3rd NASP International Workshop on "CONFLICTS AND INSTITUTIONS" - Genova, 26 June 2018 (original) (raw)
Related papers
No common position! European arms export control in crisis
Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
The European arms export control system is facing a dual crisis: An ongoing crisis of effectiveness has led to a crisis of legitimacy. In many ways, that crisis is a permanent one, where collective efforts to regulate a policy field and implement agreed-upon norms and rules fail to succeed. To explain the different layers of the European arms export control crisis, we draw on global governance research of International Relations and legalisation approaches of international law. The lack of effectiveness of the European Union Common Position on arms exports has become particularly visible in the two review processes where member states failed to agree on meaningful revisions. The Europeanisation of arms production adds additional pressure to the system, as member states differ in their national arms export licensing policy practices. In sum, these developments have led non-governmental organisations and civil society to protest and file successful court cases against arms export prac...
Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: A Transaction Costs Approach to International Security Cooperation
International Studies Quarterly, 1997
This article provides an interest-based explanation for hierarchy in international politics. The study suggests that-even in a self-help system-selfinterested actors voluntarily curtail their sovereignty to obtain needed assurances, yet that these actors have a choice among cooperative security arrangements with different degrees of "bindingness." The key to understanding countries' international institutional choices is in focusing on economic theories of organization and, more specifically, transaction costs.
2014
IR scholars have recently paid increasing attention to unequal institutional orders in world politics, arguing that global governance institutions are deeply shaped by power inequalities among states. Yet, the literature still suffers from conceptual limitations and from a shortage of empirical work. The article addresses these shortcomings through a study of the historical evolution of global arms control institutions since 1945. It shows that in this important policy area, the global institutional order has not been marked by a recent trend toward deeper inequality, as many writings on unequal institutions suggest. Instead, the analysis reveals a pattern of institutional mutation whereby specific forms of institutional inequality are recurrently replaced and supplemented by new forms. This process, the article argues, is driven by states' efforts to adapt the regime to a changing material and normative environment within the constraints of past institutional legacies.
Human Security and Coherence within the EU: The Case of the 2006 Small Arms Conference
In recent years, the EU has reiterated its commitment to play a greater global role and ac tively participate in international organizations. In particular, the EU has pledged to work toward the strengthening of the United Nations. The EU’s influence on negotiations at the UN can be affected by the EU ability to “speak with one voice”, to demonstrate coherence. Since the early 1990s, the UN has been increasingly active in the policy area of human security. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) first used the concept of human security in its 1994 Human Development Report. The report argued that the scope of global security should be expanded to include threats in seven areas: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security. Human security was thus put forward to describe new security concerns and to emphasize the shift from a state concerned security to a people centered approach to security. The EU has presented itself as an important actor in the promotion of concrete actions on several human security issues, such as the prohibition of landmines and the current negotiation process on cluster bombs. This paper examines the coherence of the EU as an actor at the UN and whether coherence issues affected the EU’s effectiveness in a specific case of human security negotiations:3 the 2006 UN Small Arms Review Conference. The paper suggests that although the EU appeared to show some consistency (horizontal, vertical and institutional) the EU was unsuccessful at the Review Conference. To the EU, the NGOs and other actors’ disappointment, the Review Conference failed to adopt a final document. The paper begins by proposing an analytical framework based on a multilevel game approach to explore the link between the coherence of the EU and its effectiveness at the Review Conference. It explores the ways in which a complex web of actors and institutions interact at three different levels: UN, EU and domestic. By using this analytical framework and various qualitative methods such as expert interviews, documentary analysis and participant observation, this paper aims to examine the factors which might have hindered the effectiveness of the EU at the 2006 Small Arms Review Conference. Finally, the paper discusses whether these factors are linked to problems of coherence within the EU.
