114, 117, 118, 122, 129, 285
Martens, Wilfried 215, 218
Martin, Lisa 9–10, 12, 60–77 Nabers, D. 134n9
Matthiesen, P. 211 Namibia 50, 177, 285
Mayer, K.R. 62 Nathan, J.A. 62
Mearsheimer, J.J. 81 National Security Strategy 45, 79, 80,
Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF) 154 93–4, 97
Merkel, Angela 97, 218 nationalism 203, 206, 216, 218, 219
Mexico 2, 37, 304n8 neo-conservatives 38, 43, 45, 92–4, 95, 96,
Meyer, J. 149 99
Middle East 48–9, 198, 199, 233, 317–18 neo-institutionalism 12
military force: central Asia 115, 116; neo-liberal institutionalism 23, 158, 226
collective security 113; Egypt 318; neo-liberalism 147, 160, 164, 165
Europe 96, 115, 120; Germany 315; neo-realism 12, 81, 90
humanitarian emergencies 150–1; Japan Nepal 285
366 Index
neutrality 137, 138, 144, 148 191–2, 195–8, 200; flexibilization
“new public management” 147 185–91, 200–1; Greek-Turkish conflict
Nicaragua 177, 285 15, 223–5, 227–30, 231–4, 240–2, 245–6;
Nigeria 285 humanized multilateralism 141;
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 316–17, institutional bargain 33–4, 35; Kosovo
318 intervention 11, 151–7, 168; new
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) members 68, 71; post-Cold War
142, 146, 159, 163, 288; Kosovo 154, agreements 68; post-Westphalian states
155; liberal peace 167, 168, 174; US 114; security multilateralism 125,
threats to 148; vertical multilateralism 130–2, 133; transatlantic relationship
172; see also international organizations 90–1, 100, 118–19; US institution
non-interference 122, 317, 318 building 29, 30
non-state actors 11, 13, 105, 163–4, 166; North Korea 315
liberal peace project 170, 178; post- Noutcheva, G. 203–4, 215
Westphalian state 102 nuclear deterrence 188, 189
normative frameworks 107, 107, 108; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 79
central Asia 121–2, 121; Europe 121, nuclear smuggling 1, 4
124–5; southeast Asia 121, 123; United Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 21
States 121
norms 7, 11, 108–9, 109, 289; Bosnia and Office of the High Representative (OHR)
Herzegovina 203, 205–6, 214, 216, 217, 203, 204, 206, 210, 211, 212–16, 219–20
220–1; central Asia 126, 127; Ogata, Sadako 153, 162n37
civilianized security community 112, Oliver, J.K. 62
113; collective defense 111; collective Olsen, Johan 54
security 111; concerts 110, 111; Oman 285
Copenhagen criteria 204; EU security Oneal, J. 246n4
multilateralism 126; European 132, Organization for European Economic Co-
205–6, 214, 216, 217, 220–1, 236–7, 242; operation (OEEC) 34–5
fused security community 114; Greek- Organization for Security and Co-
Turkish conflict 230, 235, 236–7, 238, operation in Europe (OSCE) 211
239–45, 246, 251n38; human rights 143; organizational culture 149, 150–1
humanitarianism 158–9; internalization Orru, M. 148–9
of 230, 239–45, 246; international Oxfam 156
socialization 14; NATO 14, 131, 197,
198, 200, 201, 231–2, 240, 241; norm pacifism 314, 315, 316, 317
entrepreneurs 47, 50–2, 170, 202, 204, Pakistan 3, 65, 120, 285
206, 210, 212–14, 221; normative Palestinian territories 43, 49, 146
change 46–7, 51–4, 58; political order Panama 292, 294
50; salience 231, 239–40, 244; security Papandreou, Andreas 250n31
co-operation 110; social constructivism Papua New Guinea 285
12, 51; southeast Asia 126, 129; Paraguay 285
sovereignty principle 106; strength of participatory peace 261, 262–7, 268, 270,
251n39; transatlantic relationship 79, 271, 281–7
90, 91, 98; transmission of institutional Partnership for Peace (PfP) program 183,