Some of the major debates over the last decades have involved attempts to understand why states turn to institutionalized alliances and what effect such co-binding mechanisms have on their policy and strategy. These are multilateral alliance agreements that come into being through binding instruments such as security treaties, pacts interlocking organizations, joint management responsibilities, agreed-upon standards and principles of relations. They usually operate under cover a legal or de facto institution bearing an international or regional character. Products of post-World War II, institutionalized alliances are designed to build durable and mutually acceptable binding order among a group of states with huge power asymmetries. This research paper analyzes the practice of institutionalized security alliances from the standpoint of international relations theory and political science. It shows that to overcome anarchy, states use institutionalized alliances to put themselves in a contractual position that enable them to meet their internal and foreign security expectations. Their conduct is determined by the threats they perceive, and the power of others is merely an aggravating factor in their calculations. The paper argues that institutionalized alliances are part of the broad concept of international security regimes. In this essay, I develop the institutional explanation of security arrangements. Although realism has been the dominant international relations theory since World War II, realist theories are inadequate to explain the growth of institutionalized alliances in international politics. Realism misses the importance of international institutions in facilitating cooperation and overcoming fears of domination and exploitation. For this reason, it is better to look beyond realism to understand security order within institutionalized alliances. To assess the continued durability and cohesion of institutionalized alliances, we need to turn to some alternative theories such as New Liberal Institutionalism (Neoliberal Institutionalists) and Structural Liberalism, based on state hegemony and prospects for cooperation. The conclusions arrived at indicate that the unity and cohesion following World War II has given place to disunity and discord because of internal rivalries between prospective allies over the struggle for either peace and/or gain, coupled with the rise of the American hegemonic state. The end of the Cold War has aggravated this situation. As a result, far from the external fabric, institutionalized security alliances are unlikely to influence international politics. As the matter stands, they seem more to be under destruction than construction. The argument is presented in three parts. The first reviews the salient characteristics of institutionalized security alliances. In so doing, I show that institutionalized alliances have an internal restraint function comparable to a contract clause regulating the behaviour of members; and that they are part of the very broad concept of “international security regimes.” Second, the paper discusses selected models of institutionalized security alliances. Reference is made to the Council of Europe and the Cold War anti-Communist initiatives. Thirdly, the essay reviews how institutions fit into international relations theory and the impact of such theories on state behaviour. Here, I offer a comparative analysis of realist and liberal (Neoliberal institutionalist) views of institutions.
I present a discussion of the current state of liberal internationalism as it relates to international organisations. I maintain that the literature focuses too much on liberal internationalism instead of non-liberal internationalism. is is problematic because non-liberal states are increasingly becoming important players in the international system, as is the case with Russia and China. I argue that non-liberal states have a variety of approaches in their dealings with international institutions that can enable them to maximise their net gains from institutions. These are: 1) keep using the liberal institution, 2) utilise institutional àla cartism (forum shop- ping), 3) create an anti-liberal institution, or 4) opt out of institutions all together. Scholars and practitioners alike should acknowledge that international institutions can be a vehicle whereby non-liberal states maximise their power and diminish the power and influence of liberal states.
European Foreign Affairs Review, 2011
For many years, the EU’s policy on non-proliferation of WMDs has been a victim of institutional fragmentation, imbedded in the post-Maastricht formal separation of the European Community from the CFSP. On the one hand, since the beginning of the 1990s, the European Commission was developing capacity-building projects on non-proliferation and nuclear safety, utilising its geographical and thematic financial instruments. On the other hand, more recently, permanent bureaucratic structures entrusted with implementing the EU’s WMD Strategy were established in the Council General Secretariat. This posed a challenge to consistency of the EU’s non-proliferation efforts and even triggered inter-institutional competition over limited resources. The European External Action Service offers an opportunity to solve these problems by bringing selected bureaucracies from the Commission and Council General Secretariat together. Will it be sufficient to develop a consistent policy on the non-proliferation of WMDs for the EU? This article analyses structural problems which have been negatively affecting the EU’s profile as an actor in non-proliferation policy. Further, it evaluates prospects for enhancing this profile following the institutional reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.