226; US instrumental view of 125; US 200, 206, 217, 242
security multilateralism 126; use of path dependence 294
force 298; vertical multilateralism 164, Payne, R.A. 205
165; see also values peace 163–79; ceasefires 279; as
North America Free Trade Agreement governance 169–70; gradations of
(NAFTA) 21, 35, 36, 37 171–7; participatory 261, 262–7, 268,
North Atlantic Council (NAC) 184, 193, 270, 271, 281–7; sovereign 260–1, 267,
195 269, 281–7; see also peacebuilding
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Peace Implementation Council (PIC) 211,
(NATO) 1, 14, 81, 183–201, 288; assets 212
293; Bosnia and Herzegovina 206; peace operations 15–16, 139, 141, 252–87;
expansion of 21, 22, 35, 36–7, 187, advanced military participation 270–2,
Index 367
271, 272, 273; co-operation problems Programme of Action on Illicit Trade in
256, 257–9, 260; co-ordination Small and Light Arms 38
problems 256–7, 259, 260; data 260–2; Przeworski, Adam 47
literature review 254–6; mandate 261–2, public goods provision 290, 295–6, 297,
267, 270, 271, 274n8; objectives of 292; 301, 303
Turkey’s participation 242; UN Pugh, M. 209, 216
Security Council 288, 295–6; war Putin, Vladimir 65
recurrence 260, 267, 268, 270–1, 271; see
also humanitarianism rationalist approaches 12–13, 15, 41n1;
peacebuilding 11, 15–16, 163, 165, 168–9, contract theory 294; explanation for
178; division of labour 273; ecological war 301; Greek-Turkish conflict 223,
model 253, 256, 261, 274; gradations of 227, 228–9
liberal peace 171–7; humanitarianism Reagan, Ronald 63, 74, 75, 99, 296; Bush
137, 160; peace as multilateral comparison 91–2; opposition to 78;
governance 169–70; strategies 260; UN unilateralism 93, 98
versus non-UN operations 259–60, 261, realism 12, 40, 44–5, 46, 83, 163; European
262, 267, 270, 273, 274 policy elites 96; geopolitical interests
persuasion 205, 206, 226 310; institutions 223, 227; NATO 189;
Peru 285 structural 246n1; US neo-conservatives
Pevehouse, J.C. 217 92, 93, 95; use of force 106; victor’s
Philippines 114, 117, 128, 285 peace 166
Pinochet, Augusto 43 reconciliation 56–7
police reforms 215–16 refugees 1, 2, 3; Bosnia and Herzegovina
political factors: Bosnia and Herzegovina 212; Kosovar Albanians 153, 194;
209, 212, 213, 214–16, 217–19, 220; Kurdish 140; Serbia 156
humanitarianism removal from 136–7; regime change 81, 92
multifaceted concept of security 5; regional organizations (ROs) 163, 168, 172
participatory peace 261; politicization regionalism 36, 37
of humanitarianism 137–8, 139, 142–5, regulator 108, 109, 126, 128, 130
151, 155, 156–7, 159; see also domestic reliability 60, 63–7, 69–70, 72, 76
politics relief agencies 137, 142, 144, 150–1,
Porter, T. 153, 156–7 153–7, 159–60, 162n43
positivism 202, 205 religion: fundamentalism 2, 5; US voting
post-Westphalian state 10–11, 102–4, 107, patterns 86–7
114, 132, 133–4 Reljić, D. 212
postmodernism 164 Republicans 70, 72, 73, 74, 76
Powell, Colin 93, 136 Republika Srpska (RS) 203, 208, 210, 216
power 106, 107, 302–3; central Asia 120–1, resource dependence 149, 151, 161n22
121; Europe 121, 123–4, 132; Rice, Condoleeza 45, 93
institutional bargain 22–7, 40; post-war Richmond, Oliver 11, 163–79
distribution of 28, 35; southeast Asia Riesman, Michael 152
121, 122, 128; UN Security Council 16, Risse, Thomas 10, 78–100
290, 299–301; United States 9, 22, 39, Robinson, Mary 51
82–3, 121, 124 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 257
power politics 44–5 Ruggie, John Gerard 7, 46, 134n2, 166,
Power, Samantha 45–6 184, 187
pre-emptive action 4, 6, 38, 94 Rugova, Ibrahim 151
president of the United States 10, 60, Rühe, Volker 191–2
61–3, 64–5, 67, 69–70, 72–5 rule of law 48, 49, 54, 55, 57, 165;
preventive use of force 45, 81, 94, Afghanistan 172; Bosnia and
297 Herzegovina 203, 212; civilianized
principal-agent analysis 138, 145–8, 151, security community 114; Copenhagen
158, 304n11 criteria 221n2; EU accession conditions
principled activists 45 237; humanitarianism 142;
Prisoner’s Dilemma 257–8 institutionalization of 56; liberal peace
privatization 209, 220 164, 169; NATO norms 232
368 Index
Rumsfeld, Donald 92 Shklar, Judith 52
Russett, B. 246n4, 289, 306, 322n2, 323n5 Sierra Leone: humanitarian funding 157;
Russia: defense expenditure 134n7; mixed tribunal 56; peacebuilding 168,
domestic politics 301; NATO relations 171, 175, 176–7, 177, 286
with 131, 183, 189; peace operations signaling 60, 63, 64–5, 67, 69–72, 76
285–6; Shanghai Co-operation Sikkink, Kathryn 51–2, 54, 57, 202, 204
Organization 114, 116, 117, 120–2, 127; Simmons, B. 12
UN Security Council 314, 319; US Singapore 58, 114, 117, 128, 129
agreements with 63, 65; see also Soviet Slim, Hugo 159
Union, former Snyder, Jack 9, 43–59, 134n1
Rwanda: civil war classification 278nvi; social constructivism see constructivism
environmental degradation 2; genocide social learning 202, 207
strategy 258; humanitarian agencies socialization 14, 52, 231, 239; ASEAN
143, 150, 152; peace operations 43, 177, 123; Bosnia and Herzegovina 15, 214,
252, 286; war crimes tribunal 53 215, 217, 218, 221; Greek-Turkish
conflict 224, 225, 230, 241, 246;
Saddam Hussein 3, 85, 140, 196 international institutions 226; NATO
Sambanis, Nicholas 15–16, 252–87 231, 232
sanctions 219; national policy preferences sociological institutionalism 138, 145,
313, 317, 318; Sudan 194; UN Security 148–9, 151, 158, 196–7
Council 288, 291, 299, 310, 313, 321 “soft power” 82
Šarović, Mirko 208 Solana, Javier 152, 211
Schimmelfennig, Frank 14, 183–201, 205, solidarist humanitarianism 144, 144
220, 221 Solingen, Etel 49
Schröder, Gerhard 96, 98, 300 Somalia 140, 279nxii, 300; aid agencies
Schulhofer-Wohl, Jonah 15–16, 252–87 150; peacebuilding 172, 177, 177, 252,
Schuman Plan 34 286; UN Security Council powers 318
Scott, W.R. 149 South Africa 50, 55, 286, 293, 316, 317
security: expansion of concept 141, 145; South East European Co-operation
forms of security multilateralism Process (SEECP) 217
108–14, 125–33; human 139, 164; southeast Asia 114, 115, 117–18, 120, 121,
multifaceted concept of 5; new 126, 128–30
discourse of 3–4; new security agenda sovereign control 105–6, 105, 115; central
1–3; state attributes 104–6; state system Asia 115, 116; Europe 115, 119;
properties 106–7; statist conception of southeast Asia 115, 118; United States
136 115
security community concept 84, 130, 133, sovereign peace 260–1, 267, 269, 281–7
224 sovereign recognition 106, 107, 108;
security dilemmas: central Asia 127; forms central Asia 121, 121; Europe 121, 124;
of security multilateralism 110; southeast Asia 121, 122–3; United
Greek-Turkish conflict 227, 228 States 121
security referent 108, 109, 110, 113, 114; sovereignty 78, 103, 107, 108, 166; central
central Asia 125–7, 126; European Asia 127; collective defense 113;
Union 126, 132; NATO 130; southeast European Union 132–3; fused security
Asia 126, 128; United States 126 community 114; NATO 130, 131; peace
self-defense 295, 297–8 operations 260–1, 264; positive 142;
self-determination 49, 322n2, 323n5 post-Westphalian state 102; southeast
self/other distinction 85 Asia 129
Senate 61, 62, 64, 65, 67 Soviet Union, former (USSR): Cold War
Senegal 286 1, 39; dissolution of 116, 183, 189; peace
September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks 3, operations 287; as threat to NATO
4–5, 78, 83, 93, 131, 184, 190, 194 187–8; UN Security Council 291, 293;
Serbia 52–3, 152, 156, 192–3, 198, 208, 258 US agreements with 68, 71; US
Seselj, Vojeslav 52–3 institution building 33; see also Russia
Shanghai Co-operation Organization Sperling, James 10–11, 101–35
(SCO) 114, 116–17, 121–2, 125–8, 133 Srebrenica massacre 43, 53, 193, 198
Index 369
Sri Lanka 286 institutions 90–1; rise of transnational
Stabilization and Association Agreement terrorism 83; transnational
(SAA) 203, 210, 212, 215, 217 interdependence 89–90; US domestic
Stabilization and Association Process issues 91–5; US power 82–3
(SAP) 214, 215, 218, 219 transnational crime 1, 124–5
Stabilization Force (SFOR) 186, 193, 194, transparency 207, 226, 227, 228, 301
203, 211, 214 treaties 61, 63–6, 67–72, 76
state of nature 109–10, 111 Truman, Harry S. 34, 36
states 10–11, 101–35, 163–4; attributes truth commissions 50, 55, 56
104–6, 114–20; bargaining failures Tsakonas, Panayotis 1–17, 223–51
300–1; enforcement issues 296; forms of Tsebelis, George 16, 307–8, 321
security multilateralism 108–14, Turkey: EU accession 212, 218, 221, 224,
125–33; humanitarianism 145, 146–8, 236–9, 242–5, 248n23; Greece conflict
151, 159; institutional bargain 22, 23–7, 15, 223–51; Iraq war 184, 195, 199;
40; interstate conflict 224, 225–6, 229, Kurdish refugees 140; peace operations
230–1, 246; post-Westphalian 10–11, 286; US aid agreements with 65
102–4, 107, 114, 132, 133–4; self-defense Tuschoff, C. 247n15
297–8; system properties 101, 106–7,
120–5; UN voting behavior 322n2 Uganda 147, 286–7
Stearns, Monteagle 246n7 Ukraine 131, 183
Stiglitz, Joseph 206 uncertainty 190, 200
Stockton, N. 156 unilateralism 6–7, 9, 38–9, 79, 95, 168,
Strategic Concept (NATO) 141, 153, 189 301; critique of 43–4; European policy
Sturm, J-E. 322n4 elites 96; National Security Strategy 94;
Sudan: geopolitical and oil interests 196; neo-conservatives 92–3; opposition to
humanitarian funding 147; NATO US 84, 97; peacebuilding 171, 175, 177;
actions 194–5; peace operations 286; presidential actions 62, 63; transatlantic
relief agencies 154; UN Security relationship 10, 90, 91, 97, 98; UN
Council failure 302; see also Darfur Security Council 299, 300, 312–13
Sutterlin, J. 306 unipolarity 35, 39–40, 82, 83, 94–5, 300
Sweet, Alec Stone 124 United Kingdom (UK): Iraq war 81;
Syria 286 military force 120; peace operations
systematic country reviews 35 287; UN Security Council 293, 314;
see also Great Britain
Taiwan 297 United Nations (UN): analyses of 290;
Tajikistan 114, 116, 117, 120, 134n7, 286 Bosnian conflict 192, 193;
Talbott, Strobe 141 humanitarianism 146; Japan 315–16;
Tallberg, J. 207 liberal peace 168, 169; peace operations
Tan, S.S. 134n9 15–16, 141, 172, 173, 252–6, 258–9, 261,
territoriality 102, 103 262–74; security concept 141;
terrorism 1, 3, 4–5; insurgent groups transatlantic disagreement 81
277niii; rise of transnational 78, 83; United Nations Assistance Mission in
threat to NATO 196; transatlantic Afghanistan (UNAMA) 171–2
relationship 79, 80, 88; see also United Nations Charter: dispute
September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks resolution 238, 248n23; enforcement
Thailand 114, 118, 122, 128, 129, 286 actions 309, 313, 318; institutional
threats 3, 140, 141; NATO 131, 187–8, persistence 292; peace operations 252,
189, 190, 196, 201; UN Security Council 262, 267; use of force 295, 318
role 290, 295–7; US/European views United Nations Development Program
88 (UNDP) 171
torture 49, 53 United Nations General Assembly
Tošić, Mladen 14–15, 202–22 (UNGA) 289, 292, 294, 296, 309,
transatlantic relationship 10, 78–100, 322n2, 323n5
118–19, 188–9; collective identity 84–9; United Nations High Commissioner for
end of the Cold War 81; European Refugees (UNHCR) 140, 149, 153, 155,
domestic issues 95–8; multilateral 161n34, 211
370 Index
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) neo-conservatives 92; see also norms
16–17, 56, 141, 288–305; bargaining Vaughan, D. 150
299–301; collective action 290, 295–7, veto powers 289, 290, 293, 296–7,
298; explosion in activity 291–2; 299–301, 306–23
institutional persistence 288, 289–90, victor’s peace 166, 167, 170, 176
292–4; Kosovo intervention 151–2; Vietnam 114, 129, 287, 292
reform scenarios 313–19; self-defense Voeten, Erik 16, 288–305, 322n2
297–8; threats to peace 140; veto-player Vreeland, J. 322n4
analysis 306–23
United Nations Transitional Wæver, Ole 125
Administration in East Timor Wallander, C.A. 293
(UNTAET) 173, 174 Wallensteen, P. 253, 255–6, 306
United States (US): ambivalence about Walter, B.F. 258
multilateralism 5–6, 9, 21–3; anti- Waltz, K. 81
Americanism 87, 91, 241; ASEAN war 28, 107, 107; central Asia 121, 122,
relations with 128–9; Balkans 211–12; 127; civil 252–87; collective security
Cold War 1; defense expenditure 120, 111, 113; concerts 110, 111; EU states
135n11; democracy promotion 47; 132; Euro-Atlantic 121, 125;
Greek-Turkish conflict 233, 234, humanization of 158; rationalist
250n31; humanitarian funding 157; explanations for 301; rules of 53, 111;
institution building 27–40; instrumental security regulator 108; southeast Asia
view of norms 125; international 121, 123; see also peace operations
tribunals 49; Islamic public opinion war crimes 49, 52, 54, 210, 259
against 48–9; military agreements 9–10, Warsaw Pact 183, 185, 188, 189, 191,
60–77; military force 120, 299; national 240
interest 119; NATO 130–1, 188–90, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 1,
193–4, 199–200, 248n18; peacebuilding 2, 5
171; policy lock-in of other states 22, Weiss, T. 306
26, 27, 29, 32–3, 35, 37, 40–1; power 58, Whitlock, E. 211
124; security multilateralism 126; self- Wilson, Woodrow 28, 29, 31–2
defense 298; state-building 172; winsets 307
transatlantic relationship 10, 28–9, 30, Wolfowitz, Paul 45, 92
32–5, 78–100, 188–9; UN Security World Bank 172, 174, 211, 288, 309
Council 293, 296, 300, 302, 314; World Trade Organization (WTO) 21, 35,
unilateralism 6–7, 10, 38–9, 43, 44–5, 80, 288, 292
79, 90, 91–2, 97; war hawks 46; see also
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Yemen Arab Republic 287
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 5 Yemen Peoples Republic 287
universalism 164 Young, Oran 207
Urquhart, Brian 304n6 Yugoslavia, former 49, 53, 85, 184, 196;
Uzbekistan 114, 116, 120, 122 bilateral aid 146; Greek anti-
Americanism 241; NATO intervention
Vachudova, M.A. 216–17 197; peace operations 287; refugees 2;
values: Bosnia and Herzegovina 219; see also Balkans; Bosnia and
European 220–1, 222n22; NATO 185, Herzegovina; Kosovo; Serbia
197, 198, 200, 201; transatlantic
relationship 79, 85, 89, 91, 97; US Zimbabwe 287

Multilateralism and Institutions

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Multilateralism and Security

Featuring an outstanding international line-up of contributors, this edited

• the development and contemporary application of the concept of

This book is a signiﬁcant contribution to the contemporary debate on multi-

Dimitris Bourantonis is an Associate Professor of International Relations at

Kostas Ifantis is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the

Panayotis Tsakonas is an Assistant Professor of International Relations

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

ISBN10: 0–415–44945–6 (hbk)

List of ﬁgures vii

1 State power and international institutions: America and the

2 Unipolar empire and principled multilateralism as strategies for

3 US military commitments: multilateralism and treaties 60

4 The crisis of the transatlantic security community 78

5 State attributes and system properties: security multilateralism

7 Horizontal and vertical multilateralism and the liberal peace 163

8 Transatlantic relations, multilateralism and the transformation

9 Persuasion and norm promotion: international institutions in

10 From “perverse” to “promising” institutionalism? NATO,

11 Evaluating multilateral interventions in civil wars:

12 Why no UN Security Council reform? Lessons for and from

13 The reform and eﬃciency of the UN Security Council:

3.1 Number of references in the New York Times to multilateral

1.1 Incentives and opportunities behind the institutional bargain 27

Aris Alexopoulos is Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Political Science

The origins of this volume are to be found in an international conference that

ABM Anti-ballistic Missile

A NEW SECURITY AGENDA

A NEW SECURITY DISCOURSE?

A CHANCE FOR MULTILATERALISM AND

MULTILATERALISM AND SECURITY INSTITUTIONS IN

In Ruggie’s inﬂuential account of multilateralism, it is deﬁned as “an insti-

This volume brings together world-renowned scholars from various theor-

Part I of the book

Part II of the book

In the second part of this volume, an attempt is made to empirically assess

Multilateralism and security

State power and institutions

Table 1.1 Incentives and opportunities behind the institutional bargain

Domination/abandonment potential of Weaker states more willing to make

policy behavior is of weaker states (that is, the less consequential it is to

American institution building

Postwar institution building

Variations in postwar institutional outcomes

Institutionalism on the cheap

The institutional bargain with Europe

Post-Cold War multilateralism

Theories of change in a time of change

Justice for perpetrators of atrocities

The logic of appropriateness

The logic of consequences

The logic of emotions

Conclusion: the potential for transforming international politics

The United States reaches dozens of agreements with other countries on

Treaties versus executive agreements

Table 3.1 Incidence of treaties: bilateral versus multilateral agreements

Bilateral Multilateral Total

Executive agreement 724 99.45% 64 91.43% 788 98.75%

Chi-square 33.21, p<0.